rambi80

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Will Game Reviews Become Irrelevant?

It has become increasingly common to see a review embargo for games that expires upon release of the title. There are a number of reasons for this. The most obvious to one with a sufficiently suspicious or cynical mind is that the publisher knows the game is subpar and will be reviewed poorly. In this case, the benefit is that the consumer will purchase/fail to cancel pre-order, before seeing the review.

However, there are less unwholesome reasons for this practice. By establishing a late deadline, it prevents a reviewer from being influenced by their peers. An early negative review may cause others to second-guess their review and hence by forcing everyone to publish at the same time, each person is more likely to have an unadulterated opinion.

This practice has created a problem though. Take the recent South Park release as an example. One could see a live stream of the game before the embargo had lifted. The result was that I could see the game for myself before I could read about someone’s subjective experience with it. The result was that I was convinced to buy it without ever reading a review, something which, to be honest, I have never done before.

Writing a game review is a punishing experience. You SHOULD complete the title, make notes during the experience, collect those thoughts and then spend days writing and correcting a review that pisses off the person scrolling to the end to glean the numerical score at the end. For a website, it’s also a costly endeavor to have someone spend such a large chuck of time on one short piece. Worse yet is the fact that the numerically-minded consumer may never visit your site and instead visit an aggregator site such as Metacritic. The end result is a lot of effort for little or no gain.

Another issue with reviews is that they must remain spoiler-free. The result is a person trying to describe an experience without describing the game in detail. This leads to the use of vague language that can later be interpreted by the end-user as an attempt to obscure what the game is about or mislead the consumer as to quality.

The problems don’t end there though. A lot of people have grown very mistrustful of game reviews and for very good reasons. Getting an early copy of a game means having a relationship with the publisher, and for some titles/publishers, it means that any score far above/below the community consensus is met with anything ranging from sarcasm to death threats. The maxim “games are opinions” has been put forth but is undermined by incidents like GTA 4 receiving rave reviews (98 on metacritic) despite the game having obvious and significant flaws which led to a much lower user score. No reviewer in their right mind is going to piss off Rockstar.

At the other end of the spectrum are developers like David Cage or Peter Molyneux, who are easy to dislike due to their personalities and who represent no real threat. It is very easy to get that review wrong and not even have to shrug at the consequences. The point is that not everyone gets the benefit of the doubt or a fair shake.

At the end of the day, a review represents a massive amount of effort for something that is far more likely to do harm than good. What then is the other option?

We could already be seeing the future in the form of the Livestream/Let’s play video. This is an opportunity to show the gamer what you like or dislike without the likelihood of being accused as biased. The nature of the exercise means that spoilers are expected, but can be meted out at the discretion of the viewer. You can turn away anytime you think you’ve seen enough.

The exercise potentially promises less work, more transparency and less animosity. You don’t need to write a review, speak in euphemisms or assign a score. You simply have to show the gamer what you think the problems are, and they can decide if they agree of not or if it matters to them or not. Depending on the website, they may not have to wait for embargoes to lift if they can get an early retail copy and may further instill user confidence in the independence of the opinion presented if the site does not have to depend on the publisher.

It’s not a perfect solution though. Some games are uneven in quality, and a person can walk away with a much skewed impression of game quality based solely on a few minutes of gameplay. Also watching someone play is OBVIOUSLY not the same as playing the game yourself. Also, there are those who prefer a COMPLETELY spoiler-free experience and hence only look at numbers instead of reading reviews.

TL;DR – Reviews are expensive and time-consuming and are either ignored or generate hate. It could be much more profitable, transparent and unbiased to do a let’s play video instead.

mydyingparadiselost4419d ago

I've bought games from watching lets plays before, it is very nice to check out the first half or quarter of a game to set if it's worth it and although I haven't done the streaming stuff I can completely see that being another great way to gauge a game. Hopefully text reviewers don't go away but rather the worst of the bunch are weeded out and we get left with quality reviewers and day one streamers.

