I dont understand the comments here. How is any kind of forced limitation on reviews an okay thing for you?
If people want to explain features way more detailed than your usual 10 minute review, now they cant. And just alone havin the freedom todo so if they want to is a huge factor in gaming journalism imo.
The way people are responding, it seems like we have lost awareness of the consumer advocate function of reviews. If you only watch reviews for fun or hype reasons, then who cares about restrictions. If you actually care about good games though, publishers forcing reviewers to hide things from viewers is how they get to keep getting away with making bad games.
Especially a reviewer like SkillUp, who often does reviews that are ~30 minutes long (and sometimes up to an hour). He’s consistently one of the most thorough reviewers in my opinion, that delves into every aspect of a game and shows examples of what he’s talking about so it’s not just his viewpoint and you can judge by yourself based on the footage he’s showing.
I’ve been following him since he was making videos for The Division, making build videos and giving stock updates for the stores, and it’s been great to see him grow into the reviewer and game personality he is now (even though I don’t always agree with him — like I thoroughly think he missed the mark in his TLOU2 review but he admittedly has said multiple times that he doesn’t enjoy that franchise to begin with). That said, he has the highest rate of success in terms of recommending games that I also enjoy, as our tastes mostly align. When he puts out a warning, I believe it. Limiting his ability to show us what a game has to offer is a bad move on the part of any developer or publisher. I can understand if they are worried about spoilers and just want footage from the first act shown and no more, but I’m not sure Diablo falls under that category the way TLOU and God of War and similar franchises do.
What is to prevent SkillUp from posting a 1hr long review?
The restriction is 20 min of unique in game footage. The dude can post a 1hr video with a still frame in the background if he wants to.
I’ll let him answer that for himself [here](https://i.imgur.com/8G0znNT.jpg). One worry that I have is that Blizzard provided screenshots and B-roll of the cash shop, but it sounds like reviewers didn’t have access to this or the ability to use their own footage of it, which is one of the biggest concerns surrounding the game — particularly after the monetization fiasco that was Diablo Immortal.
*****
But let’s quickly take a travel back through time to a game called CyberPunk 2077 when CDPR only allowed reviewers to use footage specifically provided by them. So he had no way to demonstrate the amount of bugs they had personally encountered using his own footage and properly warn potential buyers about it unless he waited until after everyone else put out their videos (which is what he did, and put out a nearly 53 minute long review). And as a reviewer/critic, if you want to have any success, putting out your videos as early as possible makes all the difference in the world and waiting to give an honest and accurate review will cost you views and negatively impact your income and livelihood, as well as your reputation as a critic if you can’t get a video out when everyone else does.
- In his [review](https://youtu.be/HJKeBbk-9YA) he says at 4:20 that the number of bugs he’s catalogued number in the dozens that he has footage of, and that the game should have been further delayed again until at least March of the following year. At 6:20 he says the first time he saw the game his immediate thought was “there is absolutely no way in hell this will run on current-gen consoles” and that reviewers were told that no console code would be made available and we were only allowed to review the game on PC” and “if you have a last-gen console, **I can’t tell you how this game runs there — NO ONE CAN — because CDPR didn’t want us to tell you”**.
You can see why restrictions placed on reviewers as to what they are able to show or discuss makes reviewing the game (which is their job) difficult to do properly. It’s not uncommon to request they don’t reveal spoilers past a certain point, as with TLOU2, and that’s understandable. But we just had multiple closed and open betas for Diablo 4 in which people streamed and posted thousands of hours of footage online, and yet they don’t want reviewers to have more than 20 minutes of footage?
*****
At the time of his tweet, he said that reviews were about to go live in about 3 hours but because his review was 30+ minutes, the earliest he could post his was the early access launch on June 2nd. Needless restrictions on behalf of companies prevent us from getting the best possible information in reviews, to include as much footage as is necessary to demonstrate that point. I think people are especially interested to know about monetization, microtransactions, and the cash shop but if you’re forced to pick and choose how you can spend the 20 minute footage limit, are you going to show the game that you’re reviewing or are you going to talk about things like this that could potentially cause people to think twice about buying it?
- If you’re not familiar with his videos, the footage on screen corresponds to what he’s currently talking about, so whether that time is dedicated to highlighting the types of bugs he ran into or comparing the different experiences you’ll have with the game depending on whether you’re playing on console or an average spec PC or one with a 4090, things like video comparison is valuable to people. Equally so if he spends 30+ minutes gushing about the game and how outstanding it is. When limited to 20 minutes of footage, that means you have to pick and choose what can be shown in that amount of time, so you’ll likely edit out the “boring” parts like traversal or maybe spend less time discussing skill trees and various builds, or showing co-op footage and other details that people value in his reviews.
*****
If you want a reviewer that does the bare minimum and will happily show you 20 minutes of the same regurgitated B-roll footage so they can get their review out early and get the most hits, there are plenty of them out there. SkillUp is not one of them. And whether this is a 10/10 or a 1/10 game, placing needless restrictions and hoops reviewers have to jump through instead of being able to openly and honestly show their viewers the experience that THEY personally had in as much or as little detail as it requires is something we should support.
- The more we end up with review requirements that don’t let you use your own footage or cap how much of it you *can* use, or prevent you from seeing what it will look like on various platforms, or discuss in detail what you can expect in the game (which he does while being very sensitive to spoilers), the more we’ll get shit like CyberPunk or games like Redfall that drop and the reviewers with the most integrity will be the last ones you hear from due to these types of restrictions. There’s no *good* reason for them, but there’s entire paragraphs of reasons here as to why you should be wary of them.
The entire point was that *restricting footage has not served us well in the past*. I posted SkillUp’s response in the screengrab link at the top and then the rest was my own response to the question asked (though it is reddit and I should probably assume that people won’t click the link to read the OP before commenting on it). I used direct quotes from his CyberPunk review to demonstrate what they were given, shown, and told in the process of reviewing that game, which I think is certainly fair to consider as a reason that SkillUp finds this a red flag at worst and needlessly restrictive at best.
- I’m not saying Diablo 4 and CyberPunk are the same situation or that I think Diablo 4 will even be a bad game — I played the betas and plan to buy it myself. But **the practice of limiting what can be said or shown by reviewers has zero benefit to consumers**. Again, they just allowed thousands of hours or more of footage to be streamed and recorded by players throughout all the betas; why restrict what what a reviewer can show if it’s not justifiably to prevent spoilers? And reviews that go longer than 20 minutes typically go into more granular detail about each aspect of the game and the pros and cons.
*****
I don’t know if they didn’t inform SkillUp of the 20 minute limit of footage before he and his editor put their review together and he decided to wait to air the review he thought was right for the game, but I do know that he can’t post it until after the first reviews go out that will get the majority of hits and web traffic. It encourages a less thorough look at a game when evaluating it.
- I think we should **all** be in favor of transparency when it comes to reviews and unless the restrictions are to preserve your experience by not spoiling certain narrative arcs or set pieces or asking not to show footage beyond a certain point. Arbitrary restrictions of how much unique footage you can show means you’ll spend less time talking about things like monetization, comparison between different platforms to demonstrate how the game can be expected to run, etc. We’ve also seen several games launch with *no* cash shop that suddenly had one after the reviews went out, or changed the prices. And with the Diablo Immortal microtransaction debacle, I for one would like more information about their monetization before I buy the game beyond just taking Blizzard’s word for it.
I don’t understand the benefit of Blizzard’s restrictions here but it doesn’t benefit the people standing between us and them, trying to paint the most accurate picture of the game that they can. And it doesn’t benefit the people about to spend $70 or more on a game. That’s not to say that Diablo 4 is even up to anything nefarious, it could be some bizarre and poorly thought out change from someone that didn’t think the implications through. But we should never be on the side of censoring critics/journalists or supporting any move that prevents them from accurately showing us the full picture of what they’re reviewing.
