About reviews.

[Kortney]

One common theme I see on this forum is the community's cynicism when dealing with reviews - especially reviews from mainstream outlets such as IGN and Gamespot. Such is the level of criticism, that many members quite openly claim that reviewers are - for lack of a better word - bribed by game developers and produce to score their games positively.

Now, forgive my ignorance here, but is there any evidence of this taking place? Why is this thrown around nearly all gaming forums as fact?

Discussion:

- Do you believe developers and producers "bribe" mainstream reviewers to score their game positively?

- Do you believe mainstream review scores are an indication of a game's quality? If yes, then to what extent?

 

[Legion IV]

No they never indicate a games quality neither does anyone but yourself.

I've never heard so much hate from the mass majority on FF13, yet its my 2nd fav game of all time.

My favorite game of all time, GG Accent Core i remember got bleh reveiws yet it was amazing.

I do beileve some games are bribed though, thats mainstreem games for you, have you ever in your entire life seen a triple A game get anything lower then 8? No never.

Plus GTA4 a 10? Really? ya right, same with you MGS4.

 

[Hader]

One common theme I see on this forum is the community's cynicism when dealing with reviews - especially reviews from mainstream outlets such as IGN and Gamespot. Such is the level of criticism, that many members quite openly claim that reviewers are - for lack of a better word - bribed by game developers and produce to score their games positively.

Now, forgive my ignorance here, but is there any evidence of this taking place? Why is this thrown around nearly all gaming forums as fact?

Discussion:

- Do you believe developers and producers "bribe" mainstream reviewers to score their game positively?

- Do you believe mainstream review scores are an indication of a game's quality? If yes, then to what extent?

Since when do you create threads?

I am not a conspiracy theorist of any sort, so why would I? I don't care for reviews much anyways.

And if scores mattered, games that deserve attention wouldn't have gotten it. Or if user reviews mattered, I wouldn't have purchased and loved Dragon Age II. Goodness I am such a rebel, liking something that someone else doesn't!

 

[Catalyst6]

To the first point, yes, I believe that they do. While they might not be bribed in the traditional "meet the smoking man in the parking deck for the handoff" method, there are indirect methods. Advertising is one way; remember the Kayne and Lynch fiasco? It got a bad review and the publishers pulled all kinds of funding from the site and got the writer fired. I bet that site thought twice about negative reviews past that!

There's always the question hanging around outlying reviews, as in one magazine giving a 9.0 for a game everyone else agrees was a 5.0. One of the reasons why I stopped reading PSM was due to that; they had a disturbing tendency for playing up their games.

That being said, as for the second point, you can trust them somewhat. Most people are professional about it, and the opinion of a professional reviewer is normally better than that of your buddy Chuck from Dairy Queen.

So "yes, with a grain of salt".

 

[cowsvils]

Bribery is a tricky word, but I know that many publishers and developers will offer incentives for scores to be higher. Combine that with regular preview events which sometimes feel more like parties and I wouldn't say that reviewers get bribed, but publishers certainly do them plenty of favors. That is to say nothing for some of the fiascos that go on when ad money is involved (Kane and Lynch, Fallout 3, etc).

As for scores, they are an indicator of the game's quality, but exactly what they mean is a little bit questionable. When more than half the games score over 70% on metacritic, it's tough to tell a good score from an okay one. That being said, I'd say a 7.0 game is generally worse than an 8.0 game.

 

[Zhukov]

- Do you believe developers and producers "bribe" mainstream reviewers to score their game positively?

No, not regularly. But it does happen. For a particularly infamous example, look up the first Kane & Lynch game and its relationship with Gamespot.

- Do you believe mainstream review scores are an indication of a game's quality? If yes, then to what extent?

Ehh... sort of.

Problem is, no review can account for personal taste. A game could come out and every reviewer on the planet could declare it as being better then sex in paradise, but there's still a chance I will hate it just because I do.

I've found the best method to judge a game is to read a couple of reviews, then watch a bit of gameplay footage on youtube then just go on gut instinct. Imprecise, sure, but it generally seems to work out.

 

[cowsvils]

I think it happens quite more frequently than you'd care to believe in a number of different contexts, some more obvious than others.

 

[Hader]

- Do you believe mainstream review scores are an indication of a game's quality? If yes, then to what extent?

I guess I should add that review scores are almost always a horrible point to go by when looking at the merit of any game. Scores take really just random values assigned by the reviewer to put an overall label on the product. If you don't know how or why the reviewer is pulling these numbers out of their ass, you aren't at all going to get an accurate depiction of the game. Numbers are the most bias part of any review. The least bias is the most objective standpoint one can take, which will still always contain some bias as well.

I've found the best method to judge a game is to read a couple of reviews, then watch a bit of gameplay footage on youtube then just go on gut instinct. Imprecise, sure, but it generally seems to work out.

I find myself doing this sometimes, come to think of it. Strange...but true I guess.

 

[Bags159]

- Do you believe developers and producers "bribe" mainstream reviewers to score their game positively?

- Do you believe mainstream review scores are an indication of a game's quality? If yes, then to what extent?

Even if they don't directly bribe them, it seems like it would be in the publication's best interest to positively review games with rabid fan bases such as Call of Duty.

I look at multiple mainstream and user reviews and look for the common denominators. If a very negative feature (IE: campaign length) pops up in every article, it's safe to assume it is very short.

 

[random_bars]

Generally the words in the review are much more useful than the score attached, if you can sort through the usual review fluff where they spend most of it explaining the game to you. The number is pretty meaningless because every game these days that's worth anything gets an arbitrary score between 8 and 9. Except if that game is GTA4 and every reviewer was paid off.

Although at the end of the day, the reviewer is just a player, same as you, same as anyone else. They might have missed something; they might have gotten annoyed at the game because they kept losing on a certain part; they might have accidentally skipped a cutscene and missed an important story point. You can't assume that just because they get paid to play games that they will do so perfectly, or that their opinion on a game will coincide exactly with yours.

 

[dolgion]

With the recent turmoil over Dragon Age 2 reviews, it seems like we're heading into a time where we need to review the reviews lol