What Riccitiello is obviously implying when he speaks of a "new revenue model" is that he believes other game developers should slap advertisements in their games like EA does. No thanks--I'd rather keep paying $60 for new games and avoid such obvious and irritating breaks in my gaming immersion.

Besides, once you start going down that path, it's not long until games become like television shows. Anybody up for commercial breaks? Unlike movies, you can't fast-forward a game.

OremLK

But the majority of games already have advertisements in them, just look at Guitar Hero 3. If game developers are going to go down the path of placing ads everywhere in the game then they should at least lower the price of the game to justify the eye sore us gamers have to go through. I am not sure but I don't think that's what he was talking about because most developers are already using ads in their games.

I thought the price range from last generation was perfect, 40-50 for a new game and then 10 dollars more for the LE. I know we are only talking about 10 - 20 dollars more but in the long run that can truly add up. And by all means if a game is truly worth the 60 dollar price tag then fine but I see too many games that many people wouldn't spend 10 dollars on, like someone said the value just isn't there. And also someone mentioned about SNES and N64 game costing more, that's only because it cost more to produce the cartridge, or at least that's what they say.

And why do people keep talking about a unified console? That is a horrible idea, yeah why not make one system so they can jack the price even higher than what they are now. I think the game industry is fine with having three big competitors to actually work for our money.

Well, just to quickly address a few things I've seen in this thread...

- Should games be given scores at all?

Yes, most definitely. While some writers like to prattle on about a world without scores, that's a very narrow view. With the millions of people that visit this site in any given month, we encounter a lot of different types of player. Some people have all the time in the world to research a game and devour every single piece of content we produce. Others don't. Some people need that shortcut, and a score provides that quick check for some people that should either let them know that they probably don't need to know much more about a game or that they need to read more before making a purchasing decision. And make no mistake, that is the reason why our reviews exist: to assist people who are considering a game purchase.

- Does giving a game a score promote fanboyism?

Anything anyone does ever promotes the sad mentality that the Internet is fostering. The other day I read a full thread on another site of people arguing about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD with the exact same idiotic fervor that some people use here to "discuss" video games: by turning message boards into Debate Club Amateur Hour. Think about how insane that is for a minute...

"DUDE MY WAY OF WATCHING MOVIES IS SO MUCHMORE AWESOME AND MARKET SHARE AND ATTACH RATE AND OTHER BUSINESS TERMS THAT NO ONE SHOULD ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT!!!!"

"NO WAY U SUCK MY WAY OF WATCHING MOVIES WILL WIN!!!! ALSO I OWN A MAC SO I ALSO HATE YOU BECAUSE I HATE WINDOZE! DID YOU NOTICEI SPELLED IT WINDOZE ISN'T THAT FUNNY BECAUSE IT MAKES ME SLEEP IT IS SO DUMB! ALSO: MICRO$OFT! SEE WHAT I DID THERE??????"

...it used to be limited to local pockets of people complaining about how the Amiga is better than the PC, but our connected world now allows someone to spew nonsense that the entire globe can read about topics such as "WHY I THINK FIREFOX IS RADICAL AND THEREFORE YOU ARE SUCK." Seriously? We're going to waste time arguing about which freely available web browser is better? The relatively anonymity of the Internet is making the world uglier every day, and it's a real bummer. Also, pointing out that "you can format a disk on an Amiga and still use the OS" was never a very good argument for why it's better than the PC. But all that is probably a little off-topic for this discussion.

- Do review scores exist to help us figure out what to buy/spend our time on, or do they exist to validate our own opinions?

See above. We write reviews to assist people looking to purchase them. If you want to use them to try to validate your own opinions, go for it, but you're using them wrong. We're not here to make people feel better about games they pre-ordered because they saw a sweet trailer. We're here to cut through the TV ads and trailers and all the other stuff out there designed to get you to buy games blindly, and help you spend your money wisely.

"I do agree that a 10 should never be used, even though its in the scale. Main reason being that reviews and scores are subjective. A 10 would imply that a game is so great that everyone will love it and want to play it."

Maybe on your own double-secret personal review scale. On ours, it means that the game couldn't be improved upon in any meaningful way, given current standards for that game's platform. As part of the review change, we relabeled 10.0 as "Prime" instead of "Perfect." The meaning of the score hasn't really changed, but too many people couldn't handle the concept of perfect meaning "perfect... given current standards for that game's platform and blah blah blah blah blah." It was sort of silly and overly confusing that way, I agree. We will give a 10 again someday, by the way. I occasionally see people saying "GameSpot said they'd never give another 10." That's insane and we've never, ever said that.

But this touches on a larger point. Reviews are only a guide. They are not gospel. If you aren't filtering our reviews through your own personal likes and dislikes, you're eventually going to end up missing out on a game you'd like or buying one you hate. We assign reviews to qualified reviewers who are interested in that style of game and, ideally, enter the review feeling cautiously optimistic about it. So when people say "I only play games that GameSpot gives a 9.0 or higher to," I'm a little bummed out. I mean, thanks for believing in us and all, but really, you're probably missing out on a ton of games that you'd love. If we give a game a 7.0 and it's a type of game that you usually love, you should probably read the review for more information. And while we certainly think extremely highly of a game that gets a 10, even that can't be a guarantee that it'll be one of your favorite games. Except for Tony Hawk 3, of course, which is one of your favorite games.