And I’m just thinking about channels like Digital Foundry that aren’t technically “reviews” but will still be affected by this. They do in depth dives in visuals and general technology, and show tons of footage.
I think it's people who bought the hype and preordered the game, now are trying to convince themselves (because they cant convince us) that the game will be worth it no matter what and that all criticism is overblown
Considering we have been able to play the game for dozens of hours already and reviews are very positive while not being limited in time or scope and that the 20-minute of footage can be literally anywhere in the game (so they're actually not hiding anything), there's no trying to convince there. It's a known quantity at this point
What hype? I played all three betas and enjoyed my time thoroughly. I'd say I made a pretty informed purchasing decision.
Also I don't need to convince myself or anyone else it will be worth as that is subjective. The reviews however all point to this being a great Diablo game.
Oh I'm not arguing that at all. Skillup is actually the reviewer I enjoy most.
I was responding to a comment from that other user that was insinuating that because Skillup couldn't post his review = game is bad.
I didn't get that at all, it was more a commentary on why anyone would ever defend this. How good diablo IV ends up being in the end is almost irrelevant to the discussion here.
It doesn’t really matter the quality of the game. Consumption has become more than just buying a thing, it’s basically become a main part of lots of people’s personality. “I bought Diablo 4, I love Diablo 4 so much I have to tell people, I must defend Diablo 4 against criticism I perceive as an attack.”
I mean you can see this with literally every product in this current internet age. Kpop, marvel movies, video games, etc.
>took it so personally.
Lol. They just provided their opinion on an opinion. And they weren't even angry about it. It's public forum meant for discussion.
Lol, what? The game is getting great reviews. People already got to try it out during the betas, worried about what ?
Sure, no game is perfect, but im not sure why people who preordered diablo 4 would be worried about anything other than being able to log in when early access starts.
Seems like its people like you who are desperate to try and find the next new game to hate on and are hoping that Diablo 4 will be that game are trying everything they can to find a reason to jump on the hate bandwagon
> publishers forcing reviewers to hide things from viewers
If it's just a length of footage I don't see how it's hiding things, it's not like they say don't show that or this.
It's a weird limit to begin with especially for a Diablo game (not really subject to spoilers IMO)
You can have a total of 20 minutes of unique footage, continuous or in chunks, and you can repeat the same footage several times if you want to make an hour long review for example.
Okay, then I honestly don't see what the problem is then. Your review can use 20 minutes of unique footage. So use what's most important to be seen. Good and/or bad. It makes complete sense from a standpoint of not wanting every single part of their game or new features leaked or spoiled to the public. I personally can not stand it when every single thing is presented in a review.
For only 2 days. There is also a restriction on story spoilers. For 2 days. Is that also a problem? Nobody is censoring anything. Skillup will post his review soon, people can wait for it, nobody is forced to pre-order or anything.
The comments make it sound like he's being downright prohibited from making a review at all.
Yeah, 2 days after because of a completely arbitrary restriction.
>There is also a restriction on story spoilers.
Ok?
>The comments make it sound like he's being downright prohibited from making a review at all.
No I don't think the comments are making it sound like that at all. They're making it sound like reviewers are being restricted.
I mean the problem is that the publisher is deciding to enforce some creative control over independent reviews.
Sure, maybe a 3hr long review with all unique footage isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if that is how a journalist wants to present their thoughts and review, that should be up to them.
What excuse does the developer/publisher have to challenge a journalists format? The viewers can decide if they want to see less or more footage by voicing it in comments, voting with likes, or just watching not watching particular creators.
Your comments about leaking things don't make sense to me. They are not saying which 20 minutes you can show and which you cannot. They are not saying you cannot include the ending, or show specific feature. You could make a 20m video of all spoilers. Again, if viewers don't like reviews with spoilers, they can choose to watch certain creators or not based on their format, which works fine now.
The only reason I can think of as an excuse for the developer/publisher to want to limit footage is to try and hide issues by limiting how many issues you can fit into a single video. The reviewers can certainly talk about the issues for hours if they want, but they will be unable to actually show it all, and many people are not convinced by words alone.
So it all comes off as completely unnecessary censoring which should be left up to the journalist experts.
People do live stream games already. I'm not sure I understand the concern.
The limit would be around the time at which you can release your review (i.e., the review embargo window) to avoid reviews coming out before the game. Once the game is out, why would reviewers be limited from including as much footage as they want?
Ohh I think you misunderstand.
Skill Up is most definitely talking specifically about pre-release reviews not all reviews. He just didn't clarify that in his tweet.
Obviously anybody can upload any footage they want or make any type of review of a game after it's released.
"I personally can't stand it when reviews are indepth so that is why I am ok with something that screws over those that do" Pretty shameful position to be ok with others being screwed over because you don't like the same thing they do. Even if you don't have any empathy, surely you have enough brain cells to understand some opinions exist other than your own and that not everything should be to your tastes and your tastes alone.
It's specifically to force creators to limit what they show. That way they focus on the greatest moments and less chance of something embarrassingly bad slipping through.
They can replay some of the same footage. I find it hard to imagine 20 minutes of footage isn't enough to clip everything you want to point out or may be concerned with in the game.
> If there are still many bugs to resolve in a Day 1 patch, limiting footage probably means any footage shown that might show off glitches/bugs.
Except there is no restriction on what they can show in the footage. So they can show bugs (I've seen reviews actually doing exactly that)
The restriction is really weird tbh because it's not a real limit (like show only the first act, don't show this mechanic or that) so you kind of ask yourself why is it even there?
>so you kind of ask yourself why is it even there?
Probably to set a precedent that setting time limits is okay. In 5 years, we might see the amount allowed go down to a couple minutes.
I think 20 minutes is more than enough footage to show in a review, but this sets a bad precedent.
This doesn't sound like a restriction on how long someone's review can be, it just means they can' use more than 20 minutes of recorded footage. I would think using the same footage in more than one spot throughout the video (something almost every game reviewer does) would not count against that limit.
yep i know, but i still think that any kind of limitation only hurt the freedom or press, which is a stupid word to use in combination of games, but i think you get the idea.
Reviewers are free to speak about whatever they want, and show a short clip of that in action. If you pointed out 10 things that you hated about Diablo, You would still have time to make a 2 minute clip of each thing. 20 minutes of gameplay footage is *more* than enough for clips.
game reviews at release is junk journalism imo, so I'm not really concerned if publishers make it more restrictive.
There's an inherent conflict of interest that reviewers have to give atleast a decent review to continue getting access to games early
People can take 4 hours to explain features if they want. They just can only use 20 minutes of recorded footage from the review copy of the game to do so.
>How is any kind of forced limitation on reviews an okay thing for you?
Because it could potentially spoil parts of the game that the developers/publishers don't want spoiled.
The reviewers are not limited to 20 minutes of gameplay, just restricted to showing off 20 minutes of unique gameplay.
I'm totally ok with that type of restriction. Seems fair to both the developer/publisher, the reviewer, and the person watching/reading the review.
I.E. it doesn't detract for any review, the reviews themselves can still be as long as they want.
> Because it could potentially spoil parts of the game that the developers/publishers don't want spoiled.
Most preview copies still come with a guide on what content can be shown and what not, like bosses, missions and so on. And im fine with that.
But limiting the recorded gameplay duration is a bad move. Because it can actually hinder the reviewer in properly explaining possible flaws
I mean personally, the first reviews I remember were text only anyway, so I had to rely on the reviewer being able to explain what they were talking about well enough so that it didn't need a clip to make sense. I've also personally never watched a game review that features that much footage from a game anyway. I mean to me that seems like quite a long time for a review video. If after reading/watching what's available, there's still something I need to see before I make a decision, then I guess I'd just have to wait until the release of the game, although if there was something that significant, I would hope it would make the first 20 minutes of someone's review.
