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Playing and replaying Elden Ring has got me thinking about the rave reviews it received and how exactly critics came to their various conclusions.
I have my criticisms of the game, but it is overall a very good game. My issues with the reviews is simple. How does one accurately review a game of that magnititude in such a short amount of time? It's not as if this is the only game that falls into that category.

Here's a breakdown of games I've played and how long I think it would take to generate a reasonable review of them.

Jedi Fallen Order: The game is fairly short and the combat isn't extremely difficult. IIRC, difficulty settings only change parry windows, your damage output, and the amount of damage you take. I don't think it's unreasonable to beat the game in 20-30 hours at a medium difficulty level. I think within 15~ hours you could assess the quality of the game if not the story. The reviews at launch were likely pretty accurate.

Skyrim (and TES/Bethesda Fallout): The worlds are big, but various questlines can be completed in a day or two of gameplay. The mechanics don't vary wildly from start to finish. The quality of exploration is fairly consistent throughout. I think you could give an accurate review in a week's time.

Warhammer (and Total War games in general): The amount of time you can spend in these games is insane, but even just going deep into a single race's campaign (unless they are severly under or overpowered) should be enough to give you a good idea of the game's quality.

WoW/SWToR/Other MMOs: You can't give an accurate review at launch. Not even for expansions for the most part. The baseline games are typically far too vast to explore and systems are typically locked behind being level capped. I think all you can do is assess polish, performance, graphics, and the intangible "fun" factor. MMOs are also ever changing via expansions and patches so a review at launch of either the base game or expansion could be meaningless six months down the line.

FromSoft games (Souls/Sekiro/Elden Ring): If you can beat any of these blind in under 40 hours you're absurdly good at them. I don't see how you could assess the story at all. For Sekiro you could probably get a decent idea of what the gameplay is like relatively quickly since you access Hirata Estate very early and thus unlock a few prosthetics, and it really doesn't change much from start to finish outside of prosthetics and combat arts. For something like Elden Ring the general consensus I've seen is that reviewers only played through Limgrave. The game doesn't completely change post-Limgrave, but there's a lot of elements (story, weapon arts, spells, exploration) that I don't think can be assessed well based just on Limgrave. So how can you judge it based on anything other than the fun factor and visuals at that point?

PvP games: I'm lumping everything from Overwatch, LoL, FPSs, to fighting games into this category. Essentially games that don't have a PvE element whatsoever and are solely about PvP. I think you can judge graphics, gameplay (in terms responsiveness and feel), but that's about it. A "good" game of this type could very well be ruined by a toxic community and a "bad" game could be improved by having an excellent community. How do you evaluate gameplay that is depends on fairly large community? I enjoy Overwatch. I think the gameplay is excellent, I like the artstyle and character design. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The competitive scene is toxic and there are balancing issues. QuickPlay (non-competive) is more fun (imo), but you still have balance issues there, the occasional toxic player, and strangely enough smurfs. Smurfs are essentially high-level/skill players that create new accounts to play well below their skill evel. They're frequently capable of dominating a team single-handedly and dampen the experience for everyone.

To summarize:
I think reviewers can obsess the following relatively objective elements: game responsiveness and graphical quality on a technical level. As far as subjective views go, they can of course give their opinions on whether or not a game is a fun, quality of the artstyle, and depending on the game's length or level of intricacy, the story. Unlike movie reviewers, they can almost never assess the game in it's entirety unless it is a relatively short, single player game.

So how valuable are game critics? Do you listen to them? Personally, I don't. Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Warhammer 3 are the only games I've purchased at release in years (excluding expansions/DLCs). ER because I liked Sekiro and it looked visually more appealing than Souls. CP2077 because I love the genre. WH3 because I love Warhammer. When I purchase games I typically look at the community response to them first and foremost and then possibly awards. I don't think I've made a purchase based on a game critic or journal's opinion ever. Perhaps in the early 2000s. However, I absolutely watch movies I might have otherwise not based on critic's reviews.

I'm interested to hear what others think.

I have recently rediscovered Zero Punctation. The massively sweary and cynical shoutiness I find gives a useful overview of the things that are likely to get in the way of the fun.

I mean, specifically game criticism, or game coverage?

Criticism is basically a dead genre that very few people know how to do anymore, so you get either squealing fools or bitter complaining, and neither have much to do with the actual product, but the marketing hype they did or didn't swallow.

