Is GiantBomb becoming too negative?

Ubisoft hasn’t had anything that exciting in a very long time, in my opinion. I feel like using this showcase as an example of GB being too negative is way off the mark. There are plenty of other examples of them being really high on a game this year, they just aren’t swallowing the sales pitch. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Man some of the takes in this thread.

Like countless others have said, I don't really get how someone could get an overall "GB is too negative" slant from the video in question. I think it ignores the good faith in which the video itself is produced, which is that GB themselves are going to provide their take on the marketing that Ubisoft was releasing. That they had plenty of critique (and rightfully so I might add) for a pretty "same as it ever was" presentation, in the OP and others perception somehow overall colors GB's entire perspective of the game industry? I just want to make sure that is right and people know that is actually the wild madness they are stating.

Ignoring of course the countless evidence in this thread, including from a recent PS5 Talk Over where the enthusiasm on display more appropriately matched the interesting and exciting presentation Sony put on. It's almost as if, their overall feelings on a specific press conference or company can change based on what the company decides to show. All the reasoning on their negativity is as surface level as it can get, presented in the video. Criticisms over Far Cry refusing to change aren't new to this site, so presenting a Prestige TV intro to something that already was mimicking prestige TV and making the same mistakes the middling bulk of those shows make in regards to too much violence or toning in too hard because that's "what these things do." I said something similar in regards to my criticism of how TLOU2 presents itself, but serious media has just as many tropes as non serious, and if your an avid watcher it's easy to spot.

As for the rest, the commentary regarding Valhalla and Watch Dogs was far from just negative. Before they got the point where Alex was allowed to discuss his thoughts on what he played, he offered some critique with some praise on what he played of both Watch Dogs Legion and Valhalla. I don't think it's necessarily a take that these games are "bad" and Jeff said as much on his thoughts of Valhalla specifically, it's just uninspired. As someone who watched and loved Vikings and is a big fan of the new AC formula, Valhalla will be great for me but again, that's something that's skin change is specifically targeted to me. Those things will fall flat on people in different demographics, and these type of critiques are very relevant when discussing why things land for some people and not for others. Especially when, companies like Ubisoft themselves remove so much of the "artistic expression" in these stories to gear them more like annual or semi annual products. It turns out, much like other products, some iterations target certain demo's and some others. Which means your always going to have a divide when it comes to reception, as some people either want more or something else, and some are literally in the target demographic. Skin changes accompanied with minimal plot or overall mechanically changes aren't something that just happen in games either. Watch enough "pseudo dystopian survival" prestige shows and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, at the end of the day it just feels like the OP and similar threads like these don't want nuance. They want "either you love it because something was good to love hype machine" or "tear it apart for being pure trash." If you don't like a balanced critique on games that's fine, if you are just here for product launch level hype as many have said, it's everywhere, go find it?

Not sure about that. Jim Sterling left Desctructoid and took most the audience with him. Tim Rogers was racketing up millions of views for Kotaku's YouTube and now they have to go to his own project (Action Button) for that. People follow personalities they like, not outlets. There will always be room for news outlets but do I really care if it's Kotaku or Polygon or US Gamer or whatever? Not really. News is news. But I do care about good, interesting discussions that a diverse staff can provide: I think Gamespot has done a good job with this over the years (and I know Polygon has many fans here for the same reason).

I think Joe Rogan and the Spotify deal, regardless how you feel about him, indicates that personality rules overall in this social media era. It's also why "cancelling" anyone is often fruitless as the audience is often just too massive to matter (see Pewdiepie, Projared or even Nick Robinson who still get tons of views, sponsors and fans).

Yes. Particularly Jeff. I love GB, but its bringing me down a bit.

Yes, this is what turned me off during the presentation (Hyperscape especially). I get that part of this is beyond Ubisoft's control, as they obviously cannot predict what happens in the world at large and the writing and worldbuilding for these games happens years in advance, but as you said, this isn't the first time they're going for a premise like this. They've kinda been doing this for a good while now and reality is finally catching up with them.

He was also the Creative Director on Far Cry 2, so maybe he can turn this series into something I care about? The marketing for this game sure as hell isn't doing it any favors.