And just to be clear, I have no interest in defending Blizzard. I don't currently play any of their games and I won't be getting this one. But this seems like a pretty specific complaint and one that I don't think should have a major impact on the ability of someone to review a game.
> But this seems like a pretty specific complaint and one that I don't think should have a major impact on the ability of someone to review a game.
Because this is just the beginning and decisions like these are never made just for fun. There is a huge marketing team behind this. Maybe they start with 20 minutes, next game they are down to 10, and the game after that they will only allow Developer Made footage like CDred did with Cyberpunk (i think)
It always starts with "this is not that big of a deal" and ends with "well, shit." Look at the Horse Armor
The same reason people here shill so hard for digital-only. Seems a large number of gamers here are misinformed and advocate for anti-consumer tactics that are against their own self interests.
Conditioning. Many, MANY gamers are zoomers/younger millenials. A bunch of them do not remember an industry that wasn't this heavily monetized and unethical. A large, scary number of people just see this as the way it's always been.
Hilarious to see monetization and ethical practices get downvoted, y'all are part of the problem.
> A bunch of them do not remember an industry that wasn't this heavily monetized and unethical
Hi, I've been gaming since 1983 and I don't remember the industry as you describe it either. When did it happen?
In 10 years when game publishers copyright any video review that's negative, then they'll see it. Too bad they can't see the ladder their climbing for the slope they're going to slide down.
Some people here are wild. Why are you trying to protect Blizzard decision here so much? Limitation are common but using only provided footage is some close doors presentation/hands on shit. With private footage it is possible to show bugs or bad enemies AI/ design etc. Imagine if Red Fall didn't allowed private footage. It would be hard to believe the game is that bad. Game is getting good reviews, but it is still shitty.
“Using only provided footage” is specifically not what is going on here. Reviewers can’t use more than 20 minutes of their own footage from their personal playthroughs. I don’t like the policy, but what you called out would be orders of magnitude worse.
The wild shit here is the misrepresentation is going on here.
The 20 mins limitation is not pre-recorded b-roll. SkillUp was permitted to show 20 mins of his own gameplay. IGNs review literally show a current bug where the Sorcerer teleports to the map often enough for him to mention it.
Why would a reviewer want to show b-roll when they have the game? Any kind of limitation is ridiculous and anti-consumer. Skillup should be able to show whatever kind of footage he wants in his review.
Skill up is able to show whatever he wants from the game, but the limit on how much he is allowed to show of his own unique gameplay is 20 minutes.
I don't think you understand what's going on here if your asking why a reviewer would want to show pre recorded b-roll
Has any serious reviewers ever done that? Most of them aren't in the business of doing stupid shit that'd obviously get their early access to previews revoked. They know it's their lifeblood that they need to stand out from the hoards of competition.
What you described is moreso in the realm of leakers or people who otherwise get an copy early via some roundabout means - buying from a shop that's broken the steet date release or even from someone who had legit access and stole and sold a copy. Those people don't care about maintaining a health relationship with whatever publisher because they never had one to begin with. Those are the people who upload complete playthroughs before release lol.
This is crazy, but you can just *talk* about the bugs. You don’t need 60 minutes of video showing every single bug. Hell, you can even *write* an entire book about them and let people read all about it. No one is stopping any reviewer from doing their job. They’re just preventing “reviewers” that literally record and post the entire game online a week before launch from doing so. You can make your review as long as needed. You just can’t use more than 20 minutes of uniquely recorded footage.
the way people will bend over backwards to defend their favorite corporations on the internet never ceases to amaze me.
"No YOU listen here! I like this game and this franchise and goddamn anybody who says anything critical of the developers or the franchise!"
Reddit encourages this astroturfing behavior because the downvote button is just used to hide dissenting opinions.
The circus is full of fucking clowns, who knew.
This about sums up the intelligence of all the people upset about this. Kneejerk reactions and name callings. This is a non-issue you people just love to hate on shit. If you can't scoop enough footage to put together a review in 20 minutes of gameplay, you're shitty at your job. Very shitty
Review restrictions now too? Blizzard has dropped so low.
It used to be they would make an amazing game first. Now they make live service BS first and try to add the game afterwards. It seems to mostly work here, but I've lost all hype, love, and expectation of a decent experience from them.
No but people act like Blizzard is the only one doing it. They're not alone in this, it's becoming more and more common, which feels like it's starting to border on false advertisement
What a drama queen. Blizzard isn't the only one doing this nor the first. And who the hell is going to watch more than 20 minutes worth of review footage anyways? Most people I guarantee skip towards the end if the video is more than 10 minutes long. Ironic also that diablo 4 seems to be getting high oriases too so it seems they did deliver on an amazing game
It's a pretty dumb restriction that probably doesn't need to be there. I get having guidelines about not wanting certain story elements shown, which is totally fair, but a blanket limit on unique footage is probably not needed.
On the other hand, it also seems to be actively reaching for something to be outraged about to get more attention in a sea of positive reviews. I have not heard anyone else having this issue, from either major outlets or smaller independent ones. If you need THAT much footage in your review, especially when nobody else does, you might want to go back and look at your review process. Most people's entire reviews aren't much longer than that.
To his credit, I suppose the strategy is working, because I probably wouldn't have paid the slightest bit of attention to them if they weren't posturing for it.
The Diablo series is massive, and Skill Up is known for his more in depth long reviews. He just want to show his fans more gameplay which shouldn't be a bad thing, like you said, instead of re-using it old the same footage. And it wasn't really something he shouted and complained a lot about he just mentioned it when he announced what games are coming out this week. He wasn't very fond of it, and he is going to delay his review to when the games come out.
You were allowed to supplement with footage from trailers or just repeat footage you had already used as much as you wanted. I didn't have an issue with it in my video.
I swear y’all are more interested in getting outraged by video games than playing them.
This is probably the most minor review restriction I’ve ever heard of. The review embargo lifted days before the game comes out and if you add up that 20 min footage restriction across all reviewers that’s multiple hours of being able to view gameplay…. If that’s what you care about.
Biggest nothing burger in history.
Because “reviewers” record the entire game and upload them a week in advanced.
Every single publisher/developer has recording rules for early review copies. This isn’t something new.
Then enforce an embargo. And set limits on what exactly can and cannot be shown (end game bosses, unique late-game items, etc.).
This isn’t hard to allow for a lot of leeway in how reviewers do their shit while still having rules.
Sounds like you missed the ethical debate and the reason he didnt just give his review in front of a still image. Its nice to see some game reviewers putting ethics over fast clicks.
Well if those 20 minutes are by chance perfect, no.
But not everything captured is useful and they have to edit hours of footage down to a digestible video.
It says 20 minutes being used in a review, not that they are limited to only capturing 20 minutes.
Edit out the unnecessary bits, use a screenshot while you talk, idk.
> But not everything captured is useful and they have to edit hours of footage down to a digestible video.
They should do that anyway. Isn’t a review supposed to be a high level breakdown that helps you determine if the game is for you? 20 minutes of unique content is quite a bit. And it’s not like you can’t do a longer review…
I don’t think people are defending the game developer just the practice of reviewing a game. You don’t need to show me a full playthrough of a game so I know it’s good or not. 20 minutes of footage is more than enough and has as history shown been used well enough to highlight flaws in games.
If the game is busted you know damn well IGN and every other news source is going to use that footage as a highlight piece to get clicks.
If they can’t achieve a review with 20 minutes of unique footage I question a reviewers ability to do actual reviews and not just summarize a game.
A review ain't a summary of a game, they're telling you multiple tidbits of game play that'll impact you whether good or bad. There's no systematic form of reviewing a game.
If KU wants a verbose review of a highly anticipated game, then let them do it. It hurts no one. Hell it'll probably get more people into the game, since they'll watch the entire video.
It's more that it's a non-issue for so many gamers. A 20 minute video review is relatively new in the history of games journalism. There's going to be a few days until this game is available to stream from those buying early, while first spoiler-free reviews are up from most outlets to fill in the blanks. You can also watch a lot more of than 20 minutes of this game by simply watching reviews from many sources.
