Reviewers jumping on the hype train

[NPC009]

About the post above me (by paragraphs):

1) Then have a reviewer specializing in JRPG's, if you don't like the genre than your review doesn't worth jack.

Sadly, finding the right people is easier said than done. Most gamer either know their stuff but can't really write all that well or vice versa. And there's a build-in setback for freelance reviewers of niche games: they are paid less. There's less demand for reviews of niche games (what with them being niche and all) and the ones that are reviewed get less space. Magazines tend to pay by the page. What does this mean? Well, it's not uncommon for me to get paid what is basically a quarter of minimum wage for a JRPG review. That sucks, because my colleague who's writing a piece on some triple A title may be paid four or even six times as much for the same amount of work.

2) Then you are a terrible reviewer, if you can't differenciate between games that you are reviewing than what's the point of even writing a review? imagine a film critic saying he can't differenciate between Die Hard and The Expandables.

And that's why editors prefer to assign games based on reviewers' experiences en preferences. There are so many games out there and most are a lot longer than the avarage movie. You can't really help but specialize.

3) But it's your job, you should care about the games you're reviewing, otherwise what's the point? Plus I'm pretty sure everyone can have a valid opinion of a game as long as it's not a part of a series and if the complaints are valid, that's the only thing that's important.

Maybe 'care' wasn't the right word... Of course we care, because like you said, it's our job to care. But you know that spark? That click when you play a game that suit your tastes so when it seems to be made for you? Well, there's likely not going to be a spark or click if you have to play a type of game you don't care much about and it's not something you can force to happen. You either feel certain emotions or you don't.

If we do find ourselves reviewing a game that leaves us indifferent, we should explain it does so. Not just state the facts (those reviews are boring to read), but really get that indifference across to the readers. After all, that indifference is part of the experience as well.

4) By low scores we mean actual scores, 90+ is a score for only the most perfect games, you shouldn't judge things by the backlash the judging will cause. As someone who didn't hate FF13, a good score would be around 80-70, not 90+.

Actually, what a 90+ means varies from publication to publication. I have written for four different magazines thusfar and most have a pretty similar scale. There 90+ means that the game is one of the best games on the system, one of those games that will probably be remembered as a classic. There it's rare to see more than one game getting a 90+ within a single issue and it's not unusual not to see any 90s at all. But there's another magazine were 90+ means something else: one of the best games that year. You'll see a lot more 90+ scores in that magazine.

So always check to grading scale. Please don't be one of those people who views what may be a respectable 7,5/10 as an insult.

5) If we aren't interested in a game why should we be angry by it getting a low score? Were talking about scores for games we might actually buy, we want them to reflect the actual quality rather than appease the fanboys. There's enough people online complaining about games.

But this is something we as reviewers can do little about. We follow the grading scale of the publication we write for. If people decide to interpret our scores differently and feel we didn't do the game justice, what are we supposed to do besides point them towards the page that explains what the scores actually mean?

I wonder if the preorder craze these past years is because people lost any belief in gaming reviews since the games are promised to recieve good scores as long as they're playable.

That would be kind of silly. "We don't know how this game will turn out and the reviewers are going to lie to us anyway, so let's all give companies our money before the game is even out!"

And you know what? Those triple A games with all the marketing buzz and the hypetrain going full speed often recieve good - as in 60/100 or higher - scores, because they're actually decent games. Good ones even.

 

[veloper]

The hype for unreleased games in game mags is just thinly veiled advertisement. It's silly, but it is also the most harmless thing.
Just ignore the hype.

The real challenge is finding decent game reviewers.

 

[NPC009]

But in the end you push the blame to others, the editors, the readers and the magazines. I get that sometimes hype for the game affects the reviewer as well, but in the end the reasons people read reviews is because people want to hear whatever the game is worth buying, and reviewers must be able to look past it or they just spread false hype, since they're looked as an unbiased source.

In the end if the problems with reviews was so great there wouldn't be such a backlash against them.

I'm not blaming the editors for anything. They're giving readers what they want: reviews written by people with good understanding of the genre and/or series. That's a good thing, right?

