Telltale Employees Caught Reviewing Their Own Game

[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?

They did kind of say they worked for Telltale.

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

Not really, hey were found out by Googling around. Not exactly saying outright that they worked on the game.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

It's a good thing I don't put any stock into what the users say on metacritic.

OT: If you're going to do something wrong (or considered wrong, as the case may be), go to better trouble not to be caught in the act.

 

[Keava]

The only part that really amazes me is the fact that writing a review there using proper punctuation and proof reading for typos makes it suspicious. Come to think, the fact that majority of such "reviews" are poorly written, for me, is much bigger issue than singular, overly positive reviews from developers.

Also, it's MetaCritic, like the user review scores had any validity to them to start with between the raging haters and zealous fan-boys...

 

[The Great JT]

Unsurprisingly, Strong Bad went on to blast their games, citing that "it's revengance for hosing me in that licensing agreeement!"

 

[Zen Toombs]

The only part that really amazes me is the fact that writing a review there using proper punctuation and proof reading for typos makes it suspicious. Come to think, the fact that majority of such "reviews" are poorly written, for me, is much bigger issue than singular, overly positive reviews from developers.

I agree, it is quite concerning. I mean, givng a perfect score on a horrific game might be a bit of a tipoff, but not being a garbled mess of speling or puntuatin and w/e shuldnt mean its from teh develpors. it shuld meen u can spel an dspeak good elgish!!1~! this is sad

 

[ResonanceGames]

Is there any evidence that a significant amount of people actually care about the Metacritic user score?

I think aggregate scores are incredibly stupid, but at least there's a bit of a proven correlation between them and sales. I don't know anyone who gives a shit what the heavily-trolled and childish user scores say. Example: Portal 2 got dozens of zero star reviews because it said "do not turn of console while saving" for a fraction of a second when you quicksaved on the PC version. Metacritic users are morons.

 

[RuralGamer]

When you're reviewing your own game, all it can do is generate ridicule (unless you're thrashing it, which would be... interesting); Telltale come across as either desperate, or just stupid. Not played it, won't play, wasn't going to play it before this; it looked pretty meh to begin with. Until they bring out a Jurassic Park game that plays like Farcry 2 or something, nah...

 

[Hagi]

Oh my god!

Junior employees who likely made their first professional game are immensely proud of that and give it glowing praise!

What is this industry coming to?

 

[Aggieknight]

The only place I have a problem with it is that they should acknowledge their relationship as part of the review.

Having said that, anyone who reads online reviews and doesn't anticipate large numbers of "fake" reviews is fooling themselves.

 

[Aris Khandr]

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.

I'd actually be tempted to go post a review of the game there, just because of that. No, it is not a 10/10 game, but I'm enjoying it. The story is interesting (even if they just killed my favorite character), and the pacing solid enough. But the "game" portion is almost all QTEs, so Yahtzee would likely have an aneurysm. Considering the nature of the game (you're being attacked by DINOSAURS), though, it seems to me that your only real hope for survival is quick reactions and hoping your instincts work out for you. 10/10? No. But I'd say a solid 7. And that's a real 7 on a 10-point scale. Not this nonsense where "8" is average and everything else goes up by fractions of a point.

 

[GoldenShadow]

This just shows me that the whole metacritic system is deeply flawed. I will trust the professional reviews by reading several from different magazines and make a judgement if the game is for me.

On another note, review scores mean nothing. Bastion got really good scores. I bought it on steam and played through the whole thing. I just don't really like it so much. It is a very well put together game, but its not my taste. Same thing with Modern warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. They get high reviews, but I am not a fan of military shooters. I think they are boring and repetitive. But I love Left4Dead 2. Some indy games get less than stellar scores that I found really fun and worth the few dollars asking price. Solar 2 and Terraria are a couple of examples.

Ok time for more Skyrim.

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

From what I understand from the few videos Ive seen....this is not a redo of the SEGA Genesis Jurassic Park game so....it doesnt deserve a 10/10...


Also is this "Metacritic" I read about some sorta Messiah of the industry?


And on the weekend of the release....Metacritic came down and blessed our game with a 9 and User Review of 6 and yeah we wept...for we had tried our best

 

[antipunt]

Is this why Gamespot no longer displays its user-review average? Although I think that had more to do with review bombing rather than inflating.

 

[mjc0961]

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."

That's just fucking embarrassing. Not that they should have been able to get away with it, but to be caught because you wrote proper English? People need to learn to start writing properly on the internet, and Metacritic needs to enforce some kind of grammar and spelling rules on their user reviews.

I'd actually be tempted to go post a review of the game there, just because of that. No, it is not a 10/10 game, but I'm enjoying it. The story is interesting (even if they just killed my favorite character), and the pacing solid enough. But the "game" portion is almost all QTEs, so Yahtzee would likely have an aneurysm. Considering the nature of the game (you're being attacked by DINOSAURS), though, it seems to me that your only real hope for survival is quick reactions and hoping your instincts work out for you. 10/10? No. But I'd say a solid 7. And that's a real 7 on a 10-point scale. Not this nonsense where "8" is average and everything else goes up by fractions of a point.

u beter maek shur two right liek dis so no1 thinks ur a dev lol

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

But the "game" portion is almost all QTEs, so Yahtzee would likely have an aneurysm.

Yahtzee's problem with QTEs is mostly with the way that developers will just toss them into a game at a completely random point, often even just putting them into a single part of the game, so it feels like more of a cheap shot than an actual challenge of any sort. If you watch one of his reviews (forget which off-hand), he actually takes a moment to break away from the usual yellow backdrop thing to speak directly to the camera about this. As an example, it's worth noting that he never bagged on RE4's QTEs. Granted he never did a review for RE4 specifically, but he referenced back to it as being a good game during enough reviews to count.

 

[joshuaayt]

"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.""

Oh, dear. This is the worst part of the entire story. It makes Gamespot seem like a mother with pursed lips, peeking over the fence at the children playing, coming to realise that the tall kid with the mangy beard is actually a creepy hobo.

Then she shouts,
"Hey! Get away from those kids!", and the hobo responds:

"It's OK, they know I'm not a minor! I told them, so it's totally fine."

Then the hobo gets eaten by the kids, or something, I'm not sure how to translate the rest into this analogy.

 

[DarkRyter]

This would be way funnier if the employee actually gave an objective review that reflected general critical opinion of the game.

 

[Nouw]

http://cdn1.hark.com/images/000/040/017/40017/original.0
I've Had it with these mother fucking developers on this Mother Fucking review site!So they recognized that these were Telltale employees by how badly the reviews were written? This does not bode well for the game.

Spoiler: I believe this is what he would have said ;)

English ************ do you speak it?

 

[JediMB]

I have to read some of those professional reviews later, because personally I don't see how the game could have possibly scored that low unless the reviewer was horribly biased about what sort of game JP "should" have been.

The one problem I have with Jurassic Park: The Game, besides a few minor bugs... is that the writers apparently missed that there were only two adult raptors alive at the end of the movie, while the game features a whopping five of them.

I'll admit I did my fair share of mocking Heavy Rain for not being a real game, but after playing JP I'm really interested in giving the former a try as well. As for the JP game itself, I confidently give it a 4/5 score. An intense and exhilarating experience with a great story told.