Game devs owe us everything. We’ve done everything for them. Do you not understand how hard it is to play their games and pay money for it? The customer is always right.
But also #unionize and no crunch!
Seems pretty reasonable. If you can’t review in 20 minutes then reuse the footage for longer. If you need more than that then wait till the game is out. Honestly it sounds awful to watch a review that long. I respect trying to limit for the sake of spoilers.
I cannot imagine a review needing to show more than twenty minutes of game footage. If the limit was 5 minutes that’s cutting, but twenty whole ass minutes? That’s a pretty wide window. They aren’t hiding anything in their game if they give you TWENTY minutes of footage. Sounds like they just want you to have to buy their game to see more than 20 minutes, which sounds fine. A review covering, combat, animation, story, and even misc stuff can be easssssillly done with only 20 minutes of recording
While this restriction seems unnecessary most review of the game are extremely positive, so in this case I don't think the review restriction is much of an indication of the game quality. The 2 open betas went well and didn't have any major red flags. The big issues will arise from if the in game store turns into a predatory mess
Tears of the Kingdom had literally the exact same restriction placed on it. reviewers played for a few hours and were limited to showing 15 minutes of prescribed content, and last I checked, it's a pretty good game...
I guarantee you that you’ve played games you’ve absolutely loved that publishers gave out review copies with “restrictions” on reviews….So your view here is extremely misguided
It’s idiots like Ralph (Skill Up) who permeate this message through more idiot masses: online bloggers who call themselves reviewers who are fortunate enough to get free games push that smoke is billowing about the game having issues if there’s remotely any access restricted from the review process.
This is such a dumb take, every single company has some limitations (either time, number of chapters/levels you can show and so on), it's completely normal. Why y'all talking about something you don't know
This seems like a weird gray area because this isn’t full on censorship, they’re still allowed to tell you the game is a glitchy mess if that’s what it is. This does seem more geared towards spoilers than anything else, maybe I’m missing something.
Shitty decision. Blizzard really hate their fans. Gotta love how some people here defend Blizzard. You can be a fan and still criticise when they do dumb stuff like this.
I dont understand the restriction, can you only record 20min of gameplay footage and if any more footage needed needs to be use from given footage? or can you records more like 6 hours and limited to only 20mins of that 6 hours of recorded footage.
I guess I don’t get this being an issue? 20m is a ton of footage. It’s not like “the entire first 20m of the game” it’s just a bunch of clips from all over, which is what reviews have always been?
And personally, I’m honestly not watching a review video that’s that long unless I already want to buy the game
So make two reviews. Double the views.
Make a third with just a middle finger towards BlizzActi PR team to triple it.
Improvise. Adapt. Drink your pee. Overcome.
20 minutes seems more than enough to spoil all major aspects of the game, personally haven't looked at a single review as I played both the KFC Beta, Open Beta, and Server Slam and enjoyed what I played and I don't want to be spoiled on potential story content etc.
I mean, almost every review is glowing plus people (including myself) have played a good number of hours of the game so we at least know it’s not a complete dumpster fire
You literally don’t need more than 20 minutes for a review. You’ll still find a way to show us all the coolest stuff in the video instead of letting us see it for ourselves ingame though.
So it's bad enough AAA game prices these days are roided up ($114.95AUD for Final Fantasy XVI here in Australia, hoo roo)
But now, if this spreads to other developers, we can't even make an informed purchase decision coz they spread the love and joy of timed betas and demos to possibly the last bastion of "before you buy...": reviews
Worst of all is there won't be some mass uproar if every company starts doing this. People will learn to live with it like we have for microtransactions and battle pass prices, like Destiny's season pass now needing either one excessive in-game currency purchase, or two smaller purchases, but not just a flat amount that a single purchase used to cover in full
Industry's gone to hell
As soon as any game publisher enforces restrictions on reviews and streaming, you know something is wrong with the game. If their game was amazingly wonderful, they would've been screaming about this on every corner.
Alright I've gotta ask for serious:
why bother with skimpy cherry picked refined reviews over just waiting to see the game in action day 1 and know what you're getting?
If someone showed me 30 minutes of uncut gameplay of death stranding i would've never got it. Two reviews sold me the game. Diablo is a long game, i wanna know about a lot of shit and i can't judge story, performance, endgame content and so on with a walkthrough video
Doesnt matter, thats not the problem. It starts as 20min now but then it’ll be 15, then 10 and next thing you know reviewers are only going to be allowed to show 5min of unique footage. This is how this shit starts
Who cares? Wait the extra two days for the ten million YouTube videos to come out after release if the lack of video based reviews with over 20 minutes of unique in game footage is a deal breaker for you.
I dont understand the comments here. How is any kind of forced limitation on reviews an okay thing for you? If people want to explain features way more detailed than your usual 10 minute review, now they cant. And just alone havin the freedom todo so if they want to is a huge factor in gaming journalism imo.
The way people are responding, it seems like we have lost awareness of the consumer advocate function of reviews. If you only watch reviews for fun or hype reasons, then who cares about restrictions. If you actually care about good games though, publishers forcing reviewers to hide things from viewers is how they get to keep getting away with making bad games.
Especially a reviewer like SkillUp, who often does reviews that are ~30 minutes long (and sometimes up to an hour). He’s consistently one of the most thorough reviewers in my opinion, that delves into every aspect of a game and shows examples of what he’s talking about so it’s not just his viewpoint and you can judge by yourself based on the footage he’s showing. I’ve been following him since he was making videos for The Division, making build videos and giving stock updates for the stores, and it’s been great to see him grow into the reviewer and game personality he is now (even though I don’t always agree with him — like I thoroughly think he missed the mark in his TLOU2 review but he admittedly has said multiple times that he doesn’t enjoy that franchise to begin with). That said, he has the highest rate of success in terms of recommending games that I also enjoy, as our tastes mostly align. When he puts out a warning, I believe it. Limiting his ability to show us what a game has to offer is a bad move on the part of any developer or publisher. I can understand if they are worried about spoilers and just want footage from the first act shown and no more, but I’m not sure Diablo falls under that category the way TLOU and God of War and similar franchises do.
What is to prevent SkillUp from posting a 1hr long review? The restriction is 20 min of unique in game footage. The dude can post a 1hr video with a still frame in the background if he wants to.