As for the magazines: that's just how it works. Big titles sell issues. Issues with triple A titles on the cover are the ones that sell best. Readers ask for big previews of upcoming big titles and they're always telling the magazine how much they like reading features like top 10s of games we look forward to most. Throw in a couple of ads by the publishers of those games and I can see why people accuse us of hyping up a game. Problem is: we won't sell if we don't cover games like that. But we do still deliver honest reviews. We wouldn't have the right to exist if we didn't. Problem is: there is no review every gamer ever will agree with.

I myself would love a magazine that focused mostly on reviews and background articles, giving all sorts of games equal coverage, but those fail time and again. The only way to keep them going is by working with unpaid volunteers. That's how many smaller gaming websites survive. But instead of people who have a problem with reviews going there to get their info, they keep complaining about IGN or whatever and throwing every reviewer on the shit pile.

Again, I don't want to play the blame game. This is just how it works, this is reality. If you want to help change reality, go support the people you think do a good job. Tell your friends to do the same.

 

[Childe]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad but for some reason gotten away with good or even great rating from reviewers.

How? Are they getting payed of by developers or are they just afraid of giving low rating to hyped product which could enrage fans.

Or have they based their experiance on far too few hours of gameplay.
Look at Diablo 3 it had pretty good reception from all reviewers but the game was far from great.
Just compare the metacritic ratings, reviewers give it 88% while fans gave it 39%.

Thats a massive differance, the fans actually played it longer and realized how much it lacked real content.
Same goes for Mists of Pandaria, hated by WoW fans but got good reviews even though it major lackluster.

Warlords of Draenor got praised as the best Wow expansion by many reviewers. Even though it really offered nothing new, dumbed down things even more and it lacks end game content.
User reviews on Metacritic is 6,1 and i can almost bet money it will go down another 10% when people are without content(which wont take long).

Reviewers seem to be clueless about certain things and fail to see how the game will work later on. I think these reviwers should have more knowledge then this.

While i agree with you about MoP I can't agree about WoD. WoD has been a great xpac, for me at least, comparable to BC. While yes the game has been slimmed down, not always for the better, they have done a good job bringing back difficulty into the games raids and instances. The xpac is one of my favorites to date. and I haven't gotten paid to say that

OT: I think a lot of it has to do with money. Reviewers are paid to give good reviews, thats one of stated reasons that Jim left the escapist to strike out on his own. He wanted the freedom to say what he wanted without having to worry about things like that. That we have a system in which Developers are so insecure about their product that they feel the need to pay reviewers for good reviews is troubling. It shows that developers know they are putting out crappy content and are choosing to do it anyway. It has been said by Jim and others that a good game, and really any good thing, will sell itself because it is inherently good. We just need to take professional reviews with a grain of salt.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I understand how you think, yes many haters make reviews just for the sake of complaining. But overall it seems more accurate then the "professional" reviews.

The thing is, it seems more accurate to you because you agree with the user reviews and not with the professional reviews. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with disagreeing with (or agreeing with) professional reviews. Agree with the reviewers whose opinions match your own. But there is no such thing as a 100% accurate review because a review is just a hopefully educated opinion.

Well I don't agree with all user meta scores. Like mass effect 3 for example.
However many seem far more fair. Take dragon age 2 which generally is considered a dissapointment yet it has 8.2 in meta rating, but 44% from the users.
But yes people should follow the reviewers they think knows what their doing. But I still think that there is some serious problems when so many reviewers oppinion is different from the peoples.
Even if Diablo 3 was judged on a few hours played it still deserves no way near 89% Since the story was at best mediocre and gameplay lacked any challange.

They should have an educated view on things, yet many are more easily hyped then 12 year olds.

But metacritic scores are averages.

If 2 people review something, and one gives it 100%, the other 0%, the resulting score is 50%

How can you argue about the difference between 'professional' reviewers opinions being different from those of the people when you don't know what the people are actually scoring it?

Are you getting a lot of people giving it 90% and some giving it 0? Everyone giving it 44%? Some more spread out set of scores?

If you don't know this, then the average alone doesn't really tell you what people think. Lots of similar scores suggest a consistent opinion.
If the scores are all over the place, then it implies the game may have issues that vary in significance to different people. If it has a big split between 'bad' and 'good' scores, there's likely some specific controversial things going on with it that people have strong opinions about one way or another.

