The problem is not reviews or reviewers. The problem is you.

[gargantual]

Thing is, if a game genuinely is good, why would companies need to pay to get good marks? It can only back-fire on them if they are discovered. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure that the third one could involve some very nasty lawsuits if a company is paying to damage another companies reputation.

Thing is, it wouldn't be worth the risk even for a bad game. No PR department wants to be dealing with the next Jeff Gurstman-Kayne & Lynch-Gamespot situation.

If a games journalist was offered a bribe, they would do much better to just publish an article about how they were offered a bribe. They'd make major bank off the traffic of outraged gamers and make a name for themselves as someone of integrity into the bargain.

So you're saying paid reviews just don't exist at all? I don't know about that...

Nope. Not what I said.

When it comes to whether or not paid reviews actually happen I said "I don't have proof one way or the other in any of these cases. I don't really believe the review business is anywhere near as endemically corrupt as a lot of people would seem to fervently believe. That said, I think there's something to the not-biting-the-hand-that-feeds argument in relation to ad revenue and there are some sources I simply wouldn't give the time of day to..."

My point is not whether or not they happen. My point is that the accusations from the public are not based on evidence or even on suspicion. They are based on petty hurt feelings and a desperate scramble to discredit those who do not provide the confirmation that they seem to crave.

Or how about that Civ: beyond earth preview? Greg lauded the devs for being 'genuinely kind and passionate'. Do you think his pleasant experience at the studio did not put the game in a better light than it might have been if the devs had been jerks?

So... he went and met the developers, decided that they were genuinely kind and passionate people, then wrote a preview article in which he said, "I went and met the developers and I think they are genuinely kind and passionate people."

Not seeing the problem.

Still not relevant to my point anyway, since another comment I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever seen is, "I generally agree with the points made in this review, but the developers were really nice to the reviewer when he went and visited them to preview the game, so we should all disregard it!"

Professionally yes. I do believe reviewers have room to offer their honest opinions regarding video games, but if they had the true amount of freedom to scrutinize game content, we'd be seeing less 8 and 9 out of 10's. The wheat would be seperated from the truly good chaff and maybe the CoD sequels would've lost their fire after Modern Warfare 3.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't have a problem with reviews because they don't agree with me or that they are paid off. I have a problem with game reviews because game critics try to review games as if they can be objectively rated instead of just giving their damn opinion how much they liked said game. Just because the shooting is good in a shooter doesn't make the game an instant 8/10 good. You can like the gameplay in a game, but at the same time dislike the game for other things; an overall dislike for a game means it's BELOW AVERAGE (and not 7/10 good). For example, Greg Tito's GTA5 review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/10598-Grand-Theft-Auto-5-Review-People-Suck] on this very site is a prime example of people thinking games are supposed to be objectively scored. Jim Sterling is real game reviewer because he gives his honest opinion on a game and he uses the whole scale to score games, you'll see him score AAA releases a 9s/10 and 3s/10. I've agreed with his low scores (like Assassin's Creed 2) and completely disagreed with his Vanquish review, and I still think he's a good reviewer. Game reviewers improperly use the number scale because 5/10 is supposed to be average, not bad, thus you have so many games scoring between 7/10 and 10/10. Look at the review scores for any other medium (movies, music, etc.) and you don't see nearly that many high scores. I should be able to go to IGN and see an 8/10 score, then go to GameSpot and see a 5/10 score for a game, but what happens in that IGN gives a game a 9.5 and GameSpot gives the same game a 9.0/10. It's both a problem with reviewers and gamers as you see stuff like "IGN sucks, they gave Game XYZ a 9.5". No, it's the reviewer that gave it a 9.5, not IGN. You never heard people say "Oh, the Chicago Sun-Times sucks at reviewing movies" because they didn't like Roger Ebert, you hear people say "Roger Ebert sucks". It's a combination of game reviewers and gamers causing the absolute garbage that is game criticism. If we want games to be considered art, they have to be criticized like other mediums.

This episode of Extra Credits about Call of Juarez: The Cartel is more about how games should be reviewed. Even if the game had the greatest shooter gameplay of all-time, it would still be given a very low score by Extra Credits just based everything else.

