Slanted video game reviews

[gideonkain]

Today for the first time in probably six months I went to another gaming website (GameSpot) - I used to visit these sites regularly to read reviews but stopped when I to realized that I like discussing video games more than reading one person's elongated opinion on one.

I noticed something strange that didn't seem to fit at all: Fable: The Journey got an 8.0 (Great) rating.
http://www.gamespot.com/fable-the-journey/

After looking at the average user reviews on that site (5.5) and the Metacritic averages (Critics: 61%; User Reviews: 4.5) I couldn't help but wonder if the review score for this game was somehow manipulated (read: paid for).

Does this look suspicious to anyone else?
Have you ever come across a review that seems to completely deviate from other publications?
Have you ever suspected a publication of being paid to deliver a good review?

Please don't just chime in with "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so there". I understand that for some reason someone could legitimately believe, for example, Justin Beiber is a more talented and influential artist than The Beatles, but I'm not talking about one person's belief, I'm talking about the average consensus across the entire board.

The consensus is that fire is hot, if somebody told me that they 'don't think it's that hot', I'm not going to respect their opinion based on the overwhelming evidence against it.

 

[Keoul]

Funny, I thought it was well known that a lot of "game review" sites these days are being payed off by publishers to give their games rad reviews.
Not all of them but quite a lot at least from what I hear. I believe gamespot was a a big culprit. (forgive me for any inaccurate details but it was a while ago.) A couple of years ago a games reviewer working for Gamespot gave a game a bad score (around 5-6) not terrible, but the thing is the game company already payed off gamespot to give their game a good review. The chap got fired, there was an uproar and now he has his own game review site.

This is all from memory so I apologise for any inaccuracies.

 

[Zhukov]

I don't get how a deviation from the average automatically means someone got paid off.

Apparently reviewers aren't allowed to express anything other than the hivemind consensus without being accused of taking bribes.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I don't get how a deviation from the average automatically means someone got paid off.

Apparently reviewers aren't allowed to express anything other than the hivemind consensus without being accused of taking bribes.

And if the average is too high, that also means they're taking bribes. It's lose-lose.

Anyway, reviews are subjective opinions. I don't see how you could possibly find one 'suspicious' unless the review itself is completely different from the score given. Like if that Gamestop review went on and on about how awful the game was, how the mechanics didn't mesh, and the audio sucked, and there was no replay value, etc etc but then ended it with a 'Eh, I give it an 8/10', then yeah. That's kind of weird. But otherwise? Not really.

For instance, I honestly couldn't give Dishonored a score higher than 5. Really just couldn't do it. I could go on all day about how many poor design choices and lost potential there was. But I'm in the minority with the opinion that Dishonored was a bad game. It doesn't mean that I was paid by Ubisoft to trash the game, it just means that there are different strokes for different folks.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

The chap got fired, there was an uproar and now he has his own game review site.

This is all from memory so I apologise for any inaccuracies.

You're thinking of Giant Bomb, and ironically enough they just recently got bought by the parent company of Gamespot.

Another fun fact: as part of that buyout Gerstmann was allowed to talk about why he got fired. It was in fact because Gamespot was paid off for a good review via advertizing money.

 

[WoW Killer]

Yeah, it's usually through advertising I think. I don't imagine there's many reviewers taking direct payments for good scores. But these websites make their money through adverts, and a company can easily threaten to pull out. I imagine that sort of deal is extremely common.

You shouldn't be getting all suspicious over a number though. You shouldn't even really care about what that final number says.

 

[T_ConX]

I'm so jaded by the whole 'Are Game sites handing out higher scores for ads' argument that I just assume that any 9/10 or higher is meaningless if there's an ad for the game on the same page as the review.

Honestly, I would give FTJ a 7/10, but that's just based on what I hear. The motion controls are more functional than other Kinect titles, the visuals are rich and the whole thing seems pretty well put together. On the other hand, it lacks substance, and I still think the general gameplay looks STUPID!

With that said, I'm not about to accuse Gamespot of taking bribes to give it an 8/10. I mean, if I was in charge of bribing reviewers, I'd demand an 8.5... at least.

What I'm more concerned about is when you have obvious apologetics. For example, I used to like Kotaku, and while that interest has been slowly waning over the years, the final nail in the coffin was an opinion piece arguing that Diablo IIIs DRM was a good thing. On it's own, it's easy to dismiss this as the poorly-formed opinion of a C-List writer... Until you notice that there are three different ads for Diablo III on the page.

Of course, there's always the off chance that it's not money related. Maybe Kotaku is just full of stupid people.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I don't get how a deviation from the average automatically means someone got paid off.

Apparently reviewers aren't allowed to express anything other than the hivemind consensus without being accused of taking bribes.