But you cannot conclude from an average score like that 'what people' think, because it's quite possible the average doesn't actually match the score even a single person would give the game if you asked them.

(Averages are weird like that.)

 

[Mechacaseal]

Anyone who bases their purchases based solely on reviews and not their own needs and wants from the product is not a real gamer. What you're looking for in a game, popularity of a game, reviews, and just general trying a game for yourself are all equally as important. League of Legends got a awful review by gamespot yet is one of the worldd most popular games. it took me like 6 installs to finally get what made it so popular. On the other hand I don't like call of duty but for a while got myself to play and enjoy it for what it was.

 

[COMaestro]

I really don't trust the user reviews when it comes to a point scale like Metacritic as ANYONE can throw in a good or bad score just for the hell of it. I guarantee that a number of, say, COD:AW 1's are from people who haven't even played the game but are just tired of yearly releases of COD, and a number of 10's are from COD fanboys who will like any entry in the series just "because it's COD!" Hell, I've seen various games being given 1 or 5 stars on other websites, like Best Buy (not a review site, I know, but still allows user reviews), on games that aren't even due out for the better part of a year (Batman: Arkham Knight, I'm looking at you).

Games have fanboys and trolls, so a collection of user reviews is, for the most part, going to be next to useless. A reviewer, on the other hand, though they have a deadline so they may not be able to spend as much time with the game as a consumer probably will, will typically give their assessment of the graphics, sound, gameplay, and overall impression of a game they review. If there's a problem with the game, they usually point it out, but also indicate if it is or is not a deal breaker. Look at Shadow of Mordor. Nearly every review of it says that the main storyline is lackluster, and that it borrows gameplay from AC and the Batman: Arkham series, though neither is as refined as its source material. At the same time, the gameplay works, the Nemesis system allows the player to make their own narrative, and for most this makes up for the negatives, allowing the game to have a mid-80's range of reviews. And there is still a wide range of review scores, from perfect 100 to a 60, all of which have an article describing how the reviewer reached that decision. When it comes to the user score, there are 327 reviews, yet 1094 people gave it a score, so you have no idea how 700+ people reached their decision.

I'll trust a variety of professional reviews over a bunch of user clicks every time.

 

[lowtech redneck]

Look, you want to know why so few reviewers seem to enjoy the more niche genres like JRPGs? Because we are gamers and the gamers who enjoy those genres are few in number.

I seem to remember the old print magazines having many people who loved JRPG's long before Final Fantasy VII made them commercially successful (at least for a time); I wonder if my memory is faulty, or if the type of people running game magazines has drastically changed with the decline of the print medium?

 

[Maze1125]

But yes people should follow the reviewers they think knows what their doing. But I still think that there is some serious problems when so many reviewers opinion is different from the peoples.

Yes, it's because the reviews are professionals who spend their life studying games and their positives and negatives while the public just rage at the first mishap they see and judge the entire game for it.

All the games you've mentioned are games that are mostly positive with a few flaws, which is exactly what the review scores show.
Whereas the user scores show that the public got carried away with hating on the games over what they perceived as game breaking because everyone just kept complaining about them over and over while disregarding the positives.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Diablo III is a bad example. It got bashed by users because the freaking DRM didn't allow to play offline, and the servers went down in launch day.

 

[NPC009]

Look, you want to know why so few reviewers seem to enjoy the more niche genres like JRPGs? Because we are gamers and the gamers who enjoy those genres are few in number.

I seem to remember the old print magazines having many people who loved JRPG's long before Final Fantasy VII made them commercially successful (at least for a time); I wonder if my memory is faulty, or if the type of people running game magazines has drastically changed with the decline of the print medium?

No, your memories are absolutely correct.

I think there are three things that changed:
1. The publishers. Nintendo used to publish a good number of RPGs (they were the ones who brought several Squaresoft games over to Europe), and both Sega and Sony had their own RPG series all well. These were games from high profile companies - companies with whole magazines dedicated to their systems - so of course they were talked about. Especially in the magazines that were funded by said companies, that of course wanted all their games to sell well.