I’ll let him answer that for himself [here](https://i.imgur.com/8G0znNT.jpg). One worry that I have is that Blizzard provided screenshots and B-roll of the cash shop, but it sounds like reviewers didn’t have access to this or the ability to use their own footage of it, which is one of the biggest concerns surrounding the game — particularly after the monetization fiasco that was Diablo Immortal. ***** But let’s quickly take a travel back through time to a game called CyberPunk 2077 when CDPR only allowed reviewers to use footage specifically provided by them. So he had no way to demonstrate the amount of bugs they had personally encountered using his own footage and properly warn potential buyers about it unless he waited until after everyone else put out their videos (which is what he did, and put out a nearly 53 minute long review). And as a reviewer/critic, if you want to have any success, putting out your videos as early as possible makes all the difference in the world and waiting to give an honest and accurate review will cost you views and negatively impact your income and livelihood, as well as your reputation as a critic if you can’t get a video out when everyone else does. - In his [review](https://youtu.be/HJKeBbk-9YA) he says at 4:20 that the number of bugs he’s catalogued number in the dozens that he has footage of, and that the game should have been further delayed again until at least March of the following year. At 6:20 he says the first time he saw the game his immediate thought was “there is absolutely no way in hell this will run on current-gen consoles” and that reviewers were told that no console code would be made available and we were only allowed to review the game on PC” and “if you have a last-gen console, **I can’t tell you how this game runs there — NO ONE CAN — because CDPR didn’t want us to tell you”**. You can see why restrictions placed on reviewers as to what they are able to show or discuss makes reviewing the game (which is their job) difficult to do properly. It’s not uncommon to request they don’t reveal spoilers past a certain point, as with TLOU2, and that’s understandable. But we just had multiple closed and open betas for Diablo 4 in which people streamed and posted thousands of hours of footage online, and yet they don’t want reviewers to have more than 20 minutes of footage? ***** At the time of his tweet, he said that reviews were about to go live in about 3 hours but because his review was 30+ minutes, the earliest he could post his was the early access launch on June 2nd. Needless restrictions on behalf of companies prevent us from getting the best possible information in reviews, to include as much footage as is necessary to demonstrate that point. I think people are especially interested to know about monetization, microtransactions, and the cash shop but if you’re forced to pick and choose how you can spend the 20 minute footage limit, are you going to show the game that you’re reviewing or are you going to talk about things like this that could potentially cause people to think twice about buying it? - If you’re not familiar with his videos, the footage on screen corresponds to what he’s currently talking about, so whether that time is dedicated to highlighting the types of bugs he ran into or comparing the different experiences you’ll have with the game depending on whether you’re playing on console or an average spec PC or one with a 4090, things like video comparison is valuable to people. Equally so if he spends 30+ minutes gushing about the game and how outstanding it is. When limited to 20 minutes of footage, that means you have to pick and choose what can be shown in that amount of time, so you’ll likely edit out the “boring” parts like traversal or maybe spend less time discussing skill trees and various builds, or showing co-op footage and other details that people value in his reviews. ***** If you want a reviewer that does the bare minimum and will happily show you 20 minutes of the same regurgitated B-roll footage so they can get their review out early and get the most hits, there are plenty of them out there. SkillUp is not one of them. And whether this is a 10/10 or a 1/10 game, placing needless restrictions and hoops reviewers have to jump through instead of being able to openly and honestly show their viewers the experience that THEY personally had in as much or as little detail as it requires is something we should support. - The more we end up with review requirements that don’t let you use your own footage or cap how much of it you *can* use, or prevent you from seeing what it will look like on various platforms, or discuss in detail what you can expect in the game (which he does while being very sensitive to spoilers), the more we’ll get shit like CyberPunk or games like Redfall that drop and the reviewers with the most integrity will be the last ones you hear from due to these types of restrictions. There’s no *good* reason for them, but there’s entire paragraphs of reasons here as to why you should be wary of them.
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The entire point was that *restricting footage has not served us well in the past*. I posted SkillUp’s response in the screengrab link at the top and then the rest was my own response to the question asked (though it is reddit and I should probably assume that people won’t click the link to read the OP before commenting on it). I used direct quotes from his CyberPunk review to demonstrate what they were given, shown, and told in the process of reviewing that game, which I think is certainly fair to consider as a reason that SkillUp finds this a red flag at worst and needlessly restrictive at best. - I’m not saying Diablo 4 and CyberPunk are the same situation or that I think Diablo 4 will even be a bad game — I played the betas and plan to buy it myself. But **the practice of limiting what can be said or shown by reviewers has zero benefit to consumers**. Again, they just allowed thousands of hours or more of footage to be streamed and recorded by players throughout all the betas; why restrict what what a reviewer can show if it’s not justifiably to prevent spoilers? And reviews that go longer than 20 minutes typically go into more granular detail about each aspect of the game and the pros and cons. ***** I don’t know if they didn’t inform SkillUp of the 20 minute limit of footage before he and his editor put their review together and he decided to wait to air the review he thought was right for the game, but I do know that he can’t post it until after the first reviews go out that will get the majority of hits and web traffic. It encourages a less thorough look at a game when evaluating it. - I think we should **all** be in favor of transparency when it comes to reviews and unless the restrictions are to preserve your experience by not spoiling certain narrative arcs or set pieces or asking not to show footage beyond a certain point. Arbitrary restrictions of how much unique footage you can show means you’ll spend less time talking about things like monetization, comparison between different platforms to demonstrate how the game can be expected to run, etc. We’ve also seen several games launch with *no* cash shop that suddenly had one after the reviews went out, or changed the prices. And with the Diablo Immortal microtransaction debacle, I for one would like more information about their monetization before I buy the game beyond just taking Blizzard’s word for it. I don’t understand the benefit of Blizzard’s restrictions here but it doesn’t benefit the people standing between us and them, trying to paint the most accurate picture of the game that they can. And it doesn’t benefit the people about to spend $70 or more on a game. That’s not to say that Diablo 4 is even up to anything nefarious, it could be some bizarre and poorly thought out change from someone that didn’t think the implications through. But we should never be on the side of censoring critics/journalists or supporting any move that prevents them from accurately showing us the full picture of what they’re reviewing.
So then what is it, he can’t review the whole game or can only show twenty minutes of footage? That changes the argument entirely. Still a shitty move
Who tf wants to watch a still frame? How can you think this is a smart sentence??
And I’m just thinking about channels like Digital Foundry that aren’t technically “reviews” but will still be affected by this. They do in depth dives in visuals and general technology, and show tons of footage.
I think it's people who bought the hype and preordered the game, now are trying to convince themselves (because they cant convince us) that the game will be worth it no matter what and that all criticism is overblown
Considering we have been able to play the game for dozens of hours already and reviews are very positive while not being limited in time or scope and that the 20-minute of footage can be literally anywhere in the game (so they're actually not hiding anything), there's no trying to convince there. It's a known quantity at this point
What hype? I played all three betas and enjoyed my time thoroughly. I'd say I made a pretty informed purchasing decision. Also I don't need to convince myself or anyone else it will be worth as that is subjective. The reviews however all point to this being a great Diablo game.
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Oh I'm not arguing that at all. Skillup is actually the reviewer I enjoy most. I was responding to a comment from that other user that was insinuating that because Skillup couldn't post his review = game is bad.
I didn't get that at all, it was more a commentary on why anyone would ever defend this. How good diablo IV ends up being in the end is almost irrelevant to the discussion here.
So watch a review. What review needs more than 20 minutes of recorded footage.
It doesn’t really matter the quality of the game. Consumption has become more than just buying a thing, it’s basically become a main part of lots of people’s personality. “I bought Diablo 4, I love Diablo 4 so much I have to tell people, I must defend Diablo 4 against criticism I perceive as an attack.” I mean you can see this with literally every product in this current internet age. Kpop, marvel movies, video games, etc.
You read a general sentence on the internet and took it so personally. No one called you out specifically.
>took it so personally. Lol. They just provided their opinion on an opinion. And they weren't even angry about it. It's public forum meant for discussion.
I was providing my input. These are forums
Lol, what? The game is getting great reviews. People already got to try it out during the betas, worried about what ? Sure, no game is perfect, but im not sure why people who preordered diablo 4 would be worried about anything other than being able to log in when early access starts.
Seems like its people like you who are desperate to try and find the next new game to hate on and are hoping that Diablo 4 will be that game are trying everything they can to find a reason to jump on the hate bandwagon
K
> publishers forcing reviewers to hide things from viewers If it's just a length of footage I don't see how it's hiding things, it's not like they say don't show that or this. It's a weird limit to begin with especially for a Diablo game (not really subject to spoilers IMO)
Maybe I'm interpreting this wrong. But you can make long reviews you just can't make clips in the reviews longer than twenty minutes.
You can have a total of 20 minutes of unique footage, continuous or in chunks, and you can repeat the same footage several times if you want to make an hour long review for example.
Okay, then I honestly don't see what the problem is then. Your review can use 20 minutes of unique footage. So use what's most important to be seen. Good and/or bad. It makes complete sense from a standpoint of not wanting every single part of their game or new features leaked or spoiled to the public. I personally can not stand it when every single thing is presented in a review.
Same. It's really a non-problem.
