Colin Moriarty - "Journalist do as much as they can to sell games for Nintendo."

Some highlights from Colin

- Journalist do as much as they can to sell games for Nintendo
- Nintendo games would score a full 1-2 points lower on Metacritic if they were on other platforms
- Splatoon would have only sold 100K copies if it were on PS4 or Xbox One
- Colin has played "a couple hours" of Zelda, "No way on God's green earth is this game a 98"

Did I miss where Paper Mario, Starfox, Chibi Robo, Zelda Triforce Heroes, Metroid Prime FF and many other Nintendo games were high scoring games? What the hell is this dude talking about?

I think this is the guy who said that the vita would do better than the 3ds

- Journalist do as much as they can to sell games for Nintendo & Sony.

- Nintendo & Sony games would score a full 1-2 points lower on Metacritic if they were on other platforms

- Splatoon and Horizon would have only sold 100K copies if it were on Xbox One

- Colin has played "a couple hours" of Zelda, "No way on God's green earth is this game a 98"

Fixed. :P

Not surprising there has always been a feeling of " I played Mario when I was a kid Nintendo must survive" from gaming journalists

Has't he left. Heard he got fired or something. Will not miss him he was Playstation fanboy.

I don't like that. :/

That's an unhealthy perspective to have.

Based solely on conjecture; he's inventing a story where in which people agree with his tastes but are just lying about them to everyone else.

I can agree with that much, everything else goes into conspiracy territory

While I do think Zelda historically (not Breath of the Wild, well sort of, but I do find it genuinely great) has been given more credit than it deserves, it be a narrative I could buy, if game critics weren't shit critics to begin with. They routinely apologize games with mediocre or shallow gameplay: The Witcher, Mass Effect, Rockstar's games, The Uncharted franchise, Assassin's Creed, give massive free passes to same shit, different package sequels: Call of Duty, Pokemon, what have you.

I don't think Nintendo is any more gassed up than anyone else. I think people foolishly think tech is the end all, be all, and forgot that this medium is built on you know the fucking gameplay. And in the case Mario, Galaxy is a fantastic game by any platforms standards, Breath of the Wild is genuinely fantastic, games like Punchout n Smash Bros are genuinely good games. Which is more than I can say for a shit load of mediocre games these websites gas up as "Game of the Year".

I mean Shadow of Mordor in a year that had Divinity Original Sin or a Velocity 2x, or more fucking importantly Bayonetta 2? It has like one nice gimmick, otherwise the combat is somehow a more shallower version of Batman's combat, the stealth is like there, and the actual mission stuff is bog standard Assassin's Creed stuff.

Too long; Didn't read - If a nintendo game gets too much credit, it has nothing to do with some perceived biased towards Nintendo or anything. It has more to do with the fact that this medium's critics, are shit critics. They are routinely too afraid to actually pick a game apart, because lets be real the gaming audience is too fucking stupid to handle a criticism or *gasp* accept that they are playing a 7, and not a 9.

What an imbecile

Can we close this thread? How is it different from a blog? We're discussing a man's opinion. Why give publicity to idiocy?

@goldenelementxl said:

@SecretPolice said:

- Splatoon and Horizon would have only sold 100K copies if it were on Xbox One

Still chuckling, that there is punny. :P

Improperly phrased but there is a controversy worth highlighting regarding Nintendo and implicit bias among industry media figures. Of the Zelda games since N64, what is the lowest aggregate review score? 93, for Skyward Sword. Meanwhile, every other game has scored 95 or above. Having played all of those games, there are plenty of games I find vastly superior that have significantly lower aggregate review scores. So Colin does have an argument worth exploring, at the very least.

EDIT: It's not just Zelda, and Colin would be well served to highlight GTA as another franchise that gets a questionable initial critical response from industry mainstays.

Hahah his Splatoon comment is spot on. The same thing applied to The Conduit back in the Wii days. Just cuz Nintendo has finally made a shooter after decades, we need to be all hyped and praise it as a masterpiece. A damn joke. If these were out on the x1/ps4, no one would've noticed and they would've been given for free as the monthly free titles (accompanied by unknown Indie crap no one cares about).

This is pretty much spot on. The only valid points I think Colin made were that Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess were rated far too high. But if we are going to call out those games then most of the other exclusive franchises should be called out too. And I find it humorous that a Sony fanboy like Colin would call out other people in the games media for giving Nintendo a pass. Every week on the Beyond Podcast, the dude would go on and on about how the Vita was a huge success and that Vita games were selling incredibly well. It was almost like he was trying to sell games and hardware for Sony...

The review system is broken and beyond repair at this point. But for certain personalities to call out others is beyond hypocritical. Especially for anyone that started a podcast called "PS I Love You."

Not really. Critics just think Zelda is great in general. You disagree. Oh this is a conspiracy!! Gamers are so fucking stupid.

