Telltale Employees Caught Reviewing Their Own Game

[The Wooster]

Telltale Employees Caught Reviewing Their Own Game

Telltale games employees have been caught reviewing Jurassic Park on Metacritic. They gave it 10/10, naturally.

Jurassic Park, the latest adventure game from the guys behind the latter Sam and Max games and the excellent Hector: Badge of Carnage, hasn't been fairing too well with the critics. The three professional reviews [http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/jurassic-park-the-game/critic-reviews] it's received start at 60 and get lower from there, and the Metacritic user reviews were even worse. That is, until a series of four positive user reviews cropped up in quick succession, each giving the game a solid ten and lathering on the praise.

" In true Telltale form this company decided to take on the task of adding new stories onto a beloved franchise that first came out almost 20 years ago," said one review. "I'm happy to say, I'm glad they did! The best way I can describe this game is if Steven Spielberg decided to direct Heavy Rain."

A quick bit of Google sleuthing from the people at Gamespot revealed that each of the reviews came from users who had failed to mention they were currently working for Telltale Games. One was a user interface artist, and another a cinematic artist; both were relatively new to the company. Gamespot says it was tipped off to the fact the reviews weren't entirely on the level by the "complete sentences, proper punctuation, and paucity of spelling errors."

When questioned about the reviews Telltale responded:

"Telltale Games do not censor or muzzle its employees in what they post on the internet. However, it is being communicated internally that anyone who posts in an industry forum will acknowledge that they are a Telltale employee. In this instance, two people who were proud of the game they worked on, posted positively on Metacritic under recognizable online forum and XBLA account names."

The internet is always quick to dispense vigilante justice, however; several Metacritic users have begun review bombing the game in retaliation, because one breach of ethics naturally deserves another. Jurassic Park's current user score stands at 3.8.

A Bioware employe were caught doing pretty much the same thing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108482-BioWare-Employee-Busted-in-Dragon-Age-2-Review-Scandal-UPDATED] earlier in the year, and a Modern Warfare 3 developer recently came under fire for encouraging fans to combat review bombers [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114269-MW3-Dev-Manipulates-MetaCritic-Gets-Flamed-to-Death]. Leave those user review scores alone, folks, they're not worth it.

Source: Gamespot [http://uk.gamespot.com/features/jurassic-park-user-reviews-abused-6346288/?tag=updates%3Beditor%3Ball%3Btitle%3B2]



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[Arachon]

Seriously Telltale? Haven't you learned anything from the past devs who was caught doing this? Even if it wasn't "official", you might wanna make sure everybody gets the memo that says "don't screw up our public relations please".

 

[Lightslei]

The only time I find people worthy of reviewing or critiquing their own stuff, are people who are their own worst critics.

Even then, word gets out how people actually feel about games, this was just idiocy.

 

[9thRequiem]

After all these stories of metacritic scores being pushed one way or the other unfairly, I have to ask :
Does anyone take these MC scores seriously anymore?
I can't speak for myself, as I'd rather read reviews written by people who do that kind of stuff for a living rather than the general populace, but I'd if there's still anyone out there who decides whether or not to buy a game based on it's MC score ...

 

[Fasckira]

MC score sucks in general in my experience, been so many games Ive loved that have been slamed on the MC scores.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

BREAKING NEWS: Company promotes own products, baby Jesus "just won't stop fucking crying" upon revelation. More at 6.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Good thing I don't take MetaCritic seriously to begin with.

Gamespot says it was tipped off to the fact the reviews weren't entirely on the level by the "complete sentences, proper punctuation, and paucity of spelling errors."

It's a sad state of affairs in this day and age when writing competently smacks of professionalism.

 

[zombie711]

is it wrong for a the programer to write a user review. He is a user of the game. I mean alot review on that site are just flaming, so

 

[weirdee]

Naturally, one form of bias is easily acceptable while the other one is STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM

(the joke is that they are all wrong)

 

[JaredXE]

I find it very amusing that they were tipped off because the reviews were in proper english with no spelling errors. Such a wonderful back-handed compliment.

 

[TheMadJack]

Don't they ever learn!?

 

[Daymo]

So the recognized that they were telltale employees by how badly the reviews were written? This does not bode well for their games

Quite the opposite in fact, gamespot is saying because they were written properly, they couldn't have been from random users.

 

[sifffffff]

Maybe all these developers reviewing their own games are part of a larger conspiracy by game developers to discredit Metacritic as a valuable tool in gauging how well a game does and remove the pressure some publishers put on developers to get a good Metacritic score.

I short.

Metacritic sucks and I don't like it.

 

[Soundchekz]

I guess it makes sense. Video games are dependent on reviews for sales, at least some of them, so faking reviews on a site is the next step. It's not right, obviously, but their motives are understandable.
However, I think that's a bad sign for a game, if the employees are so concerned that they have to go to review sites and give their own games a 10. Not exactly a sign of confidence!

 

[koroem]

Metacritic is shit anyways. Who cares if people jack up the scores. Anyone who uses MC under the impression that it gives usable reviews and scores deserves to get duped.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I guess it makes sense. Video games are dependent on reviews for sales, at least some of them, so faking reviews on a site is the next step. It's not right, obviously, but their motives are understandable.
However, I think that's a bad sign for a game, if the employees are so concerned that they have to go to review sites and give their own games a 10. Not exactly a sign of confidence!

Or they genuinely liked the game they worked hard on. No game (in my opinion) deserves a 10/10, but 7-9 are like...average scores. So they think their game is at least above average. And it might be! Haven't played it, so I couldn't say.

Honestly, I'd be more concerned if they didn't give themselves a 10/10. If it wasn't perfect to them, the only excuse I could think of for not improving it is time constraints.

 

[CpnChaos]

Now, to be honest, would this have been any better if they flat out admitted they worked for Telltale? People would have only flipped out more at the idea of a company boosting it's own score. To be honest, why bother with inflating a score (Metacritic user ratings) no one in their right minds cares about?

 

[Kopikatsu]

Now, to be honest, would this have been any better if they flat out admitted they worked for Telltale? People would have only flipped out more at the idea of a company boosting it's own score. To be honest, why bother with inflating a score (Metacritic user ratings) no one in their right minds cares about?

They did kind of say they worked for Telltale.

Or at least, they made no attempt to hide it.