What's left of criticism has been swallowed by reviews (the degenerate offspring of criticism), and most 'mainstream' gaming sites don't even bother to pretend to do criticism anymore.

Now, as for your objective elements- personally I couldn't care less. Both things you've listed I can see for myself in a video, so if its in a review, they're wasting my time. Fun, level design, UI and story coherence are basically the only things I want to hear about. (And I can usually see enough of the UI to form my own impression.

---------
Now, game coverage, on the other hand, is important and probably better than its ever been. Its easy to find videos of the actual gameplay experiences and find out if its something that appeals to you (or not).

Its far more useful than game criticism or its degenerate review offspring ever was.

How does one accurately review a game of that magnititude in such a short amount of time? It's not as if this is the only game that falls into that category.

This question is easy, though. They get a review copy weeks in advance. Plenty of time to do a thorough assessment.

For big games like MMOs, like Warcraft, what's being judged is the beta test realm, months before live, with access to thousands of people. Finding out what the game beforehand is like is actually too easy, to the point that it can poison the actual live experience.

It should be added that the quality of music, voice acting and audio effects play a huge part as well in making a game enjoyable. Lacking those, a good game may still end up bland and fall short of its promise. But it's nothing game criticism ever covered.

Audio-wise, more gems were produced in the latter part of the 1990s than has been since. I have not the faintest idea as to why the decline has taken place, yet it is stark and evident.

Critics in an artistic genre are IMO worthless, given the subjective nature added to their own bias - conscious, unconscious or funded.

Profssional Critics is a misnomer given that most if not all will have no actual qualification. At least game reviewers do actively have to do alot more than film/food/art etc critics who are paid to consume and whine about what they like or dislike..

I enjoy watching people play games - especially those who make it entertaining and i donlt have to agree with what they enjoy..

Internet killed professional Critic industry, they just never got the memo.

Everyone is a critic now, and by looking up the statistical ratings and reading a few pages of user comments usually tells me way more about anything than a single critic ever can.. when we are discussing things such as art and entertainment, that is

Internet didn't kill it, it changed it. Lowering the barrier of entry and creating a far more competitive market with a lot more competing reviewers and such.

However it also meant that within a larger market (as video games grew in popularity) you can now have more chance of finding reviewers that have a similar set of standards to yourself and a presentation style that you like.



As a result there's far more information and whilst one reviewer might focus on certain aspects that aren't as important to you; another might well be focusing on those that are.
The access is also far more ready, no need to leave home and buy a magazine or such; its right at your finger tips.


Sure other things like aggregate review sites and user reviews also play a big part; but professional reviews still work, they are just different from what they were

Flinty wrote:I have recently rediscovered Zero Punctation. The massively sweary and cynical shoutiness I find gives a useful overview of the things that are likely to get in the way of the fun.

He's more of a comedy channel than a critic.

Voss wrote:
Now, as for your objective elements- personally I couldn't care less. Both things you've listed I can see for myself in a video, so if its in a review, they're wasting my time. Fun, level design, UI and story coherence are basically the only things I want to hear about. (And I can usually see enough of the UI to form my own impression.

---------
Now, game coverage, on the other hand, is important and probably better than its ever been. Its easy to find videos of the actual gameplay experiences and find out if its something that appeals to you (or not).

Its far more useful than game criticism or its degenerate review offspring ever was.

I think you make good points. Seeing it played out is more valuable for those elements. Coverage ends up being superior to criticism.

Karak Norn Clansman wrote:It should be added that the quality of music, voice acting and audio effects play a huge part as well in making a game enjoyable. Lacking those, a good game may still end up bland and fall short of its promise. But it's nothing game criticism ever covered.

Audio-wise, more gems were produced in the latter part of the 1990s than has been since. I have not the faintest idea as to why the decline has taken place, yet it is stark and evident.

I completely forgot about those, but I do think Skyrim was rightly criticized for poor voice acting.

Mr Morden wrote:Critics in an artistic genre are IMO worthless, given the subjective nature added to their own bias - conscious, unconscious or funded.

Well, you can find a critic you respect or has similar views to you. I found Ebert useful for movie reviews even if I didn't agree with him. At worst, I understood, or at least thought I did, where he was coming from and knew that since our views didn't align that I might enjoy what he disliked.

