Are major game reviewers morally bankrupt at this point? (Wall of Text Warning) (Updated)

[In Search of Username]

Publishers shouldn't be able to get away with shitty releases period. With the growing interest in games and more people having good connections to the internet, these launch problems should be ironed out in the open beta. What EA, Blizzard (Diablo 3) and more recently Creative Assembly did is give people who shelled out a whopping $60 a crappy unfinished product that would have been a terrible beta version a few years ago. And publishers shouldn't assume that a patch fixes stuff for everyone, I have no internet on my Xbox 360 so the un-patched buggy version of Fall-Out New Vegas is still causing me problems

That's true, and developers should definitely work harder to make sure the initial release is good, but it doesn't change the fact that someone looking to buy the game a long time after release date doesn't care about problems that were there at launch but are completely absent now (unless like in your situation they'd be unable to get the patches, but that's a minority of people).

Making a second review acknowledging the updates that have appeared since release is probably the best solution, since people like you who would be unable to take advantage of those patches could still look at the initial review and judge based on that.

 

[Caiphus]

Metacritic user reviews are sooooo reliable. Remember how shitty Portal 2 was, a game that got reviewbombed by those people?

You think scoring an average of 8.7 is unreasonably low for Portal 2?

Not to get too pedantic about the whole thing, but it was lower when the game first released:

http://www.gamesradar.com/angry-fans-sinking-portal-2s-metacritic-user-score/

Now, frankly, in a normal world a 7.3 wouldn't actually be all that bad. Games reviews don't live in a normal world, though, as the commenters above me are discussing.

 

[Terramax]

I think it's more that professional reviewers are becoming irrelevant. We have user reviews available to us all over the web now. What is the difference between one stranger telling you what they think about than to another whom happens to be paid money for their opinion? This doesn't just go for video games, but for most things.

20 years ago, you had a handful of magazines representing everything. Companies needed these magazines a lot more, as they were the only outlets to getting their products on the market, other than the usually adverts on TV or magazines. Having just a handful of magazines like Nintendo Power, or Sega's Mean Machines (in the UK) rave your game was enough to get a game good sales.

Now, however, these companies can provide demos, betas, tonnes of gameplay footage, either final product or work-in-progress. So many other ways to win the audience's side.

Also, they are all indeed chasing the money. There is an over-saturation of websites dedicated to games too, thousands of game outlets all chasing the hits on their page whilst also trying their best to keep on the right side of devs and publishers as to not be blacklisted.


A sorry state of affairs indeed.

 

[Terramax]

Users tend to responf more... harshly towards things then reviewers.

I don't think this is true. I think, sometimes (not always), reviewers don't play up the problems in games. Particularly AAA games.

 

[Yopaz]

It should be said that I do not consider IGN trustworthy though. That's one of those sites I would assume gets the review scores written out before they receive the game they are reviewing. I remember someone getting fired for not writing a positive review of Kane and Lynch 2...

That was Gamespot that fired Jeff Gerstmann for giving the first Kane & Lynch game a poor review

I was incorrect then, edited my post. Still even so I don't trust IGN reviews. They give out good scores far too easily and often give bad scores for the wrong reasons.

 

[homerthethief]

....

So - Metacritic Professional Reviews - 80%
IGN - 8.8
User - 3.8

....

I've been playing the game for about two weeks now 80% seems like a pretty accurate score. There's definitely some issues in game play though which would keep it from a 9 or 10 in my opinion. I haven't faced any huge technical issues though. Rome II is difficult to get an idea on the game quality from the reviews because most of what is talked about is the technical issues. Total war games are usually difficult to review in general though to because the campaigns require so long of a time commitment to get the full experience.

Also I don't think aggregated scores work well for User reviews as the scores vary too much. Most Users on metacritic will gave a game a 9 or 10 if they like it and a 0 or 1 if they don't.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm going with the Users R Dum explanation.