QFT. Just because someone has an opinion different from everyone else's does not mean that they are wrong and that their opinion is not worth listening too. Seriously, stop getting your panties in a bunch over something so silly.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

IGN.

I think this is pretty obvious seeing as they always suck activision's dick.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't get how a deviation from the average automatically means someone got paid off.

Apparently reviewers aren't allowed to express anything other than the hivemind consensus without being accused of taking bribes.

Exactly. Considering you have no evidence they were paid-off for this particular review, you can't just fucking hand-wave the fact that people do have their own bloody opinions.

If you want to use reviews, find one publication whose tastes reflect your own and stick with them.

 

[distortedreality]

Please don't just chime in with "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so there". I understand that for some reason someone could legitimately believe, for example, Justin Beiber is a more talented and influential artist than The Beatles, but I'm not talking about one person's belief, I'm talking about the average consensus across the entire board.

Well actually, you're not. You're singling a person out for having an opinion that is outside the norm and suggesting shady business going on.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion man. So there.

 

[gideonkain]

Please don't just chime in with "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so there". I understand that for some reason someone could legitimately believe, for example, Justin Beiber is a more talented and influential artist than The Beatles, but I'm not talking about one person's belief, I'm talking about the average consensus across the entire board.

Well actually, you're not. You're singling a person out for having an opinion that is outside the norm and suggesting shady business going on.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion man. So there.

So far the best compliment about the game I've heard is that it "doesn't do motion controls quite as bad as other Kinect games" - that's hardly a ringing endorsement worthy of a top tier game.

 

[FitScotGaymer]

IGN.

I think this is pretty obvious seeing as they always suck activision's dick.

They do the same with EA and all the big publishing houses. I mean just look at their reaction to the ME3 endings debacle.

Eugh.

I have no respect for IGN.

 

[Smeatza]

Most video game review sites openly write in their reviews for each subsequent Call of Duty game, stuff along the lines of
"It's almost exactly the same as the previous installment - 10/10"
And for Dynasty Warriors games
"It's almost exactly the same as the previous installment - 4/10"

This kind of inconsistency has to make you suspect either someone is getting payed off or someone is afraid to go against popular opinion.

Either way it means you can't trust their reviews.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The problem here is less I think that the review deviated from the consensus, but that it gave Fable 3 an 8. Diverse opinions are good, but undeserving praise is not.

There are lots of subtle ways (advertising revenue, review copy distribution) that reviewers and sites can be manipulated into feeling obliged to give a game a high score despite being undeserving. But generally all it takes is fishing around the internet a little, or indeed looking at the user scores, to see whether it's actually a terrible game. Which is a sad state of affairs, I'd much rather trust one site. I think another general thing is that you can give all games 7s and 8s without annoying the publisher, whilst still reserving 9s and 10s for actual good games.

I'd like to bring your attention to Armored Core though, the entire series has gotten pretty much trash reviews for as long as I can remember, funnily enough, the user score is in the 7s and 8s most times. Armored Core barely advertises and I can't imagine FROM Software even trying to promote it anywhere other than Japan.

 

[BrotherRool]

-snip=

I'm going to quote you in here, I'm sorry it must be annoying being constantly quoted in your thread, but I believe I can offer pretty definitive proof that answers your questions

The Dark Knight, 82 on Metacritic yet 5 critics gave it a 50

Jack And Jill, average score on metacritic 23, highest score 63

Finally
Fable: The Journey Average score 61
Gamesbeat gives it a 90
EGM 90
GamingXP 84
MondoXbox 80
Telegraph 80
Gamingtrend 80
Hardcore Gaming Magazine 80
XBox Magazine (this one is probably justifiably innacurate) 80

...oh and Gamespot 80.

So this is probably nothing. They wouldn't have been able to buy off the Telegraph. This is just someone having a different opinion to someone else. It has nothing to do with money, or if it did, it's a waste of money because all these other magazines were going to give it a high score anyway. You checked out Metacritic which was good, but a slightly closer examination shows that 8/43 deviate from the average by this much or more

Final proof
Anna, a first person survival horror game. Is indie and does not have the money to buy companies off. I've never heard of it and I doubt it had much advertising

Average score, 55 (lower than the Fable game)
3 companies gave it an 80

Most video game review sites openly write in their reviews for each subsequent Call of Duty game, stuff along the lines of
"It's almost exactly the same as the previous installment - 10/10"
And for Dynasty Warriors games
"It's almost exactly the same as the previous installment - 4/10"

This kind of inconsistency has to make you suspect either someone is getting payed off or someone is afraid to go against popular opinion.

Either way it means you can't trust their reviews.

Is this sarcasm? We've had people making both types of comment in this thread and I can't tell

 

[felbot]

well if they have adverts of the game they're reviewing then of course they're getting money from the publishers, cant be trusted man.