I've long given up on reading or watching most actual reviews, the days of me checking in on GameSpy (big oof! showing my age here) instead I do probably the worst thing possible: I check the review scores on the Steam page of the game in question, get a general idea of what the community thinks of the game and work it out from there. I don't really bother with checking whatever awards, acclaim and all that when purchasing a game either, they always feel so vapid and pointless. Plus, journos and reviewers either get a review copy that does in some cases not reflect the final product, or they tend to focus on the wrong things, or whatever floats their personal boats.

I used to watch a lot of Zero Punctuation, but it has over time rapidly become very much the same: he's very much about accentuating the awful (which okay, is what sells his reviews), using it as a platform to rant about how something bothers him and watching him tear into a genre or franchise he doesn't like to play around with, but still has to do a review on just isn't fun. Yeah we get it, you don't like 40k, but still feel the need to let everybody know how much you don't. He's also a bit of a fevered ego, even more so after he's had some books published, sometimes the cringe is a bit too much. I quite liked his let's plays he did with a mate of his when he was still in Australia, Gabe at least took the piss out of him and his gak.

That said, one reviewer on YouTube I do personally like is and whose recommendations I tend to follow up on is Mandalore Gaming, who mostly focuses on doing in-depth reviews of older games and classics, though he has done more recent 40k game reviews before their official release and isn't afraid to with the criticism either, sponsored content or not. Not ZP levels of acerbic feedback, but still critical. Me liking his stuff may also be due to his high production value and really presenting things in a nicely structured video, which has resulted in some nice bumps in sales for the games he has reviewed in the past, but YMMV.

Games journalism and critics in general have never been great, to my mind anyway. There are a lot of problems in the industry that deserve to be highlighted, but real absorbing articles on them are extremely rare and the work output of a lot of these companies is usually dreadful.

There are a few people on twitter that I follow who keep me up to date on general games and offer good criticism of games.

To be honest, at this point I know what games I like and what I don't. It's rare that I see something that comes out and go well, maybe I will give that a shot, it's usually a yes/ no.

For instance, I really don't like the Dark Souls games. Can't stand them, nothing about it interests me and I find the setting incredibly uninteresting. So Elden Ring getting rave reviews doesn't even remotely change how I feel.

Plus it's extremely rare I'll buy something on release so I happily wait around to see the general influx of criticism before trying it out for myself.

I think there's something to be said for this line of questioning.

Personally, I have found ACG on youtube to be a pretty good reviewer. He at the very least does buy and give away copies of reviewed titles, as he says, "to put his money on the line as well". I am sure there are other channels that are of his quality, and there are a range of both paid and unpaid reviews out there. All are of varying degrees of quality. While I can't think of em off the top of my head, there are some guys who don't do such a good job of hiding the fact they are paid for positive reviews.


As such, I think we could potentially come up with a list of decent reviewers, and if there was an objective metric by which to base it, we could then sort of divide things by presentation style. But as it stands right now, I dont see the fine users of Dakka coming together to agree on anything, much less that youtube video game reviewer X is good or bad.

IMHO, video game reviews were born out of the same world/cloth that film/movie review is. Which is to say, we could largely simply do without them entirely, but at the same time, if you found a "trusted" source, those same reviewers can save you a lot of time and money.

As such, I think we could potentially come up with a list of decent reviewers, and if there was an objective metric by which to base it, we could then sort of divide things by presentation style. But as it stands right now, I dont see the fine users of Dakka coming together to agree on anything, much less that youtube video game reviewer X is good or bad.

Well, no. The thing about reviewers is where one is good or bad isn't objective. Its whether or not they agree with your tastes. Because your taste in games is also subjective, the critics and reviewers you agree with or find helpful is going to be as well.

IMHO, video game reviews were born out of the same world/cloth that film/movie review is. Which is to say, we could largely simply do without them entirely, but at the same time, if you found a "trusted" source, those same reviewers can save you a lot of time and money.

Well... probably not. I very often see comments in youtube videos that people have bought the game because said youtuber is playing it, regardless of its quality. Some people just latch on and mimic behavior. I particularly see it on Grand Strategy games, where the comments will have people who freely admit they don't even understand the game in question, but because their favorite youtuber is playing it, they still bought it. And then thank the youtuber for it.