2. The internet. Back in the old days magazines had much more power when it came to deciding which games were important because they were one of the few sources of information gamers had. If magazines felt Secret of Evermore was worth a four page preview with a shot by shot introduction of the game, then it was worth for pages. Now gamers can go online, find what the thing they want to learn more about and do so. Turns out there's a high demand for high profile games such as GTA and Call of Duty. You could say that magazines used to be the ones creating the demand but are now the ones forced to meet it.

3. The publishers. Magazines depend on the money from ads which in itself isn't a problem, but most of the ad revenue of gaming mags comes from game publishers. A select few large publishers buy up the best spots (like on the back of the magazine) and are essentially adding extra pages that focus on their IPs. Even if it's obvious it's just ads it still sends the message: this game is important, pay attention to it! These publishers aren't usually into publishing JRPGs.

I guess it all comes down to marketing. JRPG have dived under the radar of a good chunk of the gaming population and there's no way the small publishers who still publish these games can compete with the marketing powers of the big ones.

I'm fortunate enough to have several editor-in-chiefs who trust their writers and will ask for recommendations when assigning pages/slots. If I go to them and say: "Hey, I know this is a JRPG, but I think many of our readers will be interested in it once they learn more. I think we should cover this." There's a decent chance I get some space a to write a review.

 

[lowtech redneck]

I think there are three things that changed:

That makes sense; I wonder if the lack of retail sales is a contributing factor, with purely ad-based revenue more reflective of 'quantity' (the number of casual views) over 'quality'*?

*by which I mean fan enthusiasm-not to insult non-JRPG fans, its just that in my anecdotal experience hardcore geeks who would reliably pay money to read about games were more likely to be fans of JRPG's than the broader gaming public, thereby possibly skewing coverage and introducing the genre to people who only really experienced whatever titles were mainstream at the time (it was finally succumbing to the Final Fantasy II/IV hype after a couple years of stubborn resistance that did it for me).

 

[NPC009]

I think there are three things that changed:

That makes sense; I wonder if the lack of retail sales is a contributing factor, with purely ad-based revenue more reflective of 'quantity' (the number of casual views) over 'quality'*?

*by which I mean fan enthusiasm-not to insult non-JRPG fans, its just that in my anecdotal experience hardcore geeks who would reliably pay money to read about games were more likely to be fans of JRPG's than the broader gaming public, thereby possibly skewing coverage and introducing the genre to people who only really experienced whatever titles were mainstream at the time (it was finally succumbing to the Final Fantasy II/IV hype after a couple years of stubborn resistance that did it for me).

The one thing I do know that pretty much all magazines I've worked for were desperate to attract more readers. Not just because we need the revenue from retail sales and subscribers, but also because the readers are what makes a magazine interesting for advertisers. Those ads are an extremely important source of income.

Here's what all these magazines have experienced: extremely high profile games are what sell magazines in stores. If gamers see a game on the cover they know they're more likely to pick that magazine up and take it to the register. The cover doesn't even have to be visually interesting. Dark blue/grey background + main character = sales. From the writers and editors point of view this is extremely sad to see. There are many smaller games that would look absolutely lovely on the cover of their mag, but no matter how great the game is, it's not likely to sell any extra copies and they really need to sell those extra copies.

Sometimes I wonder if it's really the right strategy, because the cover usually doesn't reflect the contents (and flipping through a magazine before buying is frowned upon in many stores). Smaller titles are being covered and writers do love those games, but it all happens behind closed covers.

 

[Evilsausage]

1. Okay sure many negative reviews came because of that error issue. Like I said before 3.9 is a tad extream, still Diablo 3 would still have gotten a lower user score even if there where no initial launch problems.

Look at Reaper of souls, it had no major launch issues and overall fixed or atleast tried to fix many of Diablo 3s issues. Overall its less disliked but its rating is still only 6.5 from the users.

2.

Yes it sold extreamly well, but so did Star Wars Phantom Menace when it came.
It sold well because it was one of the most hyped games ever and received sugercoated reviews.

Reaper of souls was an expansion that basically admited they fucked up. Jay Wilson left auction house got removed and loot drops increased. It gave people hopes it might be more complete.
Still Reaper sold far less then vanilla d3 did. Diablo 3 sure was not a flopp financially for them but Blizzard doesn't have a spottless rep anymore. To me Diablo 3 is like the Star Wars Prequals. Far from the worst out there but could have been alot better.

