Stardock CEO takes shots at Gamespot’s disgraceful Ashes of the Singularity review

http://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/477140/page/1/

So the Stardock CEO isn't happy with his game recieving a 4/10 on Gamespot. I didn't play the game so I can't speak on if that review is fair or not but I do like the idea of game developers going after reviewers if they feel that the review is unfair. It's actually quite funny to me hopefully the guy Daniel Starkey who did this review will make a response to him to explain himself. Did anyone here even play this game? I would like to hear from you and if you didn't play it then do you think game developers should go after reviewers or is it wrong because they are entitled to have their own opinion?

Maybe the check bounced.

Sounds like he was only responding because people kept asking him what he thought. Game sits at 68 metacritic, so GS review does seem low. Never played the game so cannot really comment.

However, I've often been disappointed with reviews here because I felt the reviewer didn't understand the genre well. Its one thing to review from a casuals' perspective, if you are not familiar with the genre. But maybe do more research for the review. Its like giving some awesome single malt Whiskey to a seasoned wine taster, and he spits it out saying its too strong. But give the same whiskey to a seasoned Whiskey drinker, and he will give 9/10 and talk about its pros/cons, and other whiskey drinkers can relate more. Anyways, trying to find a metaphore that makes sense.

It's not the first time. There was once a GS reviewer who gave a space sim a low score because the game required a joystick. I'm like, "WUT?"

That's funny stuff right there.

Reminds me of the GS review of the open world racer, Forza Horizon 2 and him deducting points because he kept hitting trees lol.

Ya just can't make this stuff up. :P

I'm willing to believe both sides of the story. Yes, it's more than likely the reviewer had no clue what he was talking about. But it's also likely that the game itself just isn't very good, and that the Stardock CEO needs to get some thicker skin.

At the end of the day, who cares? =P

To bad DX12 could not stop it from sucking...lol

Ah, a Freelance writer strikes again! And this time it seems as if this reviewer didn't play/understand what he was playing.

Let's look at some examples,

"Let’s cut to the case of his review:

You have three main resources to manage--metal, radiactives[sic], and turinium.

There are four resources: Metal, radioactives, Turinium and Quanta. Quanta being the most important one.

The first two are for constructing ships, but if you collect enough turinium you win the game. Because turinium is necessary for victory, Ashes of the Singularity encourages hapless and aggressive rushing.

By that argument, Company of Heroes is about hapless, aggressive rushing. Which is, of course, nonsense. In practice, the player that does hapless, aggressive rushing would be crushed by the player who spends quanta, the resource you apparently weren’t aware of, to insert forces behind your lines.

Your starting area will only have a couple resource nodes, and you can't stockpile resources as you can in most other strategy games.

What?! Yes you can. Not only do you store resources but you can research tech to increase your storage.

So, playing cautiously isn't an option. You have to expand--and fast.

Which, again, is factually wrong.

Ashes of the Singularity doesn't have these flourishes; what you see is what you get.

Except clearly, you didn’t see the primary player resource: Quanta. The resource so important that it’s literally displayed inside your player box next to your avatar and necessary to use any of the player abilities that would be required to win the game above easy.

Maps are consistently dry and lack character. With the exception of modest changes in elevation, there aren't many features that lend themselves to strategic use.

Er what are you talking about? There are hills, mountains, plateaus, ravines, etc. And if that is insufficient then you have to hold that doubly true against Supreme Commander.

There are no towering mountains to hide your forces during an ambush,

What are you talking about? There are, literally, towering mountains to hide your forces. Because the game has true line of sight (as in, a mountain blocks the view of what’s behind it), it is a common player tactic to hide their forces behind towering mountains in order to ambush the enemy. The AI actually is programmed to do just that."

What the hell is Gamespot doing? They are tarnishing what image they have left by giving reviews to freelance "writers" that don't know how to play video games.

Sadly this is starting to become a little symptomatic of the freelance reviews. The Football manager one for this year was particularly horrific, where the reviewer spent more time complaining it wasn't the tablet version than he did actually reviewing the bloody game.

Wow that seems like a complete lack of knowledge or simply not putting enough interest in reviewing the game,the fact alone that the games has true line of sight and he doesn't know it and ignore the most important resources of the game does read like a pathetic effort on his part.

Now i am not saying it is good or bad most reviews are mixed,but that it a completely horrible review based alone on what you claim.

Another butthurt indie dev upset that somebody didn't lavish his subpar game with praise and confetti.

Stardock isn't a "indie dev" though.

Haven't palyed the game but it def sounds like the reviewer screwed up big time. Think it's good that a dev hit back like this when there are so many factual errors (missunderstandings of mechanics) that clearly affects the enjoyment of the game. Hopefully GS apologize and take down the review.

Lol! Video Game Journalist are not held to any sort of standard. They will just come out and talk about how toxic the community is.

I haven't played the game but I wanted to when they first announced the title. Was looking forward to a true successor to Supreme Commander.

Then the more I saw, the more I became disappointed. In the end the overall reception of the game wasn't good, so I passed. I expected Stardock to do better because they have a good track record.

As for the review,,, it was one of the worst reviews I've ever read. Laughable.

Geez that's embarrassing. Only reason I come here is for system wars, and this post is exactly why. Can't take their reviews seriously anymore.

Not so sure about that. Ignoring one of four resources and everything associated with it is a massive blunder. From reviews I've read on GS this level of error is unusual. I mean calling a game misogynist or whatever is one (subjective for the most part) thing. This review is just wrong (as far as I can tell). I think there's a reasonable chance GS will do what's right in this case.

