Game Reviews Becoming Irrelevant
- Thread starter Flynn
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My biggest issue with review sites would be the initial excitement and hype over a game. You've got like a year leading up to release with glowing previews and then come release the game gets a 6 or something. Is it due to the developers requiring review sites to promote the games in this manner to receive more preview material or just careful release of said material that makes the game look better than it really is?
Honestly, I think it is neither. I think today we all have this skeptical conspiracy view of websites and game journalists and with fair reason, but IMO these sites do this because the Gamers create the hype. These sites simply follow along and feed the gamers enthusiasm to generate the site hits. Obviously sometimes these sites going overboard, like with GTA 4 story being Oscar Worthy, and Last of Us being the best written piece of entertainment since Dickens died...etc, but for the most part it seems like the former.
The only big thing I wish would happen is a standard wen it comes to reviews. A subjective option on a game is fine and all but then to assign it a score which is not standard across the medium ( criteria or scoring system) seems to be a bit unfair. I.E. Joystiq's 3/5 vs Eurogamer's 8/10. Or one reviewer weighing graphics more than gameplay.
Now if the industry adopts a standard and all reviews adhere to it, I feel like reviews would mean more.
Now if the industry adopts a standard and all reviews adhere to it, I feel like reviews would mean more.
I understood what you were saying, but that seemed to be a rather minor point, applicable to only a few games, mostly online shooters, which I don't play. So I just responded to the wider (and more interesting, at least to me) point embedded in your thread title and the title of the original article, "death of reviews." If you don't want people to respond to thread titles (which are like topic sentences and pose the main idea), be careful how you phrase them. Notice that most people have done what I did and responded to the general idea about reviews being irrelevant, rather than the narrower one about updates.
As for the idea that reviews are irrelevant because games receive updates, I would say that is a hefty exaggeration. Only a minority of games receive major overhauls months after release. So the point itself is actually irrelevant, in the majority of cases. And even in the cases where there are major overhauls months later, the review is not "irrelevant;" it is just limited in that area to the timeframe of the review, i.e., release, i.e., the time when a lot of people are deciding whether to buy the game. So the review is certainly relevant to them.
I see what you're saying, but there has to be some way of summarizing the opinions of many different people, and numbers are really the only way to do that. It's the same with ratings of everything else, from hotels to movies. We're stuck with numbers. The problem I see is that different sites use different scales, so that "5" means something different at Gamespot than it does at GI.
Does the rating really matter ? I mean these are articles written based on Subjective opinion. So the criteria for scoring is subject to the same subjective opinion and thusly nothing would really change. The issue is not in the scoring system, imo. The issue is when the review and score do not match up. Lost count of how many negative reviews I have read and then gave the game an 8/9, or vice versa, being all positive and praising the game in the review only to turn around and give it a 6/7. To be perfectly honest, I think they should simply do away with these scores and write better reviews. You do not need a 20 sentence paragraph describing how "insert dark game here" made you crap your pants and cry to Mommy. Reviews seem to concentrate so much on a few events that happen within the game and not enough on other areas.
Reviews as they are now would better off with a 10 paragraph review limited to 10 lines and each paragraph dedicated to specific parts of the game. Maybe this will weed out all the useless user moments and focus more on the actual product and its state/quality.
it depends though.
i'm pretty sure Dead Rising 3 hasn't changed much since it shipped almost a year ago.
i'm pretty sure Dead Rising 3 hasn't changed much since it shipped almost a year ago.
Most games haven't. Flynn is talking mostly about games like BF4, TF, and Destiny -- online shooters that are often plagued with network problems or various multiplayer design issues. There are probably some other games from other genres, but I'd imagine most of them come from the MP online shooter category.
Reviews isn't just about the score, its also about why the score, & give you information you otherwise do not know.
The key thing for me, is to look at a a few reviews, & the bell curve spread of the score & all the stuff.
Having a demo is even better than review, but with demo a rarity, reviews are the next best judge of a game. Its not perfect, but it serve its purpose.
The key thing for me, is to look at a a few reviews, & the bell curve spread of the score & all the stuff.
