Poll: Critics, how can they get it so wrong (not on all occasions but)?

[Rickin10]

Some light reading on exactly why gaming journos/critics are completely compromised at every turn:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/21/gaming-the-system-how-a-gaming-journalist-lost-his-job-over-a-negative-review/

http://bf3blog.com/2011/10/ea-tries-to-manipulate-battlefield-3-scores-in-norway/

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/23/2896935/is-the-gaming-media-broken

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/03/26/games-journalism-part-2-why-most-websites-are-built-to-please-the-industry/

 

[Pseudonym2]

I think biases tend to be a lot more subtle. Video game critics like video games so anything technically solid but bland tends to get a good review for some critics (Moviebob does this for movies) or they just like the genre so much it ends up being like a masochist review getting kicked in the balls. Alternatively, they get jaded at praise innovation even if it doesn't lead to a good game or bash a game for being too much like another game that the audience might not have played.

 

[veloper]

Poll lacks this option:
+ Critics not having to actually buy the games and their advertisement money coming from the game publishers.

 

[Zhukov]

Uh... they don't?

SImcity and Colonial Marines both received terrible reviews. 64 might sound good, but bear in mind that in game reviews anything below 70 is pureed turd.

I question your assumption that user scores somehow represent The Truth that reviewers should measure up to. Actually, no, I don't just question it, I think it's utter bullshit.

User reviews of high profile games are posted by a few different kinds of people:
- Those who played the game, hated it, and set out to try and damage it by posting 0s on Metacritic or Amazon.
- People who had something against the game before it even came out, never bothered to actually play it, and set out to try to damage it by posting 0s on Metacritic or Amazon.
- People who liked the game, saw that it was getting shitty user reviews, and then set out to "correct" this by posting 10s/5-stars on Metacritic or Amazon.

I have an exercise for you. FInd a game that got terrible user reviews. Check how many of those users posted reviews for the game on multiple platforms. That is to say, how many of them are lying, since there is no way they played a game they hate on multiple platforms.

Here's another one. When a game such as this is newly released, check out how many user reviews pop up as soon Metacritic opens the function, but before the people posting could possibly have actually played the game.

User reviews are worth about as much as pre-loved toilet paper.

 

[CityofTreez]

Because gamers are morons who don't know how to judge for shit.

- ME3, even despite its all problems is not a 0/10.
- SimCity, despite its all problems is not a 0/10.

Basically, the audience overreacts. Since the reviewbombing is a thing now and people tend to bomb games for the most stupid reasons (oh no, Portal 2 had some minor cosmetics at launch, it clearly deserved to be reviewbombed! I should not have listened to the critics when I bought it but to the morons who wrote metacritic user reviews) and they are not capable of putting the bad things in relation to the good bits and judge based on that.

In the end, I would take even the Dorito guys 'opinion' of a game more serious than the sum of 1000 metacritic users (or gamers).

This.

It's amazing how much flak reviewers (people who are in the industry) get yet most of the time we don't look at ourselves. How many reviewers are there where people rate a game 0/10 because they didn't like it? Almost no game deserves a 0/10, yet most negative reviews can be summed up as "overrated garbage!!!!1!" and not an actual critic of the game.

I'd take the overall judge of 100 reviews from people who work in the industry than that of 100 reviews from gamers any day.

 

[s0p0g]

now if we talk about critics as in: the score they somehow produce at the end of their reviews, i can certainly agree that there are points i do not agree with

so what i look for in (e-)magazines are reviews that contain information - i do not so much care what the critic thinks about this or that, but what there is - because i know what i like, so i can make an educated guess whether i'll like game xyz or not

scores... i don't really care for them, for reasons given often enough in posts above

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Because gamers are morons who don't know how to judge for shit.

- ME3, even despite its all problems is not a 0/10.
- SimCity, despite its all problems is not a 0/10.

Basically, the audience overreacts.

This, quite frankly. Professionals, who may get it wrong from time to time, in general have a method and further, are able to look at a game objectively. Gamers OTOH are highly subjective, usually betrayed, disappointed, upset or (on the flip-side) far too easily impressed.

The fact that CoD is still the most dominant title, despite being the most bland, boring example of most things wrong with games today, as well as being the same game re-released annually means the overwhelming majority of gamers have no taste, no discernment and will pay money for any PoS they're offered. I might look at gamer's reviews, but only the objective and hoenst ones are worth noting. The bulk aren't worth the database entry they occupy.