3. The old skill tree gives atleast some options and you had somthing to look forward to every level. It wasn't perfect but instead of improving it they dumbed it down. Even with the few talents we got, many barely make any noticable differance.

4. I read it on the WoW forum, but like I said, can't confirm if its true or not.


5.You can spend years fishing in WoW and it might be enough content for you. I got level 100 quite recently, already abandoned normal dungeons. Done some heroics and they aren't that challanging. It just takes a little more time. Haven't tried raiding and don't feel excited enough to do it.

I got most of the Pvp gear from just two days of casualy playing BGs.
I would love to do some arena to get the better pvp set, but since im a Mage i can pretty much forget about that. So the only way i can get it is to grind BGs and hope my team win. Sadly the PvP is more boring then ever so im already tired.
Grinding rep for gear is already kinda meh...the point is there is no new refreshing thing that can increase the WoWs longevity.

6. Yes WoD is less impressive because it offers so little new. Besides slightly better graphics and a sucky garrison it didn't give us much we haven't seen before.
Burning Crusade came when WoW still felt new and fresh. With content we had not experianced before. A new continent very different from Azeroth.
It was the first expansion to bring us less grindy quests. Two new races, flying mounts, Arena Pvp. World pvp zones, challanging heroic dungeons and fantastic raids.
Besides that overall more content, like more set items and instances.
So I fail to see what makes WoD so impressive. I have seen it done better in earlier expansions.

7. Look at answer nr 1.

8.
Hehe nope. Never said it suck either. But I do think people are too eager to praise something that introduce very little new and has kinda limited end game content. After many years with Wow I had hopes for something more. But I guess its a matter of taste.

9. Yes I do but whole point was to point out that user and professional reviews can tell two different stories. Your very critical on user reviews but i think its a nice contast to the professional reviewers, that rarely dares to really give a hyped game low or even mediocre score.


10.
Sigh..Well a Reviewer is supposed to give us a honest view on what makes the game good or/and bad. Good reviews can be an important factor for a games sales, especially smaller games that has no marketing.
Yet still there are alot of lazy reviews out there either bearly give some games a chance while others are the biggest fanboys in the universe.
As for Diablo 3 it clearly had flaws which made many dissapointed. Thats why I think its 8.9 score is misleading.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

When you judge a game you have to factor in a lot of different aspects, almost no AAA game fails in all aspects.
When you judge a movie you pretty much have the story and acting, so scores can be quite extreme.

Why do so many game journalists like big name action shooters while seemingly universally hating JRPGs? I honestly don't know, back when I actually read reviews in print magazines it was a pretty small pool of reviewers and an even smaller pool of editors and management, maybe the bias spilled over? Humans are creatures of habit and imitation.

But yeah, most times when a game is playable and fun it scores high marks, everything else doesn't really matter (in a review).

A game doesn't have fail in something for you to dislike it. Jim Sterling didn't like Assassin's Creed 2 for its change in structure, I had the same complaint as well. It's not that the new structure failed, it was merely something that wasn't liked. I still to this day remember assassinations from Assassin's Creed 1 but I don't remember jack shit about AC2 because the assassinations were so poor. The thing I remember most from AC2 was that I had the most enjoyment from the glyph puzzles. Nobody but Jim called out the game for that. What about calling out GTA for having linear missions in a sandbox game, that doesn't have either. AAA games do actually fail at certain things and are never called out on them either. Uncharted has NEVER had a camera sensitivity option, which is huge mistake for a TPS because you aim with the free look camera in a TPS and not being able to change it means you can't change the camera to suit your aiming preferences (aiming is kinda a big deal in a shooter). It would be the exact same as an FPS not having a camera sensitivity option. Yet Uncharted 2, a very mechanically unsound TPS is sitting at a 96 for some reason. Yeah, the campaign was a ton of fun but the sluggish as hell camera that you can't change is very annoying and does indeed ruin multiplayer. Hell, Uncharted 2's MP is so unbalanced that male characters are literally better than female characters, no joke.

The gaming medium has completely abysmal writing and it's rarely if ever called out on it by professional reviewers. Shouldn't The Walking Dead have more variance in review score since the game is basically all story and characters? Same with Heavy Rain. Shouldn't FFXIII (and most RPGs) have good variance in review scores due to them being story and character heavy compared to other genres?