Having a demo is even better than review, but with demo a rarity, reviews are the next best judge of a game. Its not perfect, but it serve its purpose.
May I ask you, Viktor and DriedMangoes, how old you are? And then I would like to ask, your thoughts on the community and maturity of the sites you mention...IGN, GT, Polygon and Destructoid. I ask because I am looking for another good source for gaming, and I don't spend a lot of time looking because the sites seem rampant with little 12 year olds at times. But the sites you mention, I don't spend time at, and I was wondering what you thought abou the maturity of them. Just looking at recommendations still. Especially Destructoid/Polygon maybe, as I have never visited those sites and their respective community forums.
As far as a mature community goes, cross IGN and GT right off the list, they may be the worst. Destructoid is good in that regard, but not a great site overall imo and Polygon is more about putting out opinion pieces and social commentary (heavily left) than they area about gaming.
Thanks Obscene...the feedback helps. Of course I like this community, but I generally like to be a part of 2 communities. I stopped visiting Xbox.com long ago, and I rarely post at Playstation.com anymore (just read it on occasion). Neogaf, just moves WAY TOO fast for me anymore.
The stigma on gaming is that even though there are millions of people my age at 40 still gaming, it's hard to find mature gamers/posters in the BIG sites. I have tried the Adult Gaming communities, but they are just not active enough.
I'm 28. I have no clue on the communities of GT and IGN though. I just like their reviews. Spend most of my time on here and GAF.
29. I don't really spend much time with the community of either site to be honest. From what I remember though those two sites seem to be pretty good at least in the comment section. If I had to choose one it would be Destructoid.
For me personally, no the rating doesn't matter. I know what I tend to like. However, when devs are not receiving bonuses and other monetary rewards because of flawed rating systems, I would want an even playing field or a standard. But I agree with your main point that the scoring system should be removed altogether.
My main point is if the scoring system isn't going to be abolished then I'd rather a standard be in place.
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I very rarely read reviews anymore. If I do, it is only from specialized sites (there's a site that only deals with sports games and their reviews are very in-depth for that particular genre).
My big issues with "professional" reviews:
-Scoring numbers are basically pointless. Which is a better game, Madden or COD? Obviously a silly question, yet we still give each a number. That's just nuts. Obviously someone who hates American football is not going to like Madden even if it is a "10/10", while someone who loves the sport will still probably love a "7/10" game. I would love to see scoring systems completely removed and replaced with a simple pros and cons section and a final 1-2 sentence overall opinion. Some sites include this, but still many don't. Things like metacritic are downright silly. When you take a bunch of arbitrary numbers and average them together, you get another arbitrary number.
-Major review sites are obviously careful as to not be too critical of the big publishers. Let's be honest, few sites are going to have the guts to rip apart a game from an Activision, Ubisoft, etc.
-Most reviews feel rushed. It feels like too many reviewers are blasting through the game as fast as possible to get their review up quickly. With many games, this takes the enjoyment out of it.
-Review embargoes - enough said... what are they hiding?
I rarely buy games on release day anymore. I wait for the real player opinions. I'd rather read a bunch of short posts from a large number of people than one "in-depth" review. I feel you get a lot clearer picture of a game that way.
My big issues with "professional" reviews:
-Scoring numbers are basically pointless. Which is a better game, Madden or COD? Obviously a silly question, yet we still give each a number. That's just nuts. Obviously someone who hates American football is not going to like Madden even if it is a "10/10", while someone who loves the sport will still probably love a "7/10" game. I would love to see scoring systems completely removed and replaced with a simple pros and cons section and a final 1-2 sentence overall opinion. Some sites include this, but still many don't. Things like metacritic are downright silly. When you take a bunch of arbitrary numbers and average them together, you get another arbitrary number.
-Major review sites are obviously careful as to not be too critical of the big publishers. Let's be honest, few sites are going to have the guts to rip apart a game from an Activision, Ubisoft, etc.
-Most reviews feel rushed. It feels like too many reviewers are blasting through the game as fast as possible to get their review up quickly. With many games, this takes the enjoyment out of it.
-Review embargoes - enough said... what are they hiding?