Spoiler: Extra Credits: Call of Juarez: The Cartel

 

[Something Amyss]

The real problem was mentioned but not fleshed out at all, video game reviews are feature and performance heavy but don't really offer the purchasing advice you mentioned - whether a game is worth buying or not.

Because they literally cannot. That is something only you can decide. The power, as Captain Planet would say, is yours.

 

[veloper]

The point of reading reviews after you already played the game is too find out if you ever need to bother with the next reviews from the same guy again.

The reason you won't find any of the lines Zhukov invented, posted at the bottom of the page, is because if you didn't trust the mag before, you wouldn't be checking there again in the first place.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

"Opinions that differ from mine are wrong, because I am right. So I will do all that I can to shout down those other opinions, because mine is the only deserving one."

Welcome to the human condition, where we've been doing this since we learned how to talk to each other.

 

[Gennadios]

The real problem was mentioned but not fleshed out at all, video game reviews are feature and performance heavy but don't really offer the purchasing advice you mentioned - whether a game is worth buying or not.

A reviewer cannot tell you that. It's completely subjective.

Because they literally cannot. That is something only you can decide. The power, as Captain Planet would say, is yours.

It's possible with movie reviews. There will always be differences in opinion, but the trick is to find the publication with a staff writer whose views align closely and reliably enough with yours and roll with them. At the very least the right critic can tell you whether to fill a boring evening with a movie or if staying home is better.

Maybe gaming is a too complicated a hobby for it to be that simple, but I just don't see the same level of thoroughness with the game press, but that makes me wonder what the point of video game reviews even is, then. Let's Plays seem to get the job done better, although you have to watch those things for hours.

 

[Something Amyss]

This episode of Extra Credits about Call of Juarez: The Cartel is more about how games should be reviewed. Even if the game had the greatest shooter gameplay of all-time, it would still be given a very low score by Extra Credits just based everything else.

Spoiler: Extra Credits: Call of Juarez: The Cartel

Mainstream reviews can't even mention issues without people screaming "SOSHUL JUSTISH!" at the top of their lungs.

That being said, that wasn't really good as a review. It barely touches upon the game and spends much of its time delving into the real world surrounding it. If that's their threshold, EC should have gone for something other than low-hanging fruit.

As an indictment of the games industry, it's great--though again, it probably should have gone for something a little higher on the pole. As a review? Well, it tells you that if you have a moral opposition to shooting people because they're Mexicans this time instead of Arabs, or if you dislike inaccurate games, you won't like it. But if neither of those are selling points for a game, what did it get? A passing mention that it was "meh" with little context.

This isn't to defend shooting brown people or say that it's necessarily right to misportray a conflict, but....There has to be more to a review than that, especially in the shooter genre where so much of our time is spent rewarding you for killing brown people in conflicts that are utter propaganda.

 

[Redd the Sock]

While true, in fairness, I think the allegations are in part the fault of reviewers. There's a knee jerk respnse to allegations of bias and manipulation which can come off as either "crap they're on to me" or "how dare you make me defend my opinion you non-reviewer you."

I mean, yes you're right, people go to reviews for validation these days, but to me that's because that' all they're really good for. I get reviewers are trying to move away from the "buyer's guide" idea, which is fine, but the deeper analysis and criticism they want to provide isn't done well in a format that has a tight deadline of "release day" and can't go into spoilers too much. Opinions come out poorly thought, either riding the hype or the disappointment, and can be buried in rationalizations for attributing something's quality based purely on your enjoyment like every piece of media has to pass the "your enjoyment" bar to be good. They don't wan to tell us if something is good or bad, but the deeper analysis is just too rushed to be any good at the time. It reduces the reviewer's job to going "here's what I think" and calling it analysis and critique.

In the rush to put out those opinions, sometimes something stands out: the 10/10 for the game everyone else panned, or the inverse. The sudden shift in opinion from one extreme to the other. Or there's softer allegations like big games with big publishers get high scores while little games from smaller publishers get lower scores, if they're bothered to be reviewed at all, or why reviewers never seem to find the game breaking glitches that need patching out at the retail level. If called out for elaboration, reviewers seem to have difficulty further supporting their original thought and get angry and defensive. Any outlier review could have merit if it was defended better in the terms the reader understood. ie: On destructiod, Jim sterling has a review of Batman Arkham Origins at a very low 3/10, which I understood as he got a far glitchier experience than I did. On the other side I saw a review for the recent XBlaze visual novel that existed as an indictment of the idea of a visual novel which didn't seem fair.