User aggregate isn't remotely useful until you drop all the 0s and 10s, and it's even better when you drop all the 1s and 9s. At that point, you can actually read the user reviews and you typically won't gouge your brain out.

There's no function for that, though, and if there was, then they'd abuse that as well. Because the internet is full of suck.

I have a much better experience with the professional reviewers, to be honest. At least Metacritic lets you find the median review and read that, and it tends to be accurate.

Really, though, if you want honest reviews with no money/blacklisting involved, have you tried <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/index/326-User-Reviews>here?

 

[drummond13]

Because professional reviewers can't just say "I hated this game, it gets zero out of ten". They have a responsibility to give a game credit for its good points and rate it where it belongs. They also have to fully justify the score. Users can just give zero after zero after zero with nobody to answer to. Sometimes for no good reason, such as "I had trouble getting it to run on my computer". This is why user reviews are so volotile and generally unreliable.

 

[drummond13]

It's probably this. I don't really follow most "professional" game reviews, so my opinion probably isn't valid, but I do know that users have a tendency to overreact to the silliest bullshit. Remember that whole controversy about the new Dante design for DmC: Devil May Cry? The average Metacritic user score for it is 4.7 (looking at the PS3 version) even though the game is quite playable and basically alright.

A 4.7 is actually an appropriate score for a game thats "playable and pretty much alright." A game that is just passable and mediocre should be about a five. Thats the problem with pretty much every video game review, they dont use the lower three-quarters of the scale so all of their reviews become meaningless. When every single game falls between 7 - 10 out of 10 you know something has gone wrong.

The reason for that is because a lot of people have come to think of the review score as a grade. 90% and above is an 'A', 80% and above is a 'B', and so on. So with that mentality, any gave under a 7 out of 10 is a 'D' grade game or a fail.

It's not that something has gone "wrong", it's just that enough people are trapped in this way of looking at scores that the ratings have sort of adjusted to it. Just the way it is.

 

[asap]

Game reviewing has been in a similar state since the 90s at least. They all work in the same industry and to damage one side will also hurt the other. In order to do business they have to make agreements with each other. Remember game reviewing is a job, money has to get made to feed your family. The score keeps the interested parties happy and honestly if people actually read a review you can usually get the writers true opinion.

 

[Rainforce]

I'll post this seeing as it's somewhat relevant to the discussion. I doubt another opinion means much, but this might.

Sorry about the size, might be a little hard to read. The link to the post itself is actually in the image though if you wanna just use that.

GOD DAMN IT, PROVIDE THE LINK. [http://opa-ages.com/forums/topic/59463-full-thing-unedited-uncleaned/]
In fact, please edit your post to add it, considering how it's on the first page and everything. This is actually a good read.

raging aside, yep, the situation is quite...difficult.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Now that the air is clear, here is my scenario/question. I just watched Angry Joe lamb-blast Rome: Total War II. I do mean Lamb-blast, he shredded it over 43 minutes.

I hope this isn't breaking the rules of Escapist, but I'm willing to take the risk of earning a demerit to find out.

What the heck is a lamb-blast? Does this person (I don't know who you're talking about) have some odd rating scale like the Shermometer from the Critic cartoons?

 

[Something Amyss]

I just watched Angry Joe lamb-blast Rome: Total War II. I do mean Lamb-blast, he shredded it over 43 minutes.

Do you mean "lambaste?" Because as funny as weaponised livestock is, I doubt that's what Joe did.

Now anyone that watches him can tell you he gets a bit carried away.

An extreme fanboy get carried away? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I'm watching the review as I write this post. I half expect him to still give it an 8/10 and a badass seal of approval, because that's the kind of credibility he has when he assaults a game with explosive sheep ordnance. His outraged looks disingenuous from behind those same dead eyes he gives every game. But enough about Joe not being a reliable narrator....

How does that happen? How can the community and users playing the game end up with SUCH a different experience than the people that are paid to do this professionally? Are we dealing with a case of users having knee jerk "i don't like this therefore everything about it sucks" reactions? Is this a case of professionals using critical thought to it's mightiest extent, allowing the bad to be forgiven outright in favor of patches and initial intention?