@one1zero0one: If anything they should've been more negative considering what's going on with Ubisoft as a whole right now. Especially with how they handled the allegations and investigations currently going on, which is to say Ubi DIDN'T address them. That fact that everything looked derivative and boring on top of Ubi being a toxic place was just the icing on the cake. Fuck Ubisoft.

@freedo:I mean they fired a buncha people.

I thought the opening to the Ubisoft thing was tasteless and tone deaf given the current time in America. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was created years before today... but then we learned it was an art piece separate from the game so... who knows.

OK I'm on board now.

The only sweet drank that can slake my unquenchable thirst for corporate wokeness will be a ps5 dynamic theme of Yves Guillemot pulling a lever that guillotines the Statue of Liberty while shouting Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

There are roughly one million other sites/channels/podcasts you could go to if you just wanted to listen to people act blindly excited about an upcoming thing.

Wait... what? I never even thought about Grow Up as a tower climbing simulator. Holy shirtballs...

I disagree in general, but also that Ubisoft stream was dull and I'm not sure what other emotions they were supposed to convey than indifference. There was nothing exciting. Everything was a known quantity other than the sixth FarCry game (which leaked ahead of time). Not to mention all of the stuff in the news about Ubisoft right now making everything awkward around covering their stuff.

In general though, the site's been around 12 years and they've always to some extent been how they are. They have their preferences and they aren't going to feign excitement toward something they won't likely have any interest in. I go into a reveal stream knowing that Jeff probably won't care about narrative games or most modern Nintendo stuff, two things I like a lot. That doesn't mean I don't like Jeff or think that he's being too negative. I just understand that it's not his thing. Is it frustrating that he sometimes dismisses things outright without giving them a fair shake (Outer Wilds and Life is Strange)? Yes. But he probably wouldn't like them anyway so I don't pay attention to his opinion on them. I'll pay attention to the opinions of people like Vinny or Abby instead since they both like similar games to what I like.

@one1zero0one: I actually stopped coming to Giant Bomb because it was too negative, outside of Vinny. There’s a certain “too cool for school” “everything is stupid” mentality that the site has. I homestly blame it on Jeff, which is ironic because I think Jeff makes it work. Mostly. But everyone else always feels like they are afraid to like something that Jeff doesn’t like and I have literally seen people start to say they like something until Jeff says he doesn’t in which case they suddenly do an about face. It’s a very jr. High pack mentality. I feel like Vinny is the only one with the charisma and self confidence to go against the grain and say he likes a thing others don’t. ( and not have to couch it in... “I like it... in a dumb way” or something like that.)

Eh, the number of times Jeff's been overruled during game of the year doesn't gel with the idea that people aren't willing to to contradict him.

As mush as I like Jeff G I feel like he’s overwhelming negative on most new releases over the last couple of years. I remember they kept him off the Bombcast when Red Dead 2 came out because he was so negative on it.

I don’t mind people voicing their opinions and criticisms, but at some point it just becomes taxing to listen to people be negative about everything.

Giant Bomb isn't negative. Next gen games just look uninspired as hell so far

@chaz934: I would have joined him. Rockstar games are not fun to play. RD2 is a great story wrapped around a game you could have made 10 -15 years ago.

Say what you will about the awkward control scheme and animation priority, but you could not have made RDR2 15 years ago. You had Red Dead Revolver 15 years ago - theres a stark difference between the two.

@humanity: could Final Fantasy 7 been made 20+ years ago? The spectacle of graphics was the only draw for games this entire generation. Red Dead 2 is terrible and long. Last of Us 2 was overly long with no real gameplay innovation. You can hear the deferment to Jeff for a lot of stuff but he is right 99% of the time. Jeff is what makes GiantBomb sing. Most of the time the rest of the cast don’t think things through. Jeff has the context to say that they may be misremembering facts or not realizing that a mechanic is a rehash. I bet the Dan years took a toll on Jeff. Someone actively ignorant about life in general but undoubtedly consumer incarnate. I will not be visiting the site without Jeff.

I’m so curious to watch the latest Minecraft streams. He, like me, summarily dismissed the franchise. To hear him come around on it gives me hope that maybe this game might be for me too. Instead of callling out weapons cache maybe this should be the game I play. I’ll hear him out. Who among us hasn’t dismissed roblox, were we a bit hasty. At least Jeff will own it.