 Olthannon wrote:

For instance, I really don't like the Dark Souls games. Can't stand them, nothing about it interests me and I find the setting incredibly uninteresting. So Elden Ring getting rave reviews doesn't even remotely change how I feel.

Eh, I really like Elden Ring, but I wouldn't recommend it or Sekiro (possibly my favorite game of the last 10 years) to anyone that isn't already into similar games just because the baseline difficulty is high. I also seriously doubt reviewers cleared Liurnia.

"Industry Critics" who write articles in gaming publications are worthless. These are the people who play the newest game when it gets released for about 4-5 hours, then write up some non-sensical drivel about how Elden Ring is too hard and its discriminatory against the handicapable because you can't adjust the difficulty, and then it gets put on PC gaming's website. Then they move on to the next game to spin whatever the current outrage trend is for it. These people never actually play any game for any length of time and certainly don't find gaming fun.

I only really trust the opinion of game reviewers who are actually playing the games they are reviewing for long lengths of time, making youtube videos of their playthroughs, etc... But its all to see if the game is what interests me. If it doesn't, I don't trash the game unless there is something truly objectionable.

I'm sure Elden Ring is a great game. I'm glad people are liking it. I don't personally find any attraction in Dark Souls or similar games so it is not interesting to me.

I gave up on them after Doom 3 (a very pretty tech demo that looked like a game, not a Doom game mind) and the "industry" treated it like the second coming, now I mostly take recommends from my nerdherd and/or buy it cheap a few years down the line

 Grey Templar wrote:
"Industry Critics" who write articles in gaming publications are worthless. These are the people who play the newest game when it gets released for about 4-5 hours, then write up some non-sensical drivel about how Elden Ring is too hard and its discriminatory against the handicapable because you can't adjust the difficulty, and then it gets put on PC gaming's website. Then they move on to the next game to spin whatever the current outrage trend is for it. These people never actually play any game for any length of time and certainly don't find gaming fun.

Sounds like a pretty 'Industry Critic' review of Industry Critics. Maybe you need to start writing articles for gaming publications.

My view is normally that Game Critics weren't so hot even over a decade ago. We just ate up their crap because some of them added humor to the mix.

Games need to be tested on certain different metrics and usually i find my friends with similar tastes in games are far better gaming critics than any actual paid games journalist ever was.

A lot of what a game can be rated on also might differ from player to player based on tastes and preferences. For instance i've been told games like Divinity 2: Origin Sin is like the holy grail of rpg's but i'm not really into rpg's as a genre. I generally prefer strategy games (rts are dead sadly) and Xcom-style and 4X games which tend to be turn based and don't need ridiculous twitch based reactions and the ability to multi-task a million things at once for victory. Like i saw some of the best StarCraft 2 players selecting groups of units so fast i could swear they should've put up a seizure warning on the constant flashing light effects.

Voss wrote:

IMHO, video game reviews were born out of the same world/cloth that film/movie review is. Which is to say, we could largely simply do without them entirely, but at the same time, if you found a "trusted" source, those same reviewers can save you a lot of time and money.

Well... probably not. I very often see comments in youtube videos that people have bought the game because said youtuber is playing it, regardless of its quality. Some people just latch on and mimic behavior. I particularly see it on Grand Strategy games, where the comments will have people who freely admit they don't even understand the game in question, but because their favorite youtuber is playing it, they still bought it. And then thank the youtuber for it.

How many people went to a movie theater because Siskel and Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up", never minding actual quality of the film? You basically repeated my point, while trying to disagree with it.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Voss wrote:

IMHO, video game reviews were born out of the same world/cloth that film/movie review is. Which is to say, we could largely simply do without them entirely, but at the same time, if you found a "trusted" source, those same reviewers can save you a lot of time and money.

Well... probably not. I very often see comments in youtube videos that people have bought the game because said youtuber is playing it, regardless of its quality. Some people just latch on and mimic behavior. I particularly see it on Grand Strategy games, where the comments will have people who freely admit they don't even understand the game in question, but because their favorite youtuber is playing it, they still bought it. And then thank the youtuber for it.

How many people went to a movie theater because Siskel and Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up", never minding actual quality of the film? You basically repeated my point, while trying to disagree with it.