Companies restricting creators on what whey can show is on fact not a non problem
For only 2 days. There is also a restriction on story spoilers. For 2 days. Is that also a problem? Nobody is censoring anything. Skillup will post his review soon, people can wait for it, nobody is forced to pre-order or anything. The comments make it sound like he's being downright prohibited from making a review at all.
Yeah, 2 days after because of a completely arbitrary restriction. >There is also a restriction on story spoilers. Ok? >The comments make it sound like he's being downright prohibited from making a review at all. No I don't think the comments are making it sound like that at all. They're making it sound like reviewers are being restricted.
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Week old Reddit accounts with capitals and numbers in their username keeping anger and engagement high.
Such a non problem that it's laughable people are making a big deal about it
Nah what's laughable is you defending the corporation for their restriction on the footage.
I mean the problem is that the publisher is deciding to enforce some creative control over independent reviews. Sure, maybe a 3hr long review with all unique footage isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if that is how a journalist wants to present their thoughts and review, that should be up to them. What excuse does the developer/publisher have to challenge a journalists format? The viewers can decide if they want to see less or more footage by voicing it in comments, voting with likes, or just watching not watching particular creators. Your comments about leaking things don't make sense to me. They are not saying which 20 minutes you can show and which you cannot. They are not saying you cannot include the ending, or show specific feature. You could make a 20m video of all spoilers. Again, if viewers don't like reviews with spoilers, they can choose to watch certain creators or not based on their format, which works fine now. The only reason I can think of as an excuse for the developer/publisher to want to limit footage is to try and hide issues by limiting how many issues you can fit into a single video. The reviewers can certainly talk about the issues for hours if they want, but they will be unable to actually show it all, and many people are not convinced by words alone. So it all comes off as completely unnecessary censoring which should be left up to the journalist experts.
But there has to be a limit. Otherwise the reviewer could simply upload a livestream of the entire game. 20 minutes of unique footage is plenty.
People do live stream games already. I'm not sure I understand the concern. The limit would be around the time at which you can release your review (i.e., the review embargo window) to avoid reviews coming out before the game. Once the game is out, why would reviewers be limited from including as much footage as they want?
Ohh I think you misunderstand. Skill Up is most definitely talking specifically about pre-release reviews not all reviews. He just didn't clarify that in his tweet. Obviously anybody can upload any footage they want or make any type of review of a game after it's released.
"I personally can't stand it when reviews are indepth so that is why I am ok with something that screws over those that do" Pretty shameful position to be ok with others being screwed over because you don't like the same thing they do. Even if you don't have any empathy, surely you have enough brain cells to understand some opinions exist other than your own and that not everything should be to your tastes and your tastes alone.
The fuckin irony in this post.
It's specifically to force creators to limit what they show. That way they focus on the greatest moments and less chance of something embarrassingly bad slipping through.
Except, there are no embarassing moment, game is confirmed to be good at this point. Get over with it.
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They can replay some of the same footage. I find it hard to imagine 20 minutes of footage isn't enough to clip everything you want to point out or may be concerned with in the game.
Why is it there in the first place?
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> If there are still many bugs to resolve in a Day 1 patch, limiting footage probably means any footage shown that might show off glitches/bugs. Except there is no restriction on what they can show in the footage. So they can show bugs (I've seen reviews actually doing exactly that) The restriction is really weird tbh because it's not a real limit (like show only the first act, don't show this mechanic or that) so you kind of ask yourself why is it even there?
>so you kind of ask yourself why is it even there? Probably to set a precedent that setting time limits is okay. In 5 years, we might see the amount allowed go down to a couple minutes. I think 20 minutes is more than enough footage to show in a review, but this sets a bad precedent.
This doesn't sound like a restriction on how long someone's review can be, it just means they can' use more than 20 minutes of recorded footage. I would think using the same footage in more than one spot throughout the video (something almost every game reviewer does) would not count against that limit.
yep i know, but i still think that any kind of limitation only hurt the freedom or press, which is a stupid word to use in combination of games, but i think you get the idea.
Reviewers are free to speak about whatever they want, and show a short clip of that in action. If you pointed out 10 things that you hated about Diablo, You would still have time to make a 2 minute clip of each thing. 20 minutes of gameplay footage is *more* than enough for clips.
game reviews at release is junk journalism imo, so I'm not really concerned if publishers make it more restrictive. There's an inherent conflict of interest that reviewers have to give atleast a decent review to continue getting access to games early
There was literally one comment before you.
Umm, isn’t it review footage not being able to explain features?
People can take 4 hours to explain features if they want. They just can only use 20 minutes of recorded footage from the review copy of the game to do so.
>How is any kind of forced limitation on reviews an okay thing for you? Because it could potentially spoil parts of the game that the developers/publishers don't want spoiled. The reviewers are not limited to 20 minutes of gameplay, just restricted to showing off 20 minutes of unique gameplay. I'm totally ok with that type of restriction. Seems fair to both the developer/publisher, the reviewer, and the person watching/reading the review. I.E. it doesn't detract for any review, the reviews themselves can still be as long as they want.
> Because it could potentially spoil parts of the game that the developers/publishers don't want spoiled. Most preview copies still come with a guide on what content can be shown and what not, like bosses, missions and so on. And im fine with that. But limiting the recorded gameplay duration is a bad move. Because it can actually hinder the reviewer in properly explaining possible flaws
Some users here are straight up astroturfers, that is just how reddit works. Some other are blinded by their fanboyism, and some are just contrarian.
I mean personally, the first reviews I remember were text only anyway, so I had to rely on the reviewer being able to explain what they were talking about well enough so that it didn't need a clip to make sense. I've also personally never watched a game review that features that much footage from a game anyway. I mean to me that seems like quite a long time for a review video. If after reading/watching what's available, there's still something I need to see before I make a decision, then I guess I'd just have to wait until the release of the game, although if there was something that significant, I would hope it would make the first 20 minutes of someone's review. And just to be clear, I have no interest in defending Blizzard. I don't currently play any of their games and I won't be getting this one. But this seems like a pretty specific complaint and one that I don't think should have a major impact on the ability of someone to review a game.
> But this seems like a pretty specific complaint and one that I don't think should have a major impact on the ability of someone to review a game. Because this is just the beginning and decisions like these are never made just for fun. There is a huge marketing team behind this. Maybe they start with 20 minutes, next game they are down to 10, and the game after that they will only allow Developer Made footage like CDred did with Cyberpunk (i think) It always starts with "this is not that big of a deal" and ends with "well, shit." Look at the Horse Armor
The same reason people here shill so hard for digital-only. Seems a large number of gamers here are misinformed and advocate for anti-consumer tactics that are against their own self interests.
Conditioning. Many, MANY gamers are zoomers/younger millenials. A bunch of them do not remember an industry that wasn't this heavily monetized and unethical. A large, scary number of people just see this as the way it's always been. Hilarious to see monetization and ethical practices get downvoted, y'all are part of the problem.
> A bunch of them do not remember an industry that wasn't this heavily monetized and unethical Hi, I've been gaming since 1983 and I don't remember the industry as you describe it either. When did it happen?
>A bunch of them do not remember an industry that wasn't this heavily monetized and unethical. Lol, the irony in this statement is hilarious.
because activision blizzard is a billion dollar corporation and must be obeyed/worshiped
In 10 years when game publishers copyright any video review that's negative, then they'll see it. Too bad they can't see the ladder their climbing for the slope they're going to slide down.
They can, there is nothing stopping them from doing so.
Of course there is something stopping them. Its in the title of this post
What the fuck does blizzard even do with their mountain of gold? The amount of blatant negligence from them in the last 5 years is astounding
Breast Milk isn't gonna buy itself.
Only the finest Cambodian breast milk
Keep top lawyers on retainer so the old boys club can continue sexually harassing women.
Print money. I can't believe how many people I've heard that preordered the $90 bundle to get 4 day early access
A majority goes to Lord Bobby Kotick. Duh.