To me this is a sign of some very stuck up people afraid to admit how much how much their preferences and fanboyism has colored their opinion, not just because their job is supposed to be a bit beyond such thoughts, but it is a sign of a closed and unfair mind trying to justify playing favorites, Still, I see where people get the "bought off" idea from. Advertising is heavy, access is needed, and the editorial of the excess of grey brown shooters doesn't mesh with the grey brown shooter being so highly rated and hyped.

 

[briankoontz]

All review sites and magazines cater to their sources of funding. Mainstream ones are funded by corporations, some of which own video game developers. This is why mainstream sites and magazines focus on AAA games and to a lesser extent A games, because their funding is from companies which either own or are connected to high-budget development houses.

So most high budget games will always get good scores, a few will get bad scores, but most importantly THOSE GAMES ARE THE ONES REVIEWED, while low budget games are excluded unless they are owned by high capital or are so amazing that they can't be ignored. Review companies understand that merely by reviewing a game they are giving that game exposure - what a review company really is is not a public service but an extension of a game publisher's marketing arm.

IGN's never going to review Magicians and Looters. They will always review AAA titles no matter how shit they are, while games like Minecraft get reviewed due to their overwhelming popularity.

The way it works on an individual reviewer level is - he needs to play ball. So he needs to give the typical AAA game a good score, and can have some variation in his scores, unless the game has overwhelming "hype" (marketing focus) in which case he'd better give it a good score. Reviewers internalize this logic and understand that their job depends on them following it.

This extends to movie reviews as well. Siskel and Ebert always reviewed the latest Hollywood releases, ignoring literally all other movies, not because Hollywood movies are the best but because their salaries were paid by people connected much more closely to Hollywood than to either the indie movie scene or any non-American movie scene.

This system, albeit a pathetic aspect of obsequious capitalism, does not preclude some form of honesty from reviewers. What the system does is set boundaries in which their "honesty" needs to fall - if their personal integrity prevents them from existing within those boundaries they are typically wise enough never to enter the review industry in the first place - those who are unwise don't last long.

 

[Malbourne]

It's probable that some reviews are paid for...

Based on what?

If you have the slightest shred of evidence, hell, even dodgy coincidental evidence, I suggest you take it to Reddit or somewhere similar and reap yourself some internet fame.

That's true, isn't it. I don't know why I wasn't willing to give journalism the benefit of the doubt. Thanks for calling me out! I didn't consider that game journalism isn't exactly the field you shoot for when you want to make it big off of bribes and favors.

It's not hard to see why viewers may react so stubbornly, given that the scoring system they're usually provided with for convenience is in itself a rote number with little to no qualitative merit.

And yet, they never seem to object to the rote number with little to no qualitative merit when the rote number with little to no qualitative merit is one that confirms their opinion.

Yeah, it seems likely that a person who already has their mind made up going into a review probably wouldn't change their opinion if they had just seen the score. I can't say reading the actual review doesn't have any impact on impacting a person's viewpoint, but a number is much easier to bounce preconceptions off of, at the end of the day.

 

[bossfight1]

Yeah, I can only imagine a paid-for review happening in some extreme circumstance.

Take Revelations 2012.


Scathing reviews across the board, except for one from "Valid Gaming" (which has apparently been removed, big shocker). Basically, Valid Gaming openly said that the devs bribed them, even if it was with just pizza and soda, though I suspect their were other incentives they opted not to mention.

Games that are absolutely horrendous at first glance, either in graphics, gameplay or otherwise, yet somehow get called 'amazing' or something like that are obviously calling in a few favors.

So, yeah, I think it CAN happen, if both the developers of a game AND a game reviewer have low enough integrity.

