This Happens to GTA IV haters

This Happens to GTA IV haters

As might be expected, Rockstar Games manages a bank heist with "Grand Theft Auto IV," with first week sales exceeding $ 500 million. It did so with almost all the praise of critics Thursday, as evidenced by the 99-out-of-100 average score on the overall review of the site Metacritic. Thus, huge sales and luminous reviews - everyone loves "Grand Theft Auto IV", n'est-ce pas?

Not exactly. There are opponents - or at least those that do not offer absolute praise - increasingly in the video game-critical circle.

But these criticisms are boxing a glacier. "Grand Theft Auto" enjoys a devoted hardcore (if not more) than rabid "Halo" fans. And these players do not suffer gladly lukewarm reviews. Just ask Daniel Weissenberger, who dared price "Grand Theft Auto IV" 85 on a customer's site Thursday Gamecritics.com.

According Weissenberger, approximately 60 per cent of the response to his review was hostile. "They tend not to go after things in the examination, but rather to complain that number at the end," he said.

Weissenberger consideration is largely positive - hence the "B" grade - but he did criticize the game wonky fight against the controls, the intelligence of game characters, Rockstar and the will to carry too many features of previous Thursday editions of But even if Weissenberger underscores a multitude of positive cases about "Grand Theft Auto IV", as the game's story fort, is that many players obsess.

Perhaps that the game takes a page from politics. As we saw during the first campaigns, the preferred method of defanging criticism is to attack the messenger of character and motivations. This tactic effectively diverting attention away from the content of the message itself.

Weissenberger receives the same kind of razzing. Critics say it is using the lower-than-perfect score as a means of attracting attention to the site he writes.

Here is a choice piece, a poster called Kevin B.: "The reviewer clearly just want to establish themselves as the only person who did not believe the game was perfect. He put his personal views aside to establish itself as an analyst. pathetic. "

There are other reasons. But this is a family website.

The reaction to its consideration by some readers leaves Weissenberger flummoxed. When was the last time you saw a negative criticism of a film or a book whip up this kind of fervour?

"I can not imagine another area where a person to consider 85 percent an insult," said Weissenberger. "When a film won four of five stars, it means that it is a great filmmaker, bordering on a triumph. In a certain way a video game the same score is the equivalent of calling in some lepers' minds of people. "

The vitriol on "negative" comments is indicative of how hardcore fans take these things personally, for better or for worse.

But be assured that publishers and developers love these players. They are the ones who set $ 60 for a game on the first day. They are the "boots on the ground" in the video game hype-war where the stakes are rising more and more in the form of higher Thursday budgets regularly climb over $ 10 million. Internet message board is a momentum currency value, and when he hits back at a critical voice, the hope is that the examination is devalued the game itself strengthened.

By Levi Buchanan
MSNBC contributor