gamer

Mitch Gitelman, FASA Studio Manager, sat in on the Official Xbox Magazine's most recent podcast to talk about Shadowrun and how "the reviews on [Shadowrun] suck my ass." He warned that Shadowrun's average-range review scores—collectively hovering in the 70% range—are not only unfair, but also overshadow the game's innovation.
He told OXM, "There's repercussions here for the gamer. We're shooting our own people in the foot by not recognizing what these developers are doing. I worry about that. I'm not happy with the reviews either because I don't think they're comparing us apples to apples."
The OXM podcast staff asked Gitelman whether he had any input on the game's $60 price for a multiplayer only title to which Gitelman responded that Shadowrun has legs that could last for years. He first responded "I make games. I don't set prices in games. It's not part of my job nor is it my call."
He then followed up with:

The most important thing is the value of what you're getting, I think there is value there at the $60 price point. If you play just about any first person, next-generation shooter that's come out recently, you're looking at the single player game being about 10 hours. I've been playing Shadowrun for three years... You can see this game truly has legs. So, ten hours of gameplay for sixty bucks, plus some probably lame multiplayer they tacked on, versus Shadowrun that you can play, lets say, for years.

Obviously, Mitch has a point here, in that many of the games that have the best perceived value in the long term, may not be readily apparent after just a few days or weeks of gameplay. I continue to play plenty of games based on their skillfully honed multiplayer or more open-ended modes, titles like Advance Wars, Diablo II, Half-Life's various multiplayer mods like Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, and StarCraft. Another Xbox game, Halo 2, was most widely well received not for its brief and (some say) disappointing single-player campaign, but for its strong multiplayer modes—the ratio of single-player to multiplayer enjoyment for most is heavily skewed toward the latter.
However, the precedent has been set by many of these games that a solid single-player mode, while not the most memorable feature, is still included. With Shadowrun at a new-gen premium price of $60 (or $50 for the Windows Vista version) many gamers will expect the precedent to be followed.
Unfortunately, most game reviews don't have an accommodation for publishing executive pricing blunders. Perhaps they should be held accountable for any failure at long term success FASA's shooter will have. I won't hold my breath.
What do you think? Are games unfairly scored on a scale related to their price point? Have any Shadowrun players out there felt that they've already "justified" their $60 purchases? Michael McWhertor
KOXM Episode 70 [OXM Podcast]
</img>


More...