@undeadscottsman: I get what you're saying, but "the staff has one chance a year they have to prepare months in advance to stand up to Jeff" isn't the best argument.

If anything I thought that they are being too positive about Ubisoft. They just keep doing that same thing over and over:

1. Establish tone by releasing gritty or silly trailers

2. Make very sure not to offend anyone by watering down the game until it's just a bland unsalted soup. Take out any part that makes any kind of statement about anything.

3. Copy/paste the todolist-simulator from previous games until it has enough activities

4. Add just enough new activities that don't work very well to mask the thing we did in 3.

I am however excited about how they are going to spin Legion in this current state of affairs. They managed to get out of the Far Cry 5 hole by making the GOOD crazy people with guns fight the BAD crazy people with guns. What are they going to do this time? Make a GOOD paramilitary organisation that you can ally with? Maybe you can team up with the London police to fight the evil guys or something.

@mrcheese: Most of giantbomb's viewership probably plays around 10 to 15 games a year (poll incoming). The ubisoft games are absolutely the games 13 year old me would want. The sprawling map, co-op, and what might consider edgy. If I had an xbox and maybe only 3 or 4 games I would only own Far Cry 3, AC:Odyssey, and The Division 2 would really cover all your bases for games inbetween fornite. You guys absolutely lack perspective. Can't wait for Far Cry 6.

@lonelyspacepanda: I mean on the other side of that argument, Neither Ninja nor Shroud were able to bring over their audiences to Mixer once they moved from Twitch. People preferred the platform in that case. Although I will agree that there is quite a big difference in personality driven content like Jim Sterling produces that tackles various topics, and Twitch style content where you watch someone play a game really well.

Also to play a bit of a devils advocate here: a lot of folks are saying that of course they weren't interested because the games were the same ol' same ol' rehashes of past franchises. This I agree with completely - I was looking forward to seeing something exciting and new and what we got was basically more of the same. That said, Trackmania 2020 is very much exactly that - it's largely the same game, with a few gameplay additions, but still terrible onboarding, bad menus, and now a completely convoluted system of simply owning the game. Despite all that Jeff couldn't be more excited for it and loves playing it. Whether something is iterative or not doesn't always weigh in on the excitement that people have for it.

All that said I'm of course not implying they should be hootin' and hollerin' at the screen or anything - and given the tone of the thread I'm almost reticent to say anything at all - but it did seem like they were a bit more tired of it all. Which all the stuff happening in the world right now is not super surprising. Hard to keep up that energy when every day is just beating you down with more dour news.

I don't think they are too negative at all, I think they are acting exactly how you would expect people to react to what is happening in the games industry and the world in right now

• Constant reskins or rehashes of the same game.
• Constant new stories about sexual inpropriety at all levels of the industry.
• Price increases incoming when games are already packed to the limits with MTX.
• Very few exciting new games in the coming months.
• Mostly stuck at home for the last 5 months.

I am feeling the exact same way as I believe GB are currently. Games currently are a shitshow. I am looking forward to the New Horizon, Cyberpunk only. I am interested in a few others but there are very few I am actually looking forward to.

Edit:

The Xbox showcase was shit, the Ubisoft showcase was shit and the EA showcase was shit. Even the Cyberpunk demonstration was disappointing.

If its this terrible, why did you come back? also have you ever heard their end of year podcasts. Jeff has been overruled a bunch of times, and i have never seen any of the GB staff stop liking a game because Jeff did not.

I also do not believe in this weird narrative where Jeff stops people from liking games. Mario Party and Majoria's Mask exist. The Last of Us exists. Red Dead 2 exists. I could go on for days about games that Jeff is not fond of, but people liked.

This thread has become a place where some folks write their dystopian fan fic about the Giant Bomb work environment.

Not negative enough!

Oh, the energy from the crew was about as muted as the games Ubi showed, I think we can all agree more about that. Perceiving that as neutral is valid, and I see why some perceived not very positive as negative. Whether it's because of a change in their personalities or because nothing genuinely grabbed anyone is harder to say, but I think it's much more likely the latter based on the very positive PS5 stream reactions recently.