I didn't read the review but its way too short for a review of a RTS which usually have quite a bit of mechanical complexity.

At first I thought the headline said Starbucks CEO. lol

I think its fair criticism and much needed. The creators of the game have worked for years to deliver something enjoyable. And all they ask from reviewers is a fair review. Its really not that much to ask, but in todays industry, it seems it is.

@SecretPolice: or when ign reviewed gears of war ultimate edition and scored it low duty to over use of the a button

The man expects a bit too much from video game journalism.

Lol IGN. The site that claimed they could see the resolution difference between a 900p COD Ghosts on PS4 and Xbox One, not knowing the 1080p patch wasn't released yet. Then they ran Assassins Creed comparisons with one of them in color blind mode. I'm glad IGN got away from comparison videos, because damn....

So true. Explains why publishers are not mentioning Gamespot quotes and reviews in their marketing any longer.

Grow a pair.

Did you even read the article at the link? LOL. The reviewer was just plain wrong about so many facts in the game, it is embarrassing as all hell.

Well now if Uncharted 4 scores bad, we can just say he was a rouge reviewer :P

know nothing about the game but from that response it seems like the reviewer shit the bed.

@GoldenElementXL said:

Lol IGN. The site that claimed they could see the resolution difference between a 900p COD Ghosts on PS4 and Xbox One, not knowing the 1080p patch wasn't released yet. Then they ran Assassins Creed comparisons with one of them in color blind mode. I'm glad IGN got away from comparison videos, because damn....

LMAO dat gif. Remember when IGN was comparing Console graphics of Dragon Age: Inquisition with the PC ones, and PC version was set on Medium settings instead of Max settings? Lol game journalism these days.

May be Stardock should've invited GS on their review event. But then again, they lack resources to do that.

Well, I haven't play ashes of the singularity, but it appears that most people, who played this game, did enjoyed it according to the steam user score. Furthermore, its not a secret that gs is not capable of reviewing strategy games properly, they gave rome 2 total war an 8 out of 10 even though the game was a complete disaster at launch.

they do that with every yearly franchise. they can't be bothered to review them properly so they just play a few games and slap a 7-9 on it. NBA 2K16 got an 8 despite its abysmal online at launch and equally awful MyCareer story produced by Spike Lee as well as being plagued by numerous legacy issues and gross microtransactions.

Well looking back on this I understand where the developer is coming from, shouldn't be able to publish lies.

The reviewer in question uses the blockbot, an ugly device used by special snowflakes to block out anyone to the left of stalin.

Stardock's CEO has been critical of these people, and so his last dlc, reviewed by this moron, also received a 4 which was a complete outlier in terms of scoreline as is this one. In GS a 4 is for a game completely broken, unplayable, totally worthless. That's the way it is. The game, for all it's faults, doesn't qualify.

This is simply political and not good enough from gamespot. It's a fucking con lately. A walking simulator with zero gameplay and little plot get's 9, this gets 4. You tell me that's not political.

Haven't played the game, but quite frankly, I don't need to to see what is going on here. He should have never been given the game to review, and I will never ever trust him.

Gaming "journalism"...it's everywhere.

I don't know about the review of this particular game, but since I've been here (a little over a year) the reviews I have read were terrible, but in the end just one persons opinion, even if that opinion has no idea what they're talking about.

Not that it actually scares me, but it makes me wonder if games like UC4 that might universally get praise will get lower score here for ridiculous reasons just so a reviewer can make a name for himself.

No....not only UC4 any up coming big X1 games sa well.

Gaming journalism has been awful for a long time now, on just about every site. Not really surprising.

@GoldenElementXL: You act like this is something new, but in fact GS has been outsourcing reviews to freelance writers since last gen, or even before. And they've been wrong and inconsistent for as long also. Too many posters have been drinking the Gamespot koolaid to care though, but I'm surprised to see people taking this long to notice such things.

Lol this is the same guy who reviewed SCII:LoTV and complained it was too complex (this was after he claimed he played 50 hours of it I believe). Also gave LoTV an 8 with the only bullet point negative as complex gameplay (from an RTS? What did you expect?). He also mentioned poor dialogue, but really I don't think that's a 2 point loss, as most video games are probably just as bad. Also the LoTV reivew was really short too, and no video review.

I think he's just not great at RTS games and just got overwhelmed by this game and didn't give it a chance. Why GameSpot is outsourcing RTS games to someone who finds SC too complex is beyond me.

Its usually the smaller PC games that get outsourced, big AAA titles don't (as far as I'm aware anyways)

Hmm , Daniel Starkey .... , isn't he the guy that reviewed heroes of storm and gave it a 9

Edit: nope that was someone else

@unrealgunner: First I respect the fact that you said you don't know for yourself if the review is fair. So many here look at review scores or metacritic and bash or praise without personal experience.

I haven't played this game either. I do feel reviewers are entitled to their opinion but that doesn't mean they are exempt from the devs questioning or expressing theirs in turn.

@speedfreak48t5p: Barista the game!! (better with Kinect edition) lol

I agree with the Stardock guy on this one, his main complaint of the review was that they could not be bothered to learn how to play the game before reviewing it.

And it is true that this would not have happened with a AAA publisher, these review sites don't seem to give other games they don't see at important the time of day and lot of stuff doesn't end up being reviewed at all.

In this case no review at all would have been better than a half arsed one.

SOB , ಠ__ಠ ..... now it makes me wonder how he's gonna handle total war: warhammer