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Molyneux wants critics to do him a favour
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 7th October 2008
Peter Molyneux reckons that Fable 2 is a game for non-gamers, and is asking that it be reviewed as such.
According to Variety, US review copies of the game were sent out with letters from Molyneux asking that the game not be judged by professionals or hardcore gamers, but that it instead be judged by those who rarely play games.
"Please, please, please, please, please find somebody who doesn't play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it's only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through," said the letter that came attached to the review code.
Molyneux, who lead the design and development of the Xbox 360 exclusive, said that the game was designed to appeal to anybody and that the single-button combat and dog-based interface were evidence of this. Therefore, a non-gamer review will offer much more insight into the game that a hardcore gamer might get.
As Eurogamer points out though, notes like this are pretty common. Alone in the Dark review code for example came with a note asking that reviewers pay special attention to the way the game was structured into TV-like episodes. We did, but it didn't go down well with us.
So, what do you think? Should I have the game sent home so that my mum can review it, or would you prefer my thoughts? Answers in the forums.
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It would be interesting to see your mum's review.
A bit of both? :p Maybe you do most pages then have a page on your mum's impressions hehe. Obviously it's a game a professional reviewer / journalist is going to do the best review of it in terms of testing the product for enjoyment and so on and what people actually want... otherwise nobody would read your reviews would they. But I think getting your mum to go on it for an hour and get her impressions would be good entertainment :)
I agree, both you and your mum's opinions would be interesting to read in this circumstance.
I'm not saying this is the case with this game, but it always gets me suspicious when a games developer starts defending his game before it is released.
So Whilst a mum's (or mums') perspective would be nice I think Peter must have something to hide.
Stupid, if you ask me. Games reviers review games for gamers. Not for non-gamers.
"Aha!" Molyneux can say, "These reviews were written by professionals, and I told them to use non-professionals. Therefore these reviews are meaningless," He goes on to put his hands over his ears and start shouting, "La la la! I can't hear you! My game r0xx0rs!"
All the comments he's been making over the last few weeks have been to (a) generate interest in Fable 2; and (b) mitigate the damage caused when reviewers realise that this new game is nowhere near as ground-breaking as Molyneux promised us it would be.
Peter shouldn't hype up a game so much and then water it down to make a release date. I'm a hardcore gamer and I find new experiences in games that are not half ass. What scares me is that Peter is making statements like this and it sounds like he has no confidence in his work.
From the quote you made, he's not asking you to get a non-gamer to review the game but to see what a non-gamer makes of the game and take it into account in your review.
But yeah:
What non-gamer goes out and read reviews of games?
It is a pre-emptive strike against reviews as he knows thet game will be like Fable 1, a dissappointment and not anything mroe then a mainstream Average RPG for kids.
lol, isn't that what I said?
To compare, lets take a car.
It is advertised to be the best car ever developed, it has sports appeal, speed cornering and is easy to drive?
Would you trust a review from a 18 or 16 year old kid who just got his license?
or
A professional racing driver with years of experience on many different cars and has actually raced?
Both would apply, the kid could judge his appeal and taste but cant really argue the racing part because he cant compare it to many other cars out there because it is his first experience.
Both points will count, but with Fable there is an audience that have played many games and they will judge the game based on their previous experiences of what works and what does not.
There are sites that offer conflicting reviews and opinions from lets say a FPS player and a Strategy player.
A non-gamer is only so until they are introduced to a game. People like us will read the review and be able to recommend it to family members who traditionally shun computer gaming.
Don't forget that many people are drawn into the market (who traditionally do not play on computers/consoles) as casual gamers by titles such as Peggle.
I enjoyed Fable on the PC and I am 29, I finished it twice, this is the whole thing about games, your experience does not count to me, I am the only one that can say if it was worthwhile or not, I have bought so many games that was stated as awesome and yet I lost interest after a few hours.
or
Games that was given low scores and yet I enjoyed every moment it offered. It depend on you at that point in time, how is your state of mind at the point you start, sometime putting a game down and revisiting it after a year gives you a whole more.
Or perhaps Molyneux is attempting the digital equivalent of trying to sell cars to 12 year olds.
I thought this was on the xbox not the Wii, the spiritual home of the non gamers.
Surely this is hardly the game to drag in a "non gamer" to play games? Someone walking though a store will hardly spot this out of the corner of their eye and go " You know what, I WILL try this! after purchasing a console to play it on! "
The guy hasn't really made a Great game since Dungeon Keeper, some good games yes, just no GREAT games
You sir make a fine point.
Ah the danger of analogies, as it's hard to tell exactly how deep they are meant to be taken. What about if the car in question was advertised as the best mini-van ever developed? Reliability, Safety, and fuel economy. Do you trust a review from a 23yr old mother of 3, or do you still want the professional racing driver?
It all comes down to a question of audience: who is the audience for the game? and who is the audience for the review? Is Fable II being marketed as more of a sports car, or a mini-van? :p Should a review only be for the audience of readers, or should it try to aim for a broader assessment of the quality of the game.
I'm guessing Peter's comments are more about the variety of the game (and the "open world" concept that it contains). They may have found that most "core" gamers all play the game largely the same way (so it won't feel that open, or full of variety). But only when you see a non-traditional gamer play it, do you see the larger potential of gameplay experiences.
If your review is designed to be an assessment of the games intrinsic quality, then you certainly have to try and look at it through a variety of viewpoints. But if it's just "what will the readers of my site think of this game", then you don't. A reviews purpose, and thus it's content, can vary widely based on the goals of the reviewer and the audience who is reading it. So it makes sense that the content then can vary significantly also.
I can see the charm in a game with a low threshold so many people can enjoy it, but if there isn't anything more to it, I'd say he failed.
Thing is, many non-gamers find all the movie tie-in games magnificent, think about that.
lol, good point.
If this game is not for gamers, what is it for? Plants? Amoebas?
Obviously Molyneux recognises this, but the point is that a 'hardcore' gamer wants a hardcore perspective; a perspective that will most likely mirror their own, so they can judge whether or not they would enjoy the game based on the review.
One turns to different publications for different perspectives. A hardcore gamer might read a review on a site like bit-tech which they expect to approach the game from a similar perspective as their own. On the other hand, the person who's never played games before is unlikely to be reading a site like this. In fact, the person who's never played a game before is unlikely to be looking for game reviews!
Actually I think Paul Van Dyk played a concert for the deaf in London. It's just a matter of enough volume, so You can "feel" the music.
But I get Your point.
It's like asking a 10 year old to review a brothel. Bet you a cookie he's in over his head. ;-)
Ew.
The only reason I can see for asking a non-gamer to review it is that they probably won't know half the promises he made about the game, so they won't go nit-picking the stuff that isn't there.
So, lets have a "non-gamer" play a modern game and see what he/she thinks of it?
Did that last year with Bioshock demo and a couple of non gamers. They liked the experience but continue "non-gamers".