The Game Awards analysis and the “Xbox Tax”

Death Stranding with 82 metascore and only selling around 3 million units on PS4 getting many nominations and awards during The Video Game Award back then is certainly a question that should be asked.
Stupid ass take since more than 120 game journalists take part of the voting process.

Death Stranding has seen recent positive re-evaluation among the gaming community & critics.

In other words, Hideo Kojima is my Dad.
 
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8BiTw0LF

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Xbox fans don't care about quality - they want quantity and cheap foreign gamepass subscriptions. Every now and then when they get a +90 mc exclusive, they only use it for measurement. They just don't care about great games.
 

Darth Vader

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This cry about the Xbox tax is just another maximum projection campaign by astroturfers.

They know that despite Microsoft's biggest efforts to condition and bump review scores, they couldn't, so it's better to cast doubt around the whole process as if they are the victim.
 

riesgoyfortuna

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Death Stranding was outsold and outscored by Luigi's Mansion 3 but thr blind panels at TGA were paid by Geoff to vote for DS instead of LM3.

LM3 - 13 million units(Most copies were sold at full price)

DS - 5 million units(PC/PS4 - Most were sold at discounted price)
are un on special treatment or something?
 
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Shmunter

Shmunter

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Death Stranding with 82 metascore and only selling around 3 million units on PS4 getting many nominations and awards during The Video Game Award back then is certainly a question that should be asked.
He answers it, and I agree - if you really love DS, you fucking love it - as I did.


“I heard @Septic_Sauce on his livestream discussing this topic, and he brought up Gears 5 vs DeathStranding in 2019, which is a great example of a point I made above.

Gears 5 has an ever so slightly higher meta than DS (by 2 points), but the make up of that average is very different. Death Stranding was a marmite title, where some truly loved it and others hated it, hence many super low scores brought down the average.

Look at the number of perfect scores for each game (PC+Xbox for Gears 5, and PS4 only for DS, as PC release wasn't out at the time);

Death Stranding - 21
Gears 5 - 6

Even though Gears 5 had a higher meta average, FAR fewer outlets found it truly stand out, hence there was always a strong chance it wouldn't get nominated for GOTY vs DS or other titles that year.”
 

JAHGamer

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This cry about the Xbox tax is just another maximum projection campaign by astroturfers.

They know that despite Microsoft's biggest efforts to condition and bump review scores, they couldn't, so it's better to cast doubt around the whole process as if they are the victim.
Exactly, it's wild that this is even a conversation.
 

Johnic

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No wonder Xbox gets away without having excellent games for over a decade.
Braindead hardcore xbox fanboys will just accept anything.

I honestly don't get it. If you;re such a big fanboy, wouldn't you want Xbox to do better? Don't you want great games? Why would you defend absolute mediocrity?
 
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Alabtrosmyster

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Yeah it's super sad, I saw someone say Xbox should continue to buy huge publishers so that gamers and the media are FORCED to like Xbox 🤦‍♂️ a bunch of dumb fanboys agreed saying its the only way to combat the "xbox tax". That cult is a cancer to gaming
Yup, these are not gamers, they don't care about games at all.

They even gave Phil a participation award last year! What more do they want?
 

Luffy123

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Yeah it's super sad, I saw someone say Xbox should continue to buy huge publishers so that gamers and the media are FORCED to like Xbox 🤦‍♂️ a bunch of dumb fanboys agreed saying its the only way to combat the "xbox tax". That cult is a cancer to gaming

Mate it’s insane to me. All Xbox fans want to do is argue hypotheticals and do discourse. It’s insane to me

I absolutely hate how the last 5 years or so it’s been acceptable to have gaming conversations with people who don’t even enjoy/play gaming anymore
 

Cool hand luke

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Death Stranding was outsold and outscored by Luigi's Mansion 3 but thr blind panels at TGA were paid by Geoff to vote for DS instead of LM3.

LM3 - 13 million units(Most copies were sold at full price)

DS - 5 million units(PC/PS4 - Most were sold at discounted price)
There have been some suspect things at the VGAs, I agree. Mario Maker didn't deserve to even be nominated. Same with Animal Crossing.

Death Stranding wasn't one of them. It won overall GOTY that year from the plurality of outlets.
 

anonpuffs

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There have been some suspect things at the VGAs, I agree. Mario Maker didn't deserve to even be nominated. Same with Animal Crossing.

Death Stranding wasn't one of them. It won overall GOTY that year from the plurality of outlets.
Disagree, Animal Crossing deserved to be nominated that year. It was one of the most played games and in the public consciousness on an incredible scale; it broke out of the gaming bubble to hit casuals and non gamers. It didn't win anyway.
 

Yurinka

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Death Stranding was outsold and outscored by Luigi's Mansion 3 but thr blind panels at TGA were paid by Geoff to vote for DS instead of LM3.

LM3 - 13 million units(Most copies were sold at full price)

DS - 5 million units(PC/PS4 - Most were sold at discounted price)
These aren't the total DS sales numbers, it's what it sold in a year and a half. You're comparing it to what Luigi's Mansion 3 sold in over 3 years and a half.

And DS was a unique and fresh game, Luigi's Mansion 3 instead was just another one of the many dozens of sequels of Mario spinoffs we've been seeing for several decades.

Death Stranding was also the game that won the biggest amount of GOTY awards of that year, which leads to think that the majority of people saw it as the GOTY, and not sure if Luigi's Mansion 3 won any GOTY.

So it wasn't rare to give the Doritos GOTY award to Death Stranding, it would have been rare to give it to Luigi's Mansion 3 instead.
 
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Zzero

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There have been some suspect things at the VGAs, I agree. Mario Maker didn't deserve to even be nominated. Same with Animal Crossing.

Death Stranding wasn't one of them. It won overall GOTY that year from the plurality of outlets.
Mario Maker 1 definitely deserved to be nominated. AC snuck in due to sales/Nintendo bias/being girlfriend cocaine/2020 relevance. If you want to really complain about Nintendo games, I think people give them too many "family game" nods because nobody bothers to really track childrens' games anymore.
 
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