I will say about the thread: I disagree with those saying the crews are too negative, but those folks haven't once asked for them to turn into mindless, nodding zombies or overenthusiastic influencers at all; it's a bit rude to reply to them in that kind of way. They're just saying it's too negative for them now -- whatever that definition means for them -- I think, which is fine, and fine to disagree with, too.

I hate talking about people like this when they're not directly conversing with me, but I will say I think Jeff has been much more neutral about critiquing games he really doesn't like in recent years. Just to counter a couple comments that said they think a more negative side is more prevelant now. I think indifference can seem very negative, though. It's a fine line on the emotion wheel when you think about it.

Nope

In my opininon, Ubisoft is the worst game brand. I dont remember last ubisoft game that I liked.

There is something offputing in their open worlds game design. Its hard to explain but whatever comes from Ubisoft just feel soulless and cheap to me.

Regards GiantBomb I respect them for being real and not scared to say what they think.

The latest Ubisoft games I enjoyed were Rayman and Child of Light. They should make more small-ish games IMHO.

@kopcik: It kills me that people celebrate a game like Breath of the Wild which is so plain looking with no compelling anything. At least with something like Far Cry 5 you have some semblance of telling a unique story. Whether or not you feel like you're too sophisticated for the conversations FC5 is attempting to have and they're beneath you at least it's challenging you to think. There's collectibles, audio logs, and just adult dialogue. I'm sure whatever netflix show you binge for 12 seasons has some amazing writing that keeps you glued to your couch for years clamoring for the next morsel of quippy dialogue that makes you super quotable around the water cooler. Ubisoft at least puts out games that are challenging to someone other than 12 year olds..

@fourthline: You don't have to insult people just to get your point across.

@quasiconundrum: I don't think he's doing that. I think he just likes to dig himself a grave and waits for people to push him into it.

@fourthline: I would love to be 12 years old again, and Bing tv shows, unfortunately I'm 36 old and in my spare time I study towards my ccnp cert.

I fell bad for your judgmental aproach on people you never meet.

I Still feel Ubisoft games are shallow, including far cry 5.

It's just my opinion dude.

@fourthline: I played and enjoyed Far Cry 5, and if that cliche romp challenged you, good on you, but lets not pretend it was some underground philosophical masterpiece.

@fourthline: Huh, if only someone on the site had a reasonable negative opinion of BotW. oh wait...

Really though, you're coming off as, "I wish their opinions were more like mine!" Everybody has their own tastes and every great game has its flaws. GB is pretty good at pointing out those flaws even if they love a game. Kinda their job.

Wait, you mean to tell me that Ubisoft is not absolutely the game developer you come to for world context and events?

@robertorri: I don't go to any game developer for world context or events. Especially not ones made by committee.

I'm here because Giant Bomb loosely aligns with my expectations for games.

Lately Giant Bomb is even more aligned with my expectations for the industry as a whole, and the companies that pervade it.

One thing I find a nuisance is negativity without justification. I do not feel that Giant Bomb does that. Nor do I feel that they are bummed out and unable to enjoy video games when they're done well.

I think everyone right now is in a weird headspace, a bit burnt out. So take that into account.

And for the record, if we're talking Ubisoft, THEY created a shadow of negativity to begin with, and their messaging with their games year after year has become tiresome. Tone of content right now is everything, and I can't say they struck that balance. They put themselves in that position by co-opting historical and current events as a part of their narrative, so they deserve the criticism.

Jesus Christ, this thread. GB isn't a news site, it's a massive op-ed. You're here for the personalities and the takes. If you're not, maybe the site has left behind what you need. And that's okay! There's a wealth of videos and podcasts here. Pick and choose what you like, and also feel free to criticize what you don't like. But don't act like these guys aren't allowed to express their sincere opinions.

And with regards to Jeff's increased pessimism, well, he was always this way, as many of us are. But also, he is raising a tiny child during a fucking pandemic. As someone attempting to safely raise two very small children right now, I can tell you that I've never been more negative in my life. If extreme negativity was ever justified, it's right now. Also, these conference videos suck ass. I've never been less excited for a new console cycle either. Shit sucks.

@fourthline: Far Cry 5 is one of the only video game stories to actively make me angry, it is such unbelievable trash.

Hey now, I would have never known Bolivia was an unstable narco-state if it wasn't for Ghost Recon Wildlands.

No Netflix obsessed children allowed only Discerning Adults.