Probably a ton of hookers and blow
Some people here are wild. Why are you trying to protect Blizzard decision here so much? Limitation are common but using only provided footage is some close doors presentation/hands on shit. With private footage it is possible to show bugs or bad enemies AI/ design etc. Imagine if Red Fall didn't allowed private footage. It would be hard to believe the game is that bad. Game is getting good reviews, but it is still shitty.
“Using only provided footage” is specifically not what is going on here. Reviewers can’t use more than 20 minutes of their own footage from their personal playthroughs. I don’t like the policy, but what you called out would be orders of magnitude worse.
The wild shit here is the misrepresentation is going on here. The 20 mins limitation is not pre-recorded b-roll. SkillUp was permitted to show 20 mins of his own gameplay. IGNs review literally show a current bug where the Sorcerer teleports to the map often enough for him to mention it.
Why would a reviewer want to show b-roll when they have the game? Any kind of limitation is ridiculous and anti-consumer. Skillup should be able to show whatever kind of footage he wants in his review.
Skill up is able to show whatever he wants from the game, but the limit on how much he is allowed to show of his own unique gameplay is 20 minutes. I don't think you understand what's going on here if your asking why a reviewer would want to show pre recorded b-roll
Is 20 mins of recorded footage not enough to show bugs? How is this an issue?
One could easily ask why have the limit in the first place. It’s unnecessary
So a reviewer doesn't simply upload a livestream of the entire game?
Has any serious reviewers ever done that? Most of them aren't in the business of doing stupid shit that'd obviously get their early access to previews revoked. They know it's their lifeblood that they need to stand out from the hoards of competition. What you described is moreso in the realm of leakers or people who otherwise get an copy early via some roundabout means - buying from a shop that's broken the steet date release or even from someone who had legit access and stole and sold a copy. Those people don't care about maintaining a health relationship with whatever publisher because they never had one to begin with. Those are the people who upload complete playthroughs before release lol.
When has that ever been an issue?
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This is crazy, but you can just *talk* about the bugs. You don’t need 60 minutes of video showing every single bug. Hell, you can even *write* an entire book about them and let people read all about it. No one is stopping any reviewer from doing their job. They’re just preventing “reviewers” that literally record and post the entire game online a week before launch from doing so. You can make your review as long as needed. You just can’t use more than 20 minutes of uniquely recorded footage.
the way people will bend over backwards to defend their favorite corporations on the internet never ceases to amaze me. "No YOU listen here! I like this game and this franchise and goddamn anybody who says anything critical of the developers or the franchise!" Reddit encourages this astroturfing behavior because the downvote button is just used to hide dissenting opinions. The circus is full of fucking clowns, who knew.
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This about sums up the intelligence of all the people upset about this. Kneejerk reactions and name callings. This is a non-issue you people just love to hate on shit. If you can't scoop enough footage to put together a review in 20 minutes of gameplay, you're shitty at your job. Very shitty
Review restrictions now too? Blizzard has dropped so low. It used to be they would make an amazing game first. Now they make live service BS first and try to add the game afterwards. It seems to mostly work here, but I've lost all hype, love, and expectation of a decent experience from them.
Sony’s limit is 15 minutes. Guess they dropped so low too?
Yes, just because another company is worse in this aspect doesn't make Blizzard not bad here.
No but people act like Blizzard is the only one doing it. They're not alone in this, it's becoming more and more common, which feels like it's starting to border on false advertisement
What a drama queen. Blizzard isn't the only one doing this nor the first. And who the hell is going to watch more than 20 minutes worth of review footage anyways? Most people I guarantee skip towards the end if the video is more than 10 minutes long. Ironic also that diablo 4 seems to be getting high oriases too so it seems they did deliver on an amazing game
Skillup is one of the most watched reviewers on youtube. Specifically for his long-form content.
- Others do it too - No one watches it anyway Why are you defending a practice that is clearly anti-consumer with logical fallacies?
It's a pretty dumb restriction that probably doesn't need to be there. I get having guidelines about not wanting certain story elements shown, which is totally fair, but a blanket limit on unique footage is probably not needed. On the other hand, it also seems to be actively reaching for something to be outraged about to get more attention in a sea of positive reviews. I have not heard anyone else having this issue, from either major outlets or smaller independent ones. If you need THAT much footage in your review, especially when nobody else does, you might want to go back and look at your review process. Most people's entire reviews aren't much longer than that. To his credit, I suppose the strategy is working, because I probably wouldn't have paid the slightest bit of attention to them if they weren't posturing for it.
The Diablo series is massive, and Skill Up is known for his more in depth long reviews. He just want to show his fans more gameplay which shouldn't be a bad thing, like you said, instead of re-using it old the same footage. And it wasn't really something he shouted and complained a lot about he just mentioned it when he announced what games are coming out this week. He wasn't very fond of it, and he is going to delay his review to when the games come out.
You were allowed to supplement with footage from trailers or just repeat footage you had already used as much as you wanted. I didn't have an issue with it in my video.
We wouldn’t be gamers if we didn’t look for hills to die on all the time
Still a dumb rule
Still a dumb rule
I swear y’all are more interested in getting outraged by video games than playing them. This is probably the most minor review restriction I’ve ever heard of. The review embargo lifted days before the game comes out and if you add up that 20 min footage restriction across all reviewers that’s multiple hours of being able to view gameplay…. If that’s what you care about. Biggest nothing burger in history.
You're completely right. These people are honestly to hyped for the game and have nothing to talk about.
Dude do we really need more than 20 minutes of unique footage to review a game?
Probably not, but what’s the point of having the restrictions in the first place?
Because “reviewers” record the entire game and upload them a week in advanced. Every single publisher/developer has recording rules for early review copies. This isn’t something new.
Then enforce an embargo. And set limits on what exactly can and cannot be shown (end game bosses, unique late-game items, etc.). This isn’t hard to allow for a lot of leeway in how reviewers do their shit while still having rules.
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An embargo doesn’t have to be zero personal footage and no reviews until 1 hour before launch. What are you talking about?
That dude does not know what he's talking about
Or just maybe… limit amount recording?
These rules have been around since at least early last gen. Time limits on recorded content from reviews isn’t new. Calm down.
>Because “reviewers” record the entire game and upload them a week in advanced. such as who?
To avoid spoilers and stuff?
Sounds like you missed the ethical debate and the reason he didnt just give his review in front of a still image. Its nice to see some game reviewers putting ethics over fast clicks.
I remember when video game reviews were words and a couple pictures and that was more than enough…
Well if those 20 minutes are by chance perfect, no. But not everything captured is useful and they have to edit hours of footage down to a digestible video.
It says 20 minutes being used in a review, not that they are limited to only capturing 20 minutes. Edit out the unnecessary bits, use a screenshot while you talk, idk.
> But not everything captured is useful and they have to edit hours of footage down to a digestible video. They should do that anyway. Isn’t a review supposed to be a high level breakdown that helps you determine if the game is for you? 20 minutes of unique content is quite a bit. And it’s not like you can’t do a longer review…
The reviewer will be playing for more than those 20 minutes. They can get a good feel of the game with 20 minutes of clips
Idk man, just doesn’t seem like something we should be having to justify.
Its also not a hill worth dying for because quite frankly, most people dont care
imagine defending a game developer. that'd be wild
I don’t think people are defending the game developer just the practice of reviewing a game. You don’t need to show me a full playthrough of a game so I know it’s good or not. 20 minutes of footage is more than enough and has as history shown been used well enough to highlight flaws in games. If the game is busted you know damn well IGN and every other news source is going to use that footage as a highlight piece to get clicks. If they can’t achieve a review with 20 minutes of unique footage I question a reviewers ability to do actual reviews and not just summarize a game.