Look at the GTA series. It's complete shit gameplay wise yet outsells nearly everything and routinely scores 93+. Is there a R* bias? Or do critics legit think these games are always historical benchmarks?

@Basinboy: Critics just get excited sometimes. As Champ pointed out, it's not exclusive to Nintendo. Critics just have a habit of writing with their heart and thinking with their head much later.

Games that are now looked as rather divisive despite their high praise are not limited to Nintendo.

I call BS

Played a couple hours of Zelda... psshhh

The games greatness catches up with the hype the more you play... all its greatness is not apparent only a couple hours in.

I dont think Splatoon was a success just because it was a shooter. They made a family friendly game with original mechanics. And I think it would have been good enough to catch on if it were on PS4 or Xbox One. Look at Rocket League, for example. I think Splatoon could have caught on like that. And just because a games is a PS+ title doesn't mean it's not successful. Rocket League sold millions of copies, with most of the sales coming AFTER the PS+ period. PS+ was a good marketing tool. Rocket League was a great games and word of mouth is why it caught on.

The Conduit didn't review or sell well. That's a strange comparison.

A personality from the industry calling out the rest of the journalism community for "trying to sell Nintendo games" couldn't be more System Wars worthy.

Kinda contradicted yourself when you mentioned The Conduit which pretty much flopped.

I hate this guy I'm glad they kicked him out of Kinda Funny games.

But why give him free publicity? He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't even raise any valid point. It's basically "The industry is biased towards Nintendo" which is a song that has been sung for at least 15 years. He brought nothing new and this shit isn't worth discussing without any new evidence.

@Juub1990: I submitted my edit prior to your post. GTA is another similarly situated franchise. And yes, I believe the strain to have a game reviewed in time for clicks skews industry mainstays upward; the bump is not exclusive to Nintendo games but it is experienced more routinely because many of those franchises have been around for a long time and there is an innate sympathy toward them from industry personnel.

@jumpaction: We're saying the same thing, honestly. It's proper to be skeptical about reviews and actually read them than to look to the aggregate opinion, particularly with respect to Nintendo games (though I limit my criticism most strongly to the Zelda franchise - the perceived critical "bump" is less apparent with other games, but other titles do benefit from being associated with Nintendo, though it's not untrue that other franchises experience the same bump based on their platform affiliation and their reviewers' sympathies).

Oh it's the dude who colleagues say is a complete shithead and has his own show named 'Colin was right' who has been shitting on the Switch before he even heard about it.

Yeah let's not watch what he has to say. That's one person I don't like seeing online.

No, Splatoon is really shallow. The only reason people picked up on it was because it was a drought for Nintendo and this was a new Nintendo ip that got really pushed because they had nothing else to push. Rocket league only hit it big after being free and then grew because of the reception. Being a low price probably helped too, Splatoon was full price for an incomplete game...

Yeah starfox zero omg those amazing scores...and metroid prime FF...WOW they really sold those games for Nintendo.

If anything Nintendo gets shit on the MOST of any company. The difference is, every once in awhile they do something seminal and BOTW is one of those games.

It did flop. But if you were on SW back when it was coming out (probably other forums as well), every single sheep was hyping it as the revolution of shooters. It was absolutely laughable. I remember a bunch of people bragging about the game just because you were able to tweak the UI on a console. I don't remember what year the game came out but you could possibly even find those threads in GS's archives. There were a ton of them.

Splatoon would have enjoyed rocket league levels of success if it was on other systems. I'll even admit that's the biggest shame about it being a Nintendo exclusive. That game has charm, addictive gameplay, and is a new twist on classic 4v4 online gameplay.

Well, well, well. Seems like good ol' Jim Sterling has found his partner in crime! lol

Game "critics" are for the most part dumb. There is no bias, just idiocy. It's the only industry where people rage because a game gets a 7/10. It's the only industry where a 6/10 is considered complete garbage. It's the only industry where fanboys will reviewbomb a game they don't like.

Don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I went through the history of scores for Nintendo compared to user scores and the same for Sony and MS and surprise surprise Sony and MS got higher scores from GS than user scores on average, and Nintendo lower. I would not be surprised if this were true across the board but I never took the time. Along with all the negative attention Nintendo gets from the media whenever something isn't the way they thought it would be I find it very hard to believe that there is some kind of bias towards Nintendo titles.

In fact, that's having it both ways... They ridicule every decision Nintendo makes and then get to say 'yeah we overrate their games'? I mean **** their credibility I suppose, as long as it hurts Nintendo. It's getting a little too silly.

You're crazy if you truly believe that. Rocket League was a success because its soccer, was given for free on PSN (excellent way to get people into talking about your game) and they had this cute art style that is likable by an adult or a kid (not to mention that the final release was $15-20). Splatoon looks damn fugly. A 4y old may like the art they're going for, but me, it melts my eyes.