In all other cases, though? Reviews are pretty much always opinion based. And humanity, particularly those on the internet, is NOT proficient at saying "My opinion is different from yours, and I'm perfectly fine with that." The mindset of a 'FUCK THIS REVIEW FOR NOT BASHING/LOVING THIS GAME LIKE I DO' person seems to be that, if someone disagrees with them, they might fear that their own opinion will be changed, so they fight tooth and nail to preserve it.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Mainstream reviews can't even mention issues without people screaming "SOSHUL JUSTISH!" at the top of their lungs.

That being said, that wasn't really good as a review. It barely touches upon the game and spends much of its time delving into the real world surrounding it. If that's their threshold, EC should have gone for something other than low-hanging fruit.

As an indictment of the games industry, it's great--though again, it probably should have gone for something a little higher on the pole. As a review? Well, it tells you that if you have a moral opposition to shooting people because they're Mexicans this time instead of Arabs, or if you dislike inaccurate games, you won't like it. But if neither of those are selling points for a game, what did it get? A passing mention that it was "meh" with little context.

This isn't to defend shooting brown people or say that it's necessarily right to misportray a conflict, but....There has to be more to a review than that, especially in the shooter genre where so much of our time is spent rewarding you for killing brown people in conflicts that are utter propaganda.

Like I said, the problem is both with reviewers and gamers. The gaming medium is so young and immature among both parties. Like Greg Tito's review of GTA5; how dare him give the game a 7 because he doesn't like the characters. A game is more than just how good/bad the gameplay is. Uncharted 3 was a lot less enjoyable to me because you were continuously told throughout the game Sully is too old for this shit and he's gonna get hurt (possibly killed) if Drake keeps bringing him along. Thus, I actually felt bad playing through the game's shootouts as I was endangering Sully. It had nothing to do with the gameplay. Plus, Uncharted 2's Sully completely contradicts Uncharted 3's Sully because Sully opted out of the adventure in Uncharted 2 because he was too old for this shit.

It's not about social issues either. Some games will have those type issues (like Call of Juarez: The Cartel) and some won't (like Uncharted 3). It's all about the reviewer honestly telling you why he/she liked or disliked the game, and we don't have that. Jim Sterling hated Batman: Arkham Origins for reasons that had nothing to do with social issues. I should see a variance of opinions when you look at an aggregate review site (like Metacritic). I shouldn't see critics all basically tooting the same horn.

The Extra Credits episode wasn't a straight up review of the game obviously. I was saying reviews should touch on those things and be present in the review. Even though Yahtzee exaggerates and uses hyperbole a lot in his "reviews" (since they aren't really reviews, more for entertainment purposes), you can tell how much he liked or disliked the game. I could tell that he like Uncharted 2 even though the review was mainly negative by reading between the lines, and then he listed Uncharted 2 as one of the better games that year in an Extra Punctuation. If Yahtzee did full-on professional game reviews, I think he'd do a damn good job.

 

[andago]

All review sites and magazines cater to their sources of funding. Mainstream ones are funded by corporations, some of which own video game developers. This is why mainstream sites and magazines focus on AAA games and to a lesser extent A games, because their funding is from companies which either own or are connected to high-budget development houses.

So most high budget games will always get good scores, a few will get bad scores, but most importantly THOSE GAMES ARE THE ONES REVIEWED, while low budget games are excluded unless they are owned by high capital or are so amazing that they can't be ignored. Review companies understand that merely by reviewing a game they are giving that game exposure - what a review company really is is not a public service but an extension of a game publisher's marketing arm.

IGN's never going to review Magicians and Looters. They will always review AAA titles no matter how shit they are, while games like Minecraft get reviewed due to their overwhelming popularity.

The way it works on an individual reviewer level is - he needs to play ball. So he needs to give the typical AAA game a good score, and can have some variation in his scores, unless the game has overwhelming "hype" (marketing focus) in which case he'd better give it a good score. Reviewers internalize this logic and understand that their job depends on them following it.

This extends to movie reviews as well. Siskel and Ebert always reviewed the latest Hollywood releases, ignoring literally all other movies, not because Hollywood movies are the best but because their salaries were paid by people connected much more closely to Hollywood than to either the indie movie scene or any non-American movie scene.

