He was a game-reviewin' man.
Game development consultant firm Vertical Slice claims to have come up with a system that can predict how a game will be reviewed and received well in advance of the game’s release. The machines are trying to put me out of a job. The first thing that came to my mind was a game critic John Henry who works himself literally to death trying to review games better (whatever that means) than the soulless, more efficient steam-reviewer.
Vertical Slice’s project director Graham McAllister wants to assure me that replacing the game critics isn’t what Vertical Slice is about. He thinks their system will operate more like a compass to help guide developers to more favorable responses from gameplay testers in the very early stages of a game’s development. They look hundreds of reviews for games, and catalogue certain key phrases and sentiments expressed by reviewers. When testers start saying the same sorts of things about the core gameplay of an unfinished game, Vertical Slice says it can predict to an extent how the game will end up being received a year down the road. Biometrics also get put into play to measure a tester’s heart rate and skin responses in order to indicate levels of fright or excitement.
Somehow their numbers get crunched into broad categories for how a game is likely to do with the critics, and Vertical Slice seeks to help developers toward games that will fall into more favorable ones. My first reaction was that it seems unfair to try to judge quality on an unfinished game, but if Vertical Slice really has found a way to distill a game down to its essence and predict whether or not people will find it fun, it’s hard to argue with their results. McAllister likens it to a famous marriage counselor who could tell from the first five minutes with a couple whether or not they’d still be together in five years.
A reviewer-assigned score would seem to be pretty redundant if consumers were already aware of how the game tested with Vertical Slice, and Vertical Slice is within 10 points of Metacritic every single time, only months in advance. This also brings to mind the philosophical debate about just how appropriate and useful game review scores are anyway. Obviously, this prediction system can’t replicate the insightful and detailed prose of reviewers, but it can draw certain basic cues. I know a lot of folks out there decide whether or not to buy a game using a quick glance at the review scores it gets, but there will always be a market (I hope) for entertaining mini-essays that appeal to nerds like me.
If not, then we’re already at war with the machines. Viva la resistance.
(From Eurogamer via The Escapist)
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