 

[C14N]

It's because gamers are generally overly emotional, overly entitled idiots who like to latch on to liking or hating a thing whereas critics are usually a bit more level headed and approach things objectively. I've never paid the slightest bit of attention to the user score on Metacritc and I won't until we learn to grow up as a group (note: I do look at stuff like IMDB scores sometimes because they're less awful).

There's also the fact that huge numbers of gamers are just kids. Plenty of people who read this are still in the 12-17 bracket that makes up a sizeable proportion of the gaming population, especially online. I don't care what a 15 year old that I don't know thinks about a game. I didn't care when I was 15 and I don't care now. I generally care a little more about a n opinion from a 35 year old who has been involved in video game journalism since the 90s.

I just want to point out that I don't always agree with the critics. Some of the highest rated games of the generation, I found to be fairly average (GTA4 and the easy target of Call of Duty being two examples I can think of quickly).

 

[Bad Jim]

Because gamers are morons who don't know how to judge for shit.

- ME3, even despite its all problems is not a 0/10.
- SimCity, despite its all problems is not a 0/10.

It's probably more accurate to say that the gamers who actually write reviews are not representative. They're the ones who love it or hate it. Fanboys write glowing praise because they want everyone to experience it. Haters review bomb because they want the company that produced it to be forced to declare bankruptcy just because they didn't like the ending. The majority, that have no strong feelings either way, usually cannot be bothered to write reviews. If every gamer submitted a review, there would be a lot more reviews in the 4/10 - 7/10 range and a reasonably balanced average score.

Maybe Steam should give you a few cents off your next purchase if you review a game you previously bought and played.

 

[Dollabillyall]

It's because the critic sees the game as a piece of work that should be judged and, in your example of SimCity, they would judge the service issues as a side-track. The game is fine, the service is not. This is a fair judgment for somebody who makes a living reviewing the CONTENT of a game.

An average gamer however will judge SimCity as "completely unplayable, paid sixty bucks and can't even log in to play. Score: 0/10. This is ALSO a fair judgment because no matter how good the game, if you can't play it your experience as a customer is fecal.

Roughly, you know.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

It's because reviews are written by A PERSON, not popular opinion. Any one person can have any given opinion on any given game. Just because most people disagree with it does not mean it somehow isn't the reviewer's actual opinion. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I'm not ready yet to say that most reviewers are being payed by developers to give out certain falsified opinions.

Now, there are reviews that are clearly written by someone who did not pay attention to the game they were playing. I recall the Game Informer review of Soul Calibur V, and though GI usually does decent reviews, this one left out some major points about the game that led to a misrepresentation of the experience. That was just a lazy review, for whatever reason, but most reviews are not flawed in this fundamental way. Most "bad" reviews are just because the reviewer has an unpopular opinion.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Don't pay attention to the score they give. Instead, just read the review. You'll find that there's actually a fairly large amount of good criticism and praise. Sure sometimes they get it "wrong" but it really just comes down to opinion.

 

[Sensei Le Roof]

No game has no redeeming factors at all behind it.

Atari ET.

 

[Ebonrul]

Just my two bits, but I would say it's a combination of everything.

The poll and the varied responses to it make the point better than any individual point raised. For the consumer/hobbyist, the game is a personal experience, like reading a book. Sure, the game might be marketed (or played) like a movie but when you're Nathan Drake or Laura Croft, it isn't really their adventure, it's yours. When the consumer feels this experience has been misrepresented for any reason, valid (the publisher sent the reviewer a lie) or not (the publisher liquidated the reviewer's favorite studio from when they were eleven so this game sucks), they feel as if they've been lied to personally. Find enough people who feel the same way (hello internet) and you got yourself a game/reviewer/publisher/studio/website burnin'.

From the industry perspective, you have two more conflicting viewpoints. The actual developers who genuinely want feedback on the game so that it's awesome but have to make the everything pretty on a deadline to compete with everyone else doing the same thing, and the publishers who only see the reviews as one more marketing tool because that's exactly how they work. Also, we as consumers aren't really innocent in this because we need every screenshot to be ready for the PAX mainstage, demos to essentially be finished games, and multiplayer...or else.

I think if you look at the big picture, you'll see that the state of marketing games pretty accurately reflects the state of the industry itself which means that critics, indirectly or not, are doing their job well. There's a lot of honest confusion at what to do next, more than a little deliberate misdirection for profit's sake, and a lot of people lucky enough to make a living off of what is essentially a labor of love.

 

[solemnwar]

There's a disparity between critics and the general audience because the two are looking at different things.

I mean, a game/movie/etc can be a cliché-ridden, shallow pool of a story, but still fun, but critics will pick it apart and say it's terrible, simply that, as a critic, that is their JOB, and they see the same things over and over and after a while become less charitable towards such things.

