Entry #3 Delusional Success

 Imagine Games Network, otherwise known as IGN, is a gaming journalism website. One that has been coming into a lot of backlash with how they have been reviewing games recently. A great example of this would be with the recent release of Ubisoft’s newest game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. A video game series that was known for being faithful to the culture and history of the time period they are portraying. While taking some liberty to create their own story with events that never happened.

The IGN article “Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hits 2 Million Players 2 Days After Release, Ubisoft Says It’s Now Surpassed Origins and Odyssey Launches” written by Wesley Yin-Poole, states that “It has a ‘very positive’ user review rating, with 81% of over 6,000 user reviews marked as positive.” Though he fails to mention that Steam will only show reviews from consumers who have bought the game directly from their store page. Not to mention that this is only 10% of the current player base on the Steam platform.

It is even harder to prove if this game hit two million plays collectively on all platforms. Those being: Xbox, PlayStation, and game launchers on PC. Since both Xbox and PlayStation actively hide the player count from their consumers. It’s good to know that even Yin-Pool is aware of this: “Neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public.” Always be skeptical of claims made by big video companies, especially Ubisoft, that are steadily declining in quality. 

This is further emphasized when Yin-Pool only compares this game to other Assassin’s Creed games. As he states, “For comparison, Origins’ all-time Steam peak was 41,551, over seven years ago, and Odyssey’s was 62,069. It seems likely Shadows will become the most-played game on Steam later this weekend.” This makes it seem like they are hiding the colossal sales failure of the game. Instead, they should be telling the audience how ill-received the game has been. This can be proven by showing the player count of games similar to open-world games. Games like Monster Hunter Wilds, Cyberpunk 2077, and Black Myth: Wukong, which on release, player count blows Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s out of the competition. These three games had more than one million players on their respective release dates on the Steam platform alone.

In this day and age, only the consumer has the real power to truly review a game. Compare games to one another to see why one succeeds over the others. Consumers are the only ones who can truly say whether they like a product or not. Always be skeptical of journalists and check their information for any bias.