To use the Review of the Moment as an example, when we give Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction a 7.5, we're not saying it's "average" or something. This isn't school, and a 7.5 doesn't translate to a C+. We're effectively saying that fans of these sorts of action platformers, and to an even greater extent, fans of the Ratchet series, will probably have a blast. But we're also saying that its appeal might not extendso far beyond that group due to issues mentioned in the review text.

And, really, that's the part that makes the whole "disagree with review -> let's riot" mentality so silly. In most cases, we're actually recommending the games that we supposedly "hate" and "were paid to score poorly" or whatever.

Jeff

I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you could answer the question from I think the first page regarding playing games as a job versus playing games for fun? I have always wondered this, does a beta tester or game reviewer loss their momentum in wanting to play games for fun since they pretty much play games all day? It would seem to me that playing games would loss their fun factor if that's all you did all day. I mean don't get me wrong I think every gamer wishes for a job where they get paid to play games but it can't be as wonderful as it seems, or can it?

Don't get me wrong I like having a 360, or more of the lines of I like the games for 360. But I see a lot of people praising MS like this is a new issue and they didn't know about the faulty systems, some how I find that hard to believe. There is no way MS didn't know about what kind of failure rate that had on their hands, but they would rather not have to deal with it and hopefully it would go away. You don't think it's a little strange to see all those reports on the extremely high failure rate MS was having and then a week or two later MS announces a 3 year extended warranty on all 360s? That to me shows that they weren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, but merely trying to save face.

And for the person or person's who blame this on mishandling 360s, sorry but a 33% failure rate isn't a couple of hundred people kicking their consoles around. 33% is a huge **** up in the console itself. You can blame the users all you like but MS even admitted that this problem was their fault. So now who are you to blame?

I don't get it, how can people say that Sony lost already even when the console war has just begun? It's not like all consoles have been out for 5 years. I still have hope in Sony because like they said, their in it for the long run. So far I have heard:

1. Console is too expensive - I guess if you are just a gamer then yeah this console is a bit pricey.

2. Console is hard to develop for - Well of course it is, it's a new console with new technology. I remember when the 360 launched and I didn't see a decent game for months at time. With more time the dev. will know and understand the technology and then you will see more games being released at a faster pace but you have to give them time.

Sony could have probably done better at focusing at the Gamer in mind but I still don't see what they have done as a failure. I mean Sony has made the console easily upgradable, with memory in mind, than the 360. I don't have to spend an extra 100 bucks to go wireless and I can actually buy a wireless controller from a third party company. Add all that with the thought of this is the one and only PS3 I have owned, and at this same time frame I owned three 360s. I am not going to do a price comparison between the two because lets be honest that has been done to death,but I still see the PS3 as the cheaper console, well besides the Wii.

We might be able to have this argument within the next year or two but right now it's just too early to even speak of, "who will win?".

Not in any particular order: Atari 2600, Intellevision 2, Odyssey 2, NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, Sega CDX, N64, Sega Saturn, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3.

As for hand helds: Original Gameboy, Game Gear, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, PSP, Nintendo DS.

I am sure I am forgetting something but that is most of them.

To be honest, I'd really want them to just focus on making a brand FF, and I wish Square would just keep focused instead of trying to juggle all these spin-off and side projects from their main games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and FFXIII.JustPlainLucas

I agree, if they want to remake and do side projects to all of their games fine but don't let it effect the main projects. I am just hoping I see Kingdom Hearts 3 before 2010.

I agree that the review system as it stands isn't working (especially the newer one). I too am a gamer that focuses almost entirely on what a game offers for me on a single box. The problem with just reading the review is that the reviews don't seem to be actual endorsements or a potential buying guide but rather an overall look at the features of the games. And the reviews, for that matter, are inconsistent. Some reviewers keep it balanced, while others ramble on about certain features. Granted that's to be expected, but that's the problem with *just reading* the reviews- the information I need isn't always there.

I don't know if anyone remembers the Daily Radar, but I really liked their review system. Instead of giving out a numbered score, they gave out four rankings - Direct Hit, Hit, Miss, and Bomb. I'd like to see GS move over to this kind of review. The reason is rather simple- it not only encourages people to actually read the reviews, but GS could definately move towards doing a better job at providing what type of gamers should pick up the game. I'd love to see a wrap up paragraph two that really focuses on this point- "Oh, this game has a solid but short single player and a fantastic multiplayer. If you play online, you can't do much better but if you aren't connected, it's probably better left a rental."

Fortunately I've just picked up a PS3 (and already owned a Wii) and now one of the other teachers here has a 360, so I've gotten to play a lot more modern titles that got great scores. Most of them that have an online component barely have a competent single-player/local play modes. I'm still scratching my head over how certain games got the outrageous scores that they did. And frankly, I think in most cases, had the editor been forced to think about who to recommend the game to, a person like me would've definately been told to either rent or just not buy.

So I could definately support having a seperate ranking for multiplayer/single player, but I thought I'd present another option that I think more effectively would tackle the problem. While I did complain that the reviews aren't thorough enough now, I think if there was no number to fall back on, the quality of the written reviews would increase dramatically.

Vampyronight

I couldn't agree more.