I'm disagreeing explicitly with the 'save time and money' bit (particularly the money bit, though playing games would also lose them time, though in theory they should enjoy time spent that way)
If you were trying to convey that trusted reviewers actually cost you money instead, I completely misunderstood you, because it still reads like the opposite.

Voss wrote:

I'm disagreeing explicitly with the 'save time and money' bit (particularly the money bit, though playing games would also lose them time, though in theory they should enjoy time spent that way)
If you were trying to convey that trusted reviewers actually cost you money instead, I completely misunderstood you, because it still reads like the opposite.

IMO, what you are saying, seeing comments of people who bought game/commented on youtube personality's video that they bought the game /because/ of said yt personality, is not someone who is watching a review/critique. . . I'd say that they are fanboi/fangirling that channel creator, or generally "notice me senpai" kind of behavior. Especially if they are commenting that they bought a game they have no understanding of, no idea, or no real enjoyment playing. . . but are still making the kinds of statements you said above. As I do agree with you that time spent playing games should be enjoyable.

What I was getting at, is going into a review article/video or whatever to see a review, and make a decision later. Something that I'd put out that many, if not most of us do on some level, or with some categories of products. To circle around to the original OP game, Elden Ring, right. . . now, I'd read prior to release it was a "souls like" game. Means that because i hate souls games, I'm already checked out. But, post release, lets say I'm curious about it. Check the reviews. Obviously, there are a couple youtube folks who I can stand listening to for more than 5-10 minutes, so I check out what they are saying. They are out there saying, "yup, its another souls game" which means that for me, I only "wasted" 10 minutes, instead of multiple hours, and retail prices on a game.

Maybe its because I'm so far removed from having left my parents house, but there's a lot of things out there I do similar processes with. Buying a car?? head to multiple reviews. New TV? New Books? I think you get the idea. When I replaced the bar tape on my road bike, I spent a week or more reading various reviews on different products. I mean, I personally would hate to have wasted money on a product that doesn't work for how I need a product to work. Buying the wrong car for my needs would be a huge waste of time and money, and I'd never buy any car simply because Jeremy Clarkson drove it once on TV.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Voss wrote:

I'm disagreeing explicitly with the 'save time and money' bit (particularly the money bit, though playing games would also lose them time, though in theory they should enjoy time spent that way)
If you were trying to convey that trusted reviewers actually cost you money instead, I completely misunderstood you, because it still reads like the opposite.

Maybe its because I'm so far removed from having left my parents house, but there's a lot of things out there I do similar processes with. Buying a car?? head to multiple reviews. New TV? New Books? I think you get the idea. When I replaced the bar tape on my road bike, I spent a week or more reading various reviews on different products. I mean, I personally would hate to have wasted money on a product that doesn't work for how I need a product to work. Buying the wrong car for my needs would be a huge waste of time and money, and I'd never buy any car simply because Jeremy Clarkson drove it once on TV.

There is also a big difference between reviews of a product which look at how it works (or does not work) and a persons opinion of a art form like say films, art, etc.

Computer games do have at least some of this element with bugs etc that can determine if a game is in a fit state for launch or not - see Cyberpunk/Battlefield - both of which reveived rave reviews from paid reviewers

The highest meassure of a game critics value is by how many companies he got banned from for review coppies.

The big publications are not banned by any publisher and it shows. 7-8/ 10s gallore, bad takes and blaming the gamer itself instead of actually highlighting the issues of the industry.
Cue bf2042 f.e. getting praises near and short after release but being a giant pile of turd and the playerbase which got in essence scammed walked within 2-3 months.

Interesting post and idea for a topic.

I definitely think that these days they are vastly less important than they used to be, in pre-internet days. I remember feverishly waiting for my copy of Mean Machines or CVG every month to get the low-down on the new releases and read the reviews inside. Most kids and teenagers only had the money to buy a handful of games a year and you damn well had to be sure that that game was good. Other than chats with mates, those magazines were the only way to find out what was good and bad. Later on I guess you might do a rental first when that became a thing.