This system, albeit a pathetic aspect of obsequious capitalism, does not preclude some form of honesty from reviewers. What the system does is set boundaries in which their "honesty" needs to fall - if their personal integrity prevents them from existing within those boundaries they are typically wise enough never to enter the review industry in the first place - those who are unwise don't last long.

http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/

These are the latest reviews on the gamespot website, at least 2 of which were crowdfunded, and only 4 or 5 of those I would consider from "AAA" publishers, and with a whole range of scores from 3 to 8 out of 10.

To be honest, mainstream gamesites cater / align towards the tastes of the more mainstream gaming audience. Things like GTA and Call of Duty are insanely popular among the general audience (provided that you allow continuing high sales as evidence of popularity), so high scores for these kinds of games just mean their reviews are tailored to the widest audience.

Best thing to do is find a reviewer you agree with, and read their reviews, or for any given game read a whole load of reviews and opinions from sources you agree with, then decide for yourself.

With regards to why you'd never see someone accuse a review they'd agree with to being bribed, I would think that if people largely agree with review's contents they wouldn't think the review had to be paid off, because for them it's the truth. If you think someone had to be paid off to review a game the same as your opinion, then you probably don't hold much confidence in your own opinion.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Spoiler: cut for space saving

I have a theory, the folks who usually agree with reviews aren't very vocal about it. It may be an oddity, but humans seem less inclined to vocalize (through speech or text) their positive thoughts. Especially on the internet.

I have a theory. It could be bunnies.

But seriously, to an extent that's correct. The problem here going beyond simply "people voice dissent more readily than love" and turning into "anyone who disagrees with me is paid off or teh bias."

It's one thing to argue points and another thing to say "this guy's a big stupidhead for disagreeing with me." And the latter is effectively what we get. They insult a reviewer's skills, principles, integrity and opinions simply to reassure themselves that the game they like is, in fact, the second coming of Christ.

Along those lines, you point out that it's okay to point out typos and mistakes without being an asshat. Which I agree with (though some people are belligerent when they make the mistakes, and it's easier to be less civil with them). And this "the review was paid" thing comes off as little more than a self-righteous "how dare you not like what I like/like what I don't like? The nerve!"

I mean, I get it. The review has upset them for some reason, and I'm not even going to say "get over it" or whatever. But the people in question behave as though it was a personal attack ("This game is bad, and you're bad for liking it, PHIL!"), rather than a reviewer reviewing a game they may or may not have liked.

Last thought and plea to the community at large here: Is there any reason why we attack each other for our opinions other than what seems to be base territorial pissing matches? We as gamers, nerds, geeks, dorks, hobbyists, whatever you want to call yourself, should support each other's opinions whether we agree with them or not because our diversity of opinions, likes and dislikes, are what makes being part of this culture so great. We spend so much time breaking each other down that it seems we're less interested in moving the culture forward and bringing us together. I'm not saying we shouldn't have dissenting opinions, but we should at least have the decency to be a bit more civil towards each other. This culture, this community is still in its fledgling years, we're barely scratching the surface of what could be and if we spend our time fighting each other, even just with words, we're losing out on something else. I cannot explain what that something is, but each with negative post, each time I read something that has no intrinsic value other than to shout down another's opinon, I feel we lose as a whole.

But we're not a unified culture.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should be at each others' throats or anything, but the idea of pushing ourselves forward runs into problems in that "forward" isn't necessarily the same place for all of us. Almost all of those labels, like "nerd" or "geek" are catch-alls. At best, we might be able to agree upon some basic tenets, but even that's unlikely. Realistically, if you can get various tribes of geek to stop being territorial, you're going to win a Nobel peace prize because you'd be solving one of the oldest issues of human nature.

More to the point, though, even gamers don't all want the same things. And sometimes we're at cross purposes. I mean, there are different kinds of games out there for this exact reason. We may all like games, but we don't necessarily want the same things from games. Or the same types of games. Being a JRPG fan doesn't necessarily mean you will like shooters, or parkour games, or even WRPGs/SRPGs. Hell, being a shooter fan doesn't even guarantee you'll like all shooters. Maybe you only like twitch shooters, or only lik more sim-style shooters, or maybe you're one of those wretched people who enjoys Call of Duty. And maybe you like all of them and more, but there's no guarantee.