I rarely buy games on release day anymore. I wait for the real player opinions. I'd rather read a bunch of short posts from a large number of people than one "in-depth" review. I feel you get a lot clearer picture of a game that way.
"I understood what you were saying, but that seemed to be a rather minor point, applicable to only a few games, mostly online shooters, which I don't play"
"Only a minority of games receive major overhauls months after release"
"So the point itself is actually irrelevant, in the majority of cases."
This is all based on the past, and partial present - but not the current trend (which is what this article is referring to).
You'e also ignoring the biggest exploding new market of games, games on phones. Whether it's a puzzle game, RTS, FPS, RPG, etc. - they *rarely* stand still. It's absolutely the exception, not the rule, for a game to not change in some meaningful ways as it's supported in the marketplace.
If they become irrelevant how will people effectively argue which platform has the better games!?
I'm personally paying less and less attention to reviews (at least the scores). The main thing I'll get from a review is it if it's EXTREMELY low (I'm talking 1-4s/10) which says it's completely broken. Even s, usually that just means a reviewer is annoyed/taking it out on a game (e.g Polygon re: Driveclub - Sure, game might not be the best out there, but don't see how it is a "bad" game - based on that score at least).
Yeah so called pro reviews are BS to me. you can't trust is someone was paid off or they don't want to bite the hand that feeds their site a ton of advertising dollars. I go by user reviews and what folks on here say. The only time I use so called pro reviews is to see if the game have any god awful game breaking stuff or anything like that.
You're right that my comments are based on the past and present, because that's what we know, rather than the future, which is just speculation. If you're right that this practice (major overhauls months after release) becomes widespread and affects all of console gaming, rather than just a narrow slice, then I'll change my tune. Until then, since I don't play games like Battlefield or CoD, meh. I can see how it might bother people who play online shooters that release half-finished, though. Still, I think the reviews in those cases are completely appropriate and relevant. If a game is full of bugs on release, I want to know about it.
And yeah, I don't care about phone gaming. I doubt most people read reviews of those type of games anyway.
I suppose for folks who don't work in the industry, the future is "just speculation", but that's not the case for all of us. And while people in gaming forums like these may not be too interested in phone games, they are undeniably the ones bringing the most innovation and growth to games as a whole... so lessons will be learned there, and brought over where they make sense.
So yeah, at this point reviews are kind of going the way of the traditional game model... they fit for those, but not for where games are going.
Well, I'm glad your insider knowledge is so infallible. 
If you're right, and the practice of releasing broken games then fixing them months later becomes widespread, then you ought to be worried about more than just the fate of reviews. That would be a big problem for the games industry, since it would discourage people from buying a game at/near release. Instead, they would wait 6 months for a fixed version, getting the game at a discount or used, thus chipping into publishers' profits.
Actually, it occurs to me that, if that scenario did come to pass (where most games are released with major problems), then reviews would be more relevant, not less. In a climate like that, it would definitely be "buyer beware." People would want to consult reviews and other sources of info to know if and how badly a game is broken, before buying it.
There are forces working against that scenario coming to pass. The main one is actually the "irrelevant" reviews themselves, which scare potential buyers away and thus punish pubs/devs for releasing half-baked games.
If you're right, and the practice of releasing broken games then fixing them months later becomes widespread, then you ought to be worried about more than just the fate of reviews. That would be a big problem for the games industry, since it would discourage people from buying a game at/near release. Instead, they would wait 6 months for a fixed version, getting the game at a discount or used, thus chipping into publishers' profits.
Actually, it occurs to me that, if that scenario did come to pass (where most games are released with major problems), then reviews would be more relevant, not less. In a climate like that, it would definitely be "buyer beware." People would want to consult reviews and other sources of info to know if and how badly a game is broken, before buying it.
There are forces working against that scenario coming to pass. The main one is actually the "irrelevant" reviews themselves, which scare potential buyers away and thus punish pubs/devs for releasing half-baked games.
Yeah, exactly. I don't understand why someone would base their purchase off of reviews. Unless the game is completely broken or something, it's all just opinion. Personally i've never really cared what a review has to say. I just like checking them out to see what the game has to offer.