As for JRPGs, I think their lower scores since like the PS1 days are due to the genre holding onto mechanics for far too long like random battles.

Many WRPGs have poor combat like Elder Scrolls. I don't understand how a game that has you fight so much and doesn't do that thing well gets an overall average of 90+. I have the same issue with many JRPGs, you fight so much but the battle system isn't very good. The whole point of using a turn-based combat system (mainly with regards to JRPGs) is because combat is supposed to be so strategic that it can't be done in real-time, yet no Final Fantasy (besides Tactics) is actually strategic enough to merit a turn-based system. FFXII proved you can do standard FF combat in real-time, FFXII under-the-hood has the same battle system as FFX. Where are these type of criticisms in game criticism? Criticism is about criticizing, not saying how awesome everything is.

Also, I don't get why there should always be reviewers handing out very lows scores just for diversity's sake. Please remember our frame of reference. We've played hundreds, if not thousands of games. We have seen the worst of the worst. Final Fantasy XIII wasn't one of 'em.

I'm sure many people felt FFXIII was a below average JRPG, which should mean scores below a 5 and there's only one review that scored it below a 5. Even if you go to GameSpot or IGN, you'll see that they even say a 5 means "mediocre". That means like every AAA game is above average, which makes no fucking sense. I'm not asking for variance for it to look "nice" but for differing opinions and actual criticism to take place (like every other medium).

 

[sXeth]

I'd say they get up in the hype train. Sometimes I wonder if the review gets padded because they've been hyping the heck out of the game in advance (Hell, I was surprised when Destiny went 3/5 here after the multiple featurettes singing its praises in hands-on gameplay in alpha/beta, though Jim's review also didn't seem to really bang it about much aside from the story, so maybe the number just didn't mesh up with the words).


Another fact is that reviews are not aimed at the "hardcore" internet audience. Said audience is probably reasonably good at educating themselves. By that standard, they also probably aren't reviewing things that are completely broken and awful. You get your Ride to Hell or Colonial Marines on rare occasion, but for the most part AAA, or AA releases that get major reviews are reasonably well-excecuted, if not inspiringly original. You're not playing something that looks like playdough that stretches and clips through the floor and falls off the stage because you held forward down and poor code overloaded the memory and crashed the games engine. Skyrim may not have done much but look pretty and digitize somebody's notebook of lore for their tabletop D&D game well, but it didn't utterly fail at it.

tl'dr
Numerical scores are near meaningless out of context.
Actual bad games are incredibly rare unless you go looking for them
Reviewers may operate under other pressures, or simply approach different games (or the same game at different times) in completely different moods/levels of receptivity.

 

[NPC009]

I'm sure many people felt FFXIII was a below average JRPG, which should mean scores below a 5 and there's only one review that scored it below a 5. Even if you go to GameSpot or IGN, you'll see that they even say a 5 means "mediocre". That means like every AAA game is above average, which makes no fucking sense. I'm not asking for variance for it to look "nice" but for differing opinions and actual criticism to take place (like every other medium).

Well, there's your problem. Multiple, actually.

A 5 does - on most websites and in most magazines - not mean what you think it means. Most publications consider 6s and below games they do not recommend. Since they are many people out there who did enjoy Final Fantasy XIII I don't think a very low score is warranted.

Problem number two is that you're thinking that the avarage is constantly adjusted, making sure there is an equal amount of games on both sides of the middle line. It is not. This is not maths. This people putting numbers on things that more or less reflect how they felt about it.

Third problem is that AAA are not the only games out there. Why would it matter if most of them are above avarage or not? They are just one facet of the gaming industry. But don't forget these games have some stupidly huge budgets. It shouldn't be a surprise most of these games end up being atleast somewhat enjoyable.

Fourth problem is that what you are asking is not something that can be given. Some games generate a wide spectrum of opinions, others do not. You can't force people to think differently just to meet some imaginary quotum. If you want to make sure you read a wide array of opinions, use sites such as Metacritic wisely. Pick some reviews from the top, bottom and middle of the list and read them. The texts often say more than the scores as grading scales can vary from site to site.

(Caption reads: winning.

Thank you, caption )