He sounds like a butthurt cow tbh.

would not be shocked if he used to write shit for Playstation

I've never seen a 10 score ruffle so many feathers.

No one was up in arms with Uncharted 4 getting a 10, and that has a fraction of the gameplay that Zelda has.... people even say 2 is a better game than 4.

.....yet both BotW and U4 are deserving of scoring 10s. Doesn't mean they are both perfect games, but they clearly do enough to separate themselves from an 80% or 90% score.

But some people just can't handle these companies / games receiving praise.

Exclusives are often hyped up to the moon. Look at Quantum Break or Horizon or Sea of Thieves. This isn't anything new. Fanboys will always hype up shit to high heavens. That isn't exclusive to Nintendo.

Did you play it? How is it shallow?

@Basinboy:

I don't know... The whole thing...

The role video game critics play in this community is really bizarre. When they favor your opinion; people trust them and when they don't, they're liars. There's so much dishonesty in the gaming community that it can be hard to dig your way through and find those who are equal parts passionate and eager to engage in positive and beneficial discussion.

The video game community, in my opinion, has an awful lot of growing up to do (particularly online).

Sadly the constant drama and narratives that play out in the gaming community can distract from the utter privilege it is to enjoy this hobby. The simple nature of a group of people working together to make a product of entertainment. Something that other people might like to buy, and enjoy together as a past time to thread through the stresses of work and everyday life. Sadly, sometimes discussing this hobby has become equal measures of stress brought on by those without humility who take for granted the hard work that goes into producing these games.

Hes not wrong. Nintendo does get a pass a lot of the time. BotW is great but its also overrated. When i started i thought it could possibly be my 2nd favorite Nintendo game of all time just behind Super Mario World, but after around 50 hours and the honeymoon phase wore off i started to see its flaws

Hype is fine. Hype as revolutionary (revolutionary console shooter in The Conduit case) is not fine.

That speaks volume about its quality if it took you 50hrs to see its flaws. Usually I see a game's flaws within the first 30 minutes.

While I do agree that Nintendo games would sell and score MUCH lower on other systems, isn't Colin Moriarty a known Sony shill?

Depends on who is reviewing a game and what their nostalgia is. See it all the time, or the other way where a reviewer says he doesn't like the series to begin with and give the game a low score.

I still like MC as it gives me an idea of the quality of the game. The system is broken, but I still find it useful when you pool in all reviews.

Well there is a favorable Nintendo bias for games like Mario and Zelda. People love to pretend that there isn't. People love to pretend that they are being objective when it comes to these games but they are not. If you disagree with them they go ape shit on your ass. I would say that Breath of the Wild is objectively a better game than Uncharted 4 but both games received the same damn score on this site.

I am playing Breath of the Wild and the game has some very strong elements but no one is willing to discuss the elements that are poorly implement because they have already decided that the game is perfect with no room for discussion. When critics gives this game such an inflated score, they are making a stance than there is no room for improvement because the vast majority of the reviews listed NO Cons. Anyone who have played the game know of several areas in which the game can be improved upon or some parts that were less than stellar. At the end of the day, the key focus is that gamers are enjoying the game of their choice but BOTW has spurred some of the most insane claims and the bandwagon jumping is illogically intense.

I would not forget when a moderator stated that BOTW is the largest,seamless and persistent open world game ever created when this is factually incorrect on all three accounts. And this claim was made prior to the release of the game. Some of the madness surrounding this game is insanely fanatical. With that said, if you like open world games BOTW is another game to add to your playlist.

Oh please that's complete bullshit. Exclusives not just Nintendo ones tend to get really high scores.

@Juub1990: I accept that review scores in this industry skew upward, generally. The audience cares way too much in numbers and critics work for outlets that are driven by clicks and attention. But I refrain from attributing it to stupidity. You may be right it's because critics have no brass to state their opinion and subject themselves to scrutiny (recall the 8.8 fiasco of TP here on GS). But I view it from a different lens by giving reviewers the benefit of the doubt, that they have the capacity to think critically and the confidence to affix scores as they deem appropriate, but that the struggle is tangible to remove one's sympathies from the evaluation process. It's unusual why reviewers at many of the games industry publications are either dedicated to a platform or a particular genre (FPS, MMO, etc.)

laughingcoywboy.gif

He makes a fair point. When expectation and attachment are applied, even the most objective person can lose sight.

The fact people are getting so offended and demanding the thread be locked is pretty testament to that. Pretty ridiculous.

When it comes to Jim Sterling, his entire existence is predicated on controversy, without it he's a nobody. It's far easier to dismiss him.

@FLOPPAGE_50: he did for ign lol

I own it, its call of duty with ink