At the very basis of what we want, there is bound to be conflict. Conflicting issues. There's a glut of shooters on the market, and so there's going to be a divide between people who want more of them and people who want more of other things. This is worsened by the fact that fans of other genres, rightly or wrongly, feel jilted by the publishers who have now decided the "dudebro shooter" is the only thing of consequence. I could repeat the above, but with "Angry Birds" or "Facebook Game" as well.

And that's just gamers, and a very brief, inadequate, and glib coverage of it. Why can't the overall nerd community get along? Because there are literally thousands of those squabbles within each community. And when their powers combine, they form Voltron a rather divided base.

And now I've depressed myself.

BRB. Gonna go listen to a song about bunnies.

I love bunnies!

Spoiler: This is my rabbit, Alexander Bunny the Great

OT: My point is the hopeless optimist and diplomat speaking. I know we're not all going to get along and yes things may get heated. All I ask is a bit of civility and reasonable discourse. We're not necessarily united, but the core of this culture is mostly similar interest that intersect on multiple levels. ComicCon, GenCon, DragonCon, etc, are all eclectic mixes of everything that is part of our culture. If you look around at other heavily established cultures, none of them are in perfect agreement, and there are a lot of divisive elements within and without. Clashes of culture both internal and external exist. I am a firm believer in reasonable discourse, being able to acknowledge a mode of thought that may be the antithesis of our own or, at the very least, ideas that may be contrary to our own. Being able to shift our own perspectives and see another's point, even if we don't agree with it. To value an opposing viewpoint and say I disagree but you are entitled to that view (right or wrong), without getting angry.
What I am asking is nothing more than tolerance and acceptance, something many folks on here rant about in one form or another. Look we can't all agree on things, and we are all allowed to debate our views. However when the debate shifts to personal attacks and vehemence or insults and condescension that is where I feel the discourse is wrong. We are a culture, diverse and opposing in many ways but we do fit under the umbrella of that culture.
I like the idea of IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combinations) from the Vulcan culture in Star Trek. I feel we must strive to rise above the historical culture clashes and internal strife. To be reasonable beings and attempt to tolerate ideas and opinions we don't agree with. To keep our wits and cool about us is difficult when faced with a contrary perspective, but instead of jumping to rage or insults, if we really want to be seen as more than just the nerdy stereotypes we get labeled with, we need to rise above the base instincts and tolerate.
I'm not saying we cannot defend ourselves when attacked, either physically, verbally or emotionally, however it is how we defend ourselves and our viewpoints is what really defines us.
Condescension, insults veiled or direct, use of sarcasm for anything besides humor, these things I feel invalidate any points from the person or persons who resort to their use. Yes I feel negativity invalidates any forward motion in discourse, however "right" the speaker in question may be. I believe true intelligence must be tempered by wisdom first and tolerance toward opposing views. Even at the base level of matter there are protons, neutrons and electrons. Without going heavy into all that and making mistakes on things I only understand the basics of, those things exist because they work together despite being either the antithesis or neutrality of each other. As far as I'm aware, if they were to figuratively attack each other, then they would cease to exist and take matter with them (using a metaphor here so don't hate on me if I got the idea wrong). They tolerate each other despite being opposites or middle of the road.
I feel the geek/nerd/gamer/whatever culture is like an atom in that we're different, sometimes opposite, sometimes in-between, but we all can work together and tolerate each other to keep our atom from dissolving or destroying itself (and whatever is in proximity of the destruction).
I may be a somewhat wordy here, maybe have dissolved my point with too much expressive language. And I admit I'm highly optimistic despite the way some people are. But I am a firm believer in humanity's ability to push beyond our comfort zones, to tolerate and accept things we may not agree with. I'm not asking anyone to like things they don't, or to tolerate things that most of humanity finds abhorrent. I just believe people are capable of great things and working together no matter how different our views, opinions, and beliefs may be. I believe we can be more than just petty squabbles over consoles, PC, genres, etc. We can push this culture forward, but we need to be tolerant and at the very least civil with each other. Its OK to be honest about our views, and speak out when we disagree on something. I just feel there's so many ways that are positive, to not devolve into pettiness and negativity...
Yeah I have high hopes and faith which a lot of folks may see me as hopeless and whatnot but I stand by my feelings and my beliefs. I say we can be more, we can coexist without resorting to negative conflicts and I don't feel that will ever change. Call me crazy.
End of Line

 

[Floppertje]

snip

So... he went and met the developers, decided that they were genuinely kind and passionate people, then wrote a preview article in which he said, "I went and met the developers and I think they are genuinely kind and passionate people."