Like, the recent Three Musketeers movie (the one with the vaguely steampunkish twist to it). It was received pretty poorly by critics, but my friends and I all thought it was fun.

Likewise, critics will praise story and say the game is good, while the rest of us go "UUUGH" because it's not fun.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

I might have had publisher "Publisher Intimidation" as my first pick, but "Critics being too close to the developers". Is definitely also one leading cause.

Just to point out the most glaring example: I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that their own Jessica Chobot having a role in Mass Effect 3 didn't in any way influence what score IGN gave it. And the message stuff like that sends is actually quite worrying: "Be our good buddy, and you too can have an immortal, digital alter-ego!"

 

[Abomination]

Because the scale isn't a straight line. 5/10 doesn't equal an 'acceptable' game that is just worth what you're paying for. Having a scale that has no actual definition given to it and the fact that nobody would adhere to it means it is nothing but nebulous.

How can reviewers be 'accurate' when the very scale they are using to measure a game's worth is nothing but inaccurate?

I prefer a 5 tier system of measurement rather than a numerical value.

1. A classic for the ages. (Skyrim)
2. A game that delivers well for what you pay. (Mass Effect III - if it had a better ending it would be a classic)
3. You get what you pay for. (Max Payne III)
4. Potentially niche game, or a game with some serious flaws: some may enjoy it but many will not. (Sim City - at least in my opinion)
5. A waste of a title, you are being ripped off if you pay its asking price. (War Z)

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

A combination of gamers being more polarised in their scoring, critics wanting to appease publishers (in most cases, not all), and the game's fans or victims being the only ones who bother to vote how good it is.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Because gamers are morons who don't know how to judge for shit.

- ME3, even despite its all problems is not a 0/10.
- SimCity, despite its all problems is not a 0/10.

Basically, the audience overreacts. Since the reviewbombing is a thing now and people tend to bomb games for the most stupid reasons (oh no, Portal 2 had some minor cosmetics at launch, it clearly deserved to be reviewbombed! I should not have listened to the critics when I bought it but to the morons who wrote metacritic user reviews) and they are not capable of putting the bad things in relation to the good bits and judge based on that.

In the end, I would take even the Dorito guys 'opinion' of a game more serious than the sum of 1000 metacritic users (or gamers).

Yup I was going to say the same.

I know I shouldn't, but there have been a few times I actually gave games on Metacritic 10's, when I was originally going to give 8's or 9's. I do to try and at least a tiny bit balance user score average, cause I've know a few people that actually took the user score on metacritic seriously and didn't buy a game they were just about to buy.

I also would like to point out that on a normal level, people even when they are praising a game don't seem to get how to score a game or they just don't know how to give bad criticism and just use the score to reflect. What I'm getting at is recently I've seen a few user reviews on Metacritic where the user praises the game on every level and then they give it a 7 out of 10. I'm like, "What? A game that you don't find any flaws in and love greatly, you give a 7?"

I will end with a word on "innovation". Not long after I watched Jim Sterling's video on it and how people, developers, and publishers are to hyped up on "innovating" that it is hurting games, I saw user reviews that relate to the subject. I've seen a few user reviews on Metacritic lately where people praise a game, call it pretty much damn near perfect, but their only gripe is that it didn't change anything, it didn't "innovate anything", then similarly to the people I mentioned in the last paragraph, they give the game a 7, or an 8 if they are being generous.

How the hell does a great game that doesn't have flaws in someone's opinion get a minus 2 or 3 points? If a game is perfect, then it is a 10. If person doesn't state or can't find flaws in a game and they enjoy it so well, then they should give it a 10. Talking about innovation is fine, and if the game does innovate well then that should get praise, but when a game doesn't try to innovate, then it should come up in the reviewing. A game should only have to stand up on what it does, not on what it could have done if the developers felt like doing something new.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Because the scale isn't a straight line. 5/10 doesn't equal an 'acceptable' game that is just worth what you're paying for. Having a scale that has no actual definition given to it and the fact that nobody would adhere to it means it is nothing but nebulous.

The problem with game review scoring is that people turn a score into a percentage and that usually leads to people thinking about grading system in schools. That is why publishers and other people see a game that gets a 7 out of 10 as bad. Because by schooling standards, a 7 is a 70% which is a C-, thought while in schooling terms a C is by definition "satisfactory" that expectations were met and they were acceptable, the world deems that as not trying hard enough.

I for one think such a system is stupid. I've always been of the opinion that if you get the majority of something right then you should pass, meaning that even a smidgen above 50% and a person should pass. I guess I'm saying that I prefer a pass/fail system.