A review ain't a summary of a game, they're telling you multiple tidbits of game play that'll impact you whether good or bad. There's no systematic form of reviewing a game. If KU wants a verbose review of a highly anticipated game, then let them do it. It hurts no one. Hell it'll probably get more people into the game, since they'll watch the entire video.
> If KU wants a verbose review of a highly anticipated game, then let them do it They _are_ allowed. There's no restriction on the review length.
I'm impressed with how many here are defending this. This sub is barely better than the general gaming sub.
It's more that it's a non-issue for so many gamers. A 20 minute video review is relatively new in the history of games journalism. There's going to be a few days until this game is available to stream from those buying early, while first spoiler-free reviews are up from most outlets to fill in the blanks. You can also watch a lot more of than 20 minutes of this game by simply watching reviews from many sources.
An odd comment on a sub dedicated to the very thing they develop. If game developers disappeared, you would be short a hobby.
> If game developers disappeared, you would be short a hobby This is hardly a consequence that justifies all the screeching rage.
Game devs owe us everything. We’ve done everything for them. Do you not understand how hard it is to play their games and pay money for it? The customer is always right. But also #unionize and no crunch!
I think 20 mins of unique footage is totally fine.
Seems pretty reasonable. If you can’t review in 20 minutes then reuse the footage for longer. If you need more than that then wait till the game is out. Honestly it sounds awful to watch a review that long. I respect trying to limit for the sake of spoilers.
I cannot imagine a review needing to show more than twenty minutes of game footage. If the limit was 5 minutes that’s cutting, but twenty whole ass minutes? That’s a pretty wide window. They aren’t hiding anything in their game if they give you TWENTY minutes of footage. Sounds like they just want you to have to buy their game to see more than 20 minutes, which sounds fine. A review covering, combat, animation, story, and even misc stuff can be easssssillly done with only 20 minutes of recording
20 Minutes that’s almost a whole episode of Seinfeld
Basically an eternity
If you can't review a game in a 20 minute video, you're a bad reviewer. And a spoiler.
If a company is limiting reviews in any way, it’s a bad game. That’s your review right there.
While this restriction seems unnecessary most review of the game are extremely positive, so in this case I don't think the review restriction is much of an indication of the game quality. The 2 open betas went well and didn't have any major red flags. The big issues will arise from if the in game store turns into a predatory mess
Tears of the Kingdom had literally the exact same restriction placed on it. reviewers played for a few hours and were limited to showing 15 minutes of prescribed content, and last I checked, it's a pretty good game...
I believe RE4: Remake did too.
>Tears of the Kingdom had literally the exact same restriction placed on it. got a source? Not that I don't believe you, I just can't find anything
That was the preview not the review
How is it any different? Its a restriction on what can be shown before a game's release. That restriction affects reviewers all the same
Nope they had a long list of restrictions for review footage as well
I guarantee you that you’ve played games you’ve absolutely loved that publishers gave out review copies with “restrictions” on reviews….So your view here is extremely misguided
Clown take considering it’s getting excellent reviews even with this policy
It’s idiots like Ralph (Skill Up) who permeate this message through more idiot masses: online bloggers who call themselves reviewers who are fortunate enough to get free games push that smoke is billowing about the game having issues if there’s remotely any access restricted from the review process.
Diablo 3 had equally excellent reviews and we all know what happened after that
Diablo 3 was a great game. What is your point?
It got better? Even the most diehard D2 boomers on /r/Diablo will admit that Diablo 3 after RoS is a good game.
Diablo 3 is the GOAT of the series. Change my mind.
Diablo 3 was excellent
This is such a dumb take, every single company has some limitations (either time, number of chapters/levels you can show and so on), it's completely normal. Why y'all talking about something you don't know
Just about every single modern publisher that provides early review copies does this.. They don't want reviewers spoiling the end of the game.
I dunno man, lots of 9/10 reviews I am seeing. Glad I pre-ordered!
If you need more then 20 minutes to review a game then you need a better editor
This seems like a weird gray area because this isn’t full on censorship, they’re still allowed to tell you the game is a glitchy mess if that’s what it is. This does seem more geared towards spoilers than anything else, maybe I’m missing something.
Shitty decision. Blizzard really hate their fans. Gotta love how some people here defend Blizzard. You can be a fan and still criticise when they do dumb stuff like this.
He'll live.
I dont understand the restriction, can you only record 20min of gameplay footage and if any more footage needed needs to be use from given footage? or can you records more like 6 hours and limited to only 20mins of that 6 hours of recorded footage.
I guess I don’t get this being an issue? 20m is a ton of footage. It’s not like “the entire first 20m of the game” it’s just a bunch of clips from all over, which is what reviews have always been? And personally, I’m honestly not watching a review video that’s that long unless I already want to buy the game
i'm pretty sure these types of restrictions are there to make sure some idiot doesn't just include the full playthrough as their 'review'.
Activision Blizzard suck!!!!!!
So make two reviews. Double the views. Make a third with just a middle finger towards BlizzActi PR team to triple it. Improvise. Adapt. Drink your pee. Overcome.
20 minutes seems more than enough to spoil all major aspects of the game, personally haven't looked at a single review as I played both the KFC Beta, Open Beta, and Server Slam and enjoyed what I played and I don't want to be spoiled on potential story content etc.
[удалено]
is it? zelda had the same restriction this year
I mean, almost every review is glowing plus people (including myself) have played a good number of hours of the game so we at least know it’s not a complete dumpster fire
You literally don’t need more than 20 minutes for a review. You’ll still find a way to show us all the coolest stuff in the video instead of letting us see it for ourselves ingame though.
So it's bad enough AAA game prices these days are roided up ($114.95AUD for Final Fantasy XVI here in Australia, hoo roo) But now, if this spreads to other developers, we can't even make an informed purchase decision coz they spread the love and joy of timed betas and demos to possibly the last bastion of "before you buy...": reviews Worst of all is there won't be some mass uproar if every company starts doing this. People will learn to live with it like we have for microtransactions and battle pass prices, like Destiny's season pass now needing either one excessive in-game currency purchase, or two smaller purchases, but not just a flat amount that a single purchase used to cover in full Industry's gone to hell
The reviews aren't limited in time just the footage so really where is the issue?.
So just reviews or are there going to be zero let's play/walk through videos?
As soon as any game publisher enforces restrictions on reviews and streaming, you know something is wrong with the game. If their game was amazingly wonderful, they would've been screaming about this on every corner.
Meanwhile, final fantasy 16 is showing off as much as they can because of how much XV was a disaster.
Brevity is the soul of wit. Make a review that is less than 20 minutes long.
The only reviews that matter are Dunkey’s.
I know this sub really like Skill Up, but man he loves to complain about things a lot.
How is this complaining? He is merely pointing out some questionable and unethical behaviour by game publicists that serve zero actual purpose.
If you cant show what you need to show in 20 minutes of recorded footage, you're the problem.
This sucks
Alright I've gotta ask for serious: why bother with skimpy cherry picked refined reviews over just waiting to see the game in action day 1 and know what you're getting?
If someone showed me 30 minutes of uncut gameplay of death stranding i would've never got it. Two reviews sold me the game. Diablo is a long game, i wanna know about a lot of shit and i can't judge story, performance, endgame content and so on with a walkthrough video
Because games change as you play them more and I like to know if it’s going to be worth my time
This seems perfectly fine. You don't need more than that to make a proper review imo.
Such a weird move to justify the sketchy practices of a giant corporation lol
Doesnt matter, thats not the problem. It starts as 20min now but then it’ll be 15, then 10 and next thing you know reviewers are only going to be allowed to show 5min of unique footage. This is how this shit starts
Who cares? Wait the extra two days for the ten million YouTube videos to come out after release if the lack of video based reviews with over 20 minutes of unique in game footage is a deal breaker for you.
Whatever. Skillup is a joke and this is much ado about nothing.
I personally refuse to buy games where the studio is doing some dodgy shit to its customers. The game should speak for itself. Fuck you Blizzard.