Not seeing the problem.

Still not relevant to my point anyway, since another comment I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever seen is, "I generally agree with the points made in this review, but the developers were really nice to the reviewer when he went and visited them to preview the game, so we should all disregard it!"

I'm not saying it's a problem, I'm just saying that you should consider that just 'being friendly' can unintentionally influence a review.
and yeah, people don't argue with things they agree with because to them, it's the truth. why would they accuse someone of taking bribes to write what they think is the truth?

 

[briankoontz]

To be honest, mainstream gamesites cater / align towards the tastes of the more mainstream gaming audience. Things like GTA and Call of Duty are insanely popular among the general audience (provided that you allow continuing high sales as evidence of popularity), so high scores for these kinds of games just mean their reviews are tailored to the widest audience.

Review sites play a role in what's popular, just like PewDiePie played a large role in the popularity of Slender. Review sites are a space which they can give over to whatever they want, so the choices they make about what to review is actually a choice about what to promote.

A lot of youtube game critics have the right idea. They play the game that they enjoy. The way to tell if they like a game is whether the game is covered on their channel at all - the ABSENCE of a game is equivalent to a bad review. These critics of course are not without bias - just as in the Slender case these critics typically cover new games - games active on the market where their coverage can impact the player-base.

Game review sites say there's two types of games - good games and bad games. But in fact there are THREE types of games - good games, bad games, and games which are not reviewed. The worst possible "review" of a game is a lack of a review, but according to the sites themselves they are "neutral" toward such games. Bullshit.

To return to the Siskel and Ebert analogy - they covered all widely released Hollywood movies, so they were "fair and balanced" within the strict boundaries of widely released Hollywood movies, while treating all other movies as if they do not exist. Was it better with respect to promotion to be a "bad" Hollywood movie, getting a thumbs-down from S&E, or to be a movie not widely released by Hollywood and therefore receiving no coverage at all?

If Call of Duty stopped being reviewed altogether it's sales would fall by a considerable margin. And if it was never reviewed at all it's sales numbers would be much less than they are. Reviews are an important part of the marketing structure for games, just like Siskel and Ebert were an important part of the marketing structure for Hollywood.

Call of Duty does not sell well because it's "fun", and it's only partly because it appeals to a besieged demonic populace who learned that theft pays during the Native American genocide and is eager for theft to once again pay in the modern Middle East, as reflected through Call of Duty gameplay.

A key underlying reason that Call of Duty sells well is because a major capitalist, Activision, makes it, who narrowly missed the current Fortune 500 rankings. While a lot of people won't play it precisely for this reason, a lot of people play it for this reason. A lot of people play strictly AAA titles, with "good graphics" as the excuse rather than the reason.

A high capitalist is a kind of umbrella which can be counted on. We can count on Microsoft to do it's thing, we can count on Google to try to take over the virtual world and invade the real world with the virtual, we can count on Rupert Murdoch to render all media he can get his hands on disinformational garbage.

Everyone who supports what Microsoft, Google, and Rupert Murdoch do buy their products to reward them for their efforts. People who agree with what Rupert Murdoch does find his disinformation "funny". People who believe that the virtual world is the best method of saving the real world support Google. People who self-identify with cunning geeks want to be like Bill Gates, so support Microsoft.

But what can we say about some independent developer who makes some random game? Not much. He's not an umbrella, he's a cypher. Who knows what his game is, who knows what his purpose is, and probably his purpose is just to have fun making a game and maybe getting paid for it. Not exactly the ambition of Google.