Looking at the content of a lot of the reviews, the exceptionally low scores seem to scream "butthurt" and this looks like a review bomb. I'm not saying it deserves an 80, but I'm saying this disparity looks like standard Metacritic stuff. Consider it has a lower user rating than Mass Effect 3, a deliberately review bombed game. Yeah. How does THIS happen? Severe outrage at a game that people love. I bet the negative reviews doubled when Joe said "casual," because RAWRSNORTCASUALISTHEDEATHOFGAMING

You know what people rarely comment on? When the user reviews are higher than the critic reviews. Because it doesn't fit with the narrative that reviewers are paid off, corrupt, or TEH BIAS!

Lastly, as game developers and advert spots only report on professional reviews, is it fair that such an imbalance is allowed to exist? Could this be considered inherent bias and intentional attempts to mislead and sell a false product to the public?

Dude, seriously? They're only going to report positive reviews, period. What, you think that there's going to be a shift in that if suddenly you get "honest" reviews?

And why shouldn't it be "fair" that professional critics have a different opinion/set of standards/preferred animal to blast?

Most of the video reviews/walkthroughs of Total War: Rome II don't show off most of what Joe was going nuts over. Should we expect reviewers to match opinions even when those opinions don't seem to be based on anything? Is that anything more than a pretense of fairness and balance?

I personally feel reviews are seldom worth the paper they are printed on, as they are only printed for paper. Yet, I am disappointed that they still have the power to drive sales and generate hype in the manner they do.

Let's be honest: The hype for most of these games is already there. That's why you've got such polarised reviews in the first place.

 

[Something Amyss]

Double Post. Stupid thing timed out and I thought it didn't post. Ignore.

 

[freedash22]

This is quite a challenging one because in all honesty, it's difficult to prove that most mainstream gaming journalists are corrupt or biased. Unless we have them audited and the source of their paychecks and sponsors determined (not to mention staff or stakeholder alignment and external influences), we cannot definitively prove that the problem really exists. I mean they can just always say that they are being kind to games and their developers or just being unobjective or being stupid (unlikely). All of these are valid (though lame) excuses.

But in my many years of buying games (and sometimes getting burned by bad reviews), I can tell you with great confidence that we have a big problem and that the issue really does exist. Common sense also says so. Why? because we have so much polarity in the industry(i.e. independent reviewers like AngryJoe and TB have vastly differing opinions to let's say IGN or Gamespot; in other words, the score gap is too big).

I'd like to claim Metacritic's user reviews as being good. But sometimes they aren't. In this case, the saying that "People are smarter as individuals but less so in groups." applies. After seeing what happened to Company of Heroes 2 user reviews, and the fake reviews (devs creating multiple accounts and giving it high scores) in Star Trek the game, it's hard to have 100% faith in this because sometimes it can be "mobbed" into being unreliable. Fanboys and girls can also be a disruptive bunch. But generally, user reviews are still more reliable because they are harder to sway or tamper without looking obvious.

And so the question needs to be asked; Who can we trust with reviews? Here is my Ranking:
1.) Yourself (do your research)
2.) Your Gamer Friends
3.) Independent Reviews (AngryJoe, TB, etc.)
4.) Metacritic USER Reviews and game forums

All the others (Mainstream Media Reviews) are in doubt.

So follow your instincts as a gamer and always NEVER base your purchasing decision on 1 number and 1 number alone.

Just my 2 cents. I hope this helps.

 

[Something Amyss]

You think scoring an average of 8.7 is unreasonably low for Portal 2?

They seem to have cleared it out there but just as a reference:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-19-portal-2-metacritic-user-score-pounded

Portal 2 got reviewbombed because there were some cosmetics to buy at release and hat a 5.something userscore. And it is not unknown that the gaming community loves to reviewbomb titles because of minor flaws.[/quote]

Nah, those low review scores just prove Valve paid off the gaming media because ponies.