Of course back then too the overall quality of games was far more variable, at least in the full price range. There was every possibility that you could get a Green Dog, a Shaq-Fu, a Rise of the Robots - and sit there for hours desperately trying to convince yourself that you hadn't wasted money! I would say that modern releases very, very rarely fall to those depths. Even games which are generally thought of as being a car-crash release (Aliens Colonial marines perhaps) are still light years ahead of some of the games I have described above. Some people can genuinely enjoy them, whereas with those 16-bit games the only people that did probably also had dungeons where they would partake in hanging weird things from chains on their nipples. So, I think the value of those older reviews was that much greater.

These days I have found a couple of online reviewers that I generally have similar interests to me and releases from certain publishes (FromSoft is an obvious one, and for all of its money-grubbing issues I knew Polyphony wouldn't release a stinker of a new Gran Turismo game). Pushsquare reviews for PS games, and I still buy Play magazine (which is a continuation of the old official Sony mag), plus Retro gamer - but those are more just for reading about the games I enjoy than being an essential purchase.

Ah but in the "old days":

* You could often play a demo yourselve and not rely on watching others - games mags were often loaded with discs to try stuff out
* Game developers could not half finish a game and then say - we will fix it in 6, 9 + months (or not) - the game either worked or it didn't
* You could take games back if they did not work
* You could exhange games

Well, the value of game critics is that video game content drives clicks. I mean, how many people read reviews/criticism of games they either already own or will never buy? It's a lot!

If we're going to separate Critique from review, then the OP has a solid point in that critique requires a more in-depth, complete engagement with the work. A review can be based on a single play through.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Ah but in the "old days":

* You could often play a demo yourselve and not rely on watching others - games mags were often loaded with discs to try stuff out
* Game developers could not half finish a game and then say - we will fix it in 6, 9 + months (or not) - the game either worked or it didn't
* You could take games back if they did not work
* You could exhange games

ah i miss the good old days, where games were finished and expansions not preplanned cut content called DLC.-

The CI/CD style of development has not been good for the video game industry...well maybe it's been good for the creators, but it surely hasn't been good for the consumer. Or maybe I'm wrong. CP2077 was fine for me at launch and generally considered to be fairly improved today. KotORII was released unfinished and was never finished because the pipeline didn't exist at the time for SP games. I think Elden Ring may be the closest thing to a finished product at launch that I've purchased since ME3, but even that had Day 1 DLC garbage.

Critics have always essentially been a branch of marketing. You just need to be aware of that and treat reviews as part of a greater strategy for researching a purchase. You will, like any good commercial, occasionally get suckered into something you regret, and the important thing is to learn something from it.

Like for example, pay attention to the reviewer. They may just like different kinds of games as you do. Filter out reviewers that praise games you don't like. Their tastes may simply differ.

On the flip side, if something is getting a lot of great reviews, it might be worth trying even if its not in your normal wheelhouse. The reviews might help you branch out and find a new genre.

The important thing is just to realize that reviews are not law. You can like games that reviewed poorly. You can find the game of the year a slog. Reviews are useful, but only when used as a tool and not a final arbiter.

I certainly don't read professional reviewers as much now as I did 20 years ago.

Half the problem is reviews these days struggle to not spoil the game for you if it is a good game, or will sucker you in to buying a mediocre game.

I almost think written reviews back in the day were better than the video reviews we get these days.

But I do still look for opinions. For example, I liked F1 2020, I was going to buy F1 2021 when it came up on sale. But after a few minutes googling it seemed the community and a few sim racing YouTubers I watch generally thought it was a downgrade, so I didn't buy it. But I didn't look at a specific review of the game.

I struggle with online reviews. It’s probably just my algorithm results, but I seem to find more “sod the game, hErE’s My WaCkY pErSoNaLiTy InStEaD”.

That works for retro reviews, such as AVGN. But when I want an honest, ideally at least somewhat informed opinion on a new game, I struggle.

But then I’m a Sad Old Git, who never quite moved past print media for such things.

I instead tend to rely on general word of mouth. Take Fallout 75 and Cyberpunk. At launch I was warned to stay well away due to numerous bugs, but it seems opinions have improved as patches and new content rolled out.

Of course the danger is Empty Vessels Make The Most Noise, and there’ll always be those poised to spit bile because apparently Not Liking Things on the internet is their entire personality.

What I would like is a reliable set of reviewers for non Triple A games. The weird and wonderful modern day platformers and adventure games which would’ve been at home on the SNES, and we don’t see from Big Studios because the scope of their programming potential and budget has expanded, and not because that sort of game stopped being fun.