And even though we all know what Call of Duty is so just like the latest Madden game there's little informational point to reviewing it, while we have no idea what some random game is, Call of Duty gets reviewed and the game we know nothing about doesn't. That's not "neutrality", that's power.

As Godgle (err, Google) might say - give us enough power, and we can save the world. Give power to some random guy and he'll just buy food with it.

 

[andago]

To be honest, mainstream gamesites cater / align towards the tastes of the more mainstream gaming audience. Things like GTA and Call of Duty are insanely popular among the general audience (provided that you allow continuing high sales as evidence of popularity), so high scores for these kinds of games just mean their reviews are tailored to the widest audience.

Review sites play a role in what's popular, just like PewDiePie played a large role in the popularity of Slender. Review sites are a space which they can give over to whatever they want, so the choices they make about what to review is actually a choice about what to promote.

A lot of youtube game critics have the right idea. They play the game that they enjoy. The way to tell if they like a game is whether the game is covered on their channel at all - the ABSENCE of a game is equivalent to a bad review. These critics of course are not without bias - just as in the Slender case these critics typically cover new games - games active on the market where their coverage can impact the player-base.

Game review sites say there's two types of games - good games and bad games. But in fact there are THREE types of games - good games, bad games, and games which are not reviewed. The worst possible "review" of a game is a lack of a review, but according to the sites themselves they are "neutral" toward such games. Bullshit.

Again, from the first page of recent reviews on Gamespot's website:


Divinity Original Sin - Larian Studios (Beligian Dev with 40 employees, kickstarted) - 9 / 10

King's Bounty: Darkside - 1C Company (Russian indie dev / publisher) - 8 / 10

Xenonauts - Goldhawk Interactive (London indie game studio, kickstarted) - 8 / 10

Unrest - Pyrodactyl Games (indie dev, kickstarted) - 6 / 10

Oddworld New 'n' Tasty - Just Add Water (English indie game dev) - 8 / 10

Super Combo Man - Interabang Entertainment (Indie game dev company) - 3 / 10

...

There are more examples if you want to go looking. In fact, the reviews from larger game developers / publishers on that page are Walking Dead, Child of Light, Dark Souls 2 DLC, Killzone DLC, Sniper Elite 3, Wildstar and Ace Combat: Infinity, only 3 of which scored more than a 7.

I'm not really sure where your ire is coming from. I agree that it's troublesome that websites (including this one) use advertising revenue as a way of funding themselves, and can look to be a big conflict of interests. To say that this is reflected in their content is, however, seemingly misrepresentative. They don't review every game, but they do have a wide selection, and review every game as to the criteria their readers are interested in, unless you have evidence otherwise?

 

[T_ConX]

One of the most life-relevant things I remember from High School Drama was the importance of preserving the illusion. See, when you're watching a play, you want to believe that what your watching is real. You know it's all fake; that the actors are simply pretending to be these characters, that the setting is simply a facade, that the unfortunate murder victim is quite alive.

But there's also a part of you that needs to believe that what your watching is real, which means that the production has to maintain a certain illusion. If an actor suddenly goes out of character, or part of the set breaks, or the corpse suddenly sneezes, then the illusion, the whole illusion, is broken.

And that's what happens to the Game Journalism Community every time there's a scandal about 'paid reviews'. We get a brief glimpse of the man behind the curtain and we suddenly start to question everything. It certainly never ended with Jeff Gerstmann. Between events likeThe Redner Group threatening review sites over bad press for Duke Nukem Forever, or EA trying to screen BF3 reviewers, major publishers repetitively have demonstrated their desire to turn gaming's Fourth Estate into another arm of their marketing divisions.

Do I have to post the picture? I guess I'm posting the picture...



Journalism is supposed to be a check on power, but all that comes to mind when I see this picture is a cop being paid to look the other way, and I can't blame him. Between the game publishers buying ads, and me blocking those ads with an ad-blocker, it's kind of obvious where Geoff's loyalty should be.

I've played through to many 10/10 'Citizen Kane of Gaming' titles that just would up being boring slogs that I don't even care what GameTrailers/Gamespot/Gametrailers says any more. The only number I can trust is the user review score on Metacritic, which is made by people who paid to play the game, instead of getting paid to play it.