DoctorJones4418d ago

It could be more profitable, transparent and unbiased to do a let’s play video, but I don't have the hours in the day to rely on them to make my gaming purchases so reviews from people I trust will have to suffice. Besides, I don't want to spoil a game for myself too much, and text reviews on the whole don't do that as much as a lets play does.

Text reviews are here to stay, you won't see them going away I'm afraid, and I'm glad for that. People like to read about others opinions, that's not going to change any time soon. Let's play videos are great, but I prefer watching them after I've been playing something, not before.

People complain a lot about reviews, but you just need to find a few sites or reviewers that tend to think the way you do.

Some reviewers are crap, and some are great. It's that simple really.

rambi804418d ago (Edited 4418d ago )

any reviewers in particular that you find very good?

Name names! :)

DoctorJones4418d ago

I tend to rely on quite a few, Jim Sterling tends to match my views on a lot of games.

John Walker can be a bit hit and miss lately but I've agreed with many of his reviews in the past.

There are a lot of reviewers that have been in tune with the games I like that I've used for reviews, I'm not gonna sit here and name all of them dude, please :P.

aLucidMind4418d ago

I find Angry Joe, while he can be hit-or-miss at times with his skits and comedy, he has always had valid points. I've played most of the game he's reviewed and his reviews are fairly spot-on.

AtomicGerbil4418d ago (Edited 4418d ago )

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to trust reviews these days, and as has already been said find it much better to watch let's plays.

If I recall correctly, I found what Total Biscuit had to say in this video very interesting (from 4:00 minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Christopher4417d ago

I just cannot trust reviewers at all in this day and age.

There really are backhanded deals made and there are people who really want to focus more on getting hits than anything else.

I don't know these people personally and I don't know how they really feel. I also don't feel like hunting down their history of reviews to determine if they're a hypocrite, if they are actually into these type of games, etc.

In the end, as I have said multiple times on various articles, trust the people you know and have similar tastes to you. Don't trust reviewers. Don't click their reviews. Pay no mind to them. All you're doing is promoting their voice, and 9 out of 10 times it's one written with money in mind and not heart and spirit.

coolbeans4415d ago

I think that's rather drastic. I'll admit I've heard some suspicious tales about the bribing aspect, even some companies paying off reviewers to help LOWER the metascore in order to avoid giving the devs bonuses (something I'm wondering happened with Fallout: NV). But to suggest it's just this overwhelming majority of drones being feed by gaming corporate to give a score just seems too radical. I haven't come to know a professional games reviewer, but from what I often see they just seem like normal people just expressing their thoughts.

If trust is a big issue, I'd say a more pluralistic approach to reviews would be better rather than outright avoidance.

Christopher4415d ago

***But to suggest it's just this overwhelming majority of drones being feed by gaming corporate to give a score just seems too radical.***

No one has to buy them out. They sell themselves out based on advertising and maintaining a relationship that allows them to continue to get content in the future.

Sure, every once in a while they speak out. But, much like most mainstream media things, it only becomes something they speak out against when it's so big that everyone else is already doing it.

coolbeans4415d ago

"They sell themselves out based on advertising and maintaining a relationship that allows them to continue to get content in the future."

But when it comes to advertising, there's been a greater push to non-game related ads recently. And even for some titles or systems on sites that got HUGE pushes during the this-gen launch, especially for Killzone: Shadowfall, a lot seem to level 5's or 6's against that and/or voice their opinions about Xbox One and PS4 having rather disappointing launches.

admiralvic4415d ago (Edited 4415d ago )

"But to suggest it's just this overwhelming majority of drones being feed by gaming corporate to give a score just seems too radical."

While a lot of reviewers might not get paid off in a formal sense, I can say I've seen a lot of sites / known several reviewers who are motivated more by greed than integrity in terms of reviews.

About a year ago I was writing for a site where I did about 30 - 40% of the reviews and the EiC did 50%+, with up to 10% going to other writers. Now, this site was averaging 100,000 views a month (not amazing, but decent) and there were countless times where foul play came up with reviews.

There were several instances where the EiC would directly change my scores or tell me to review something more favorably. Like if the company sent us two copies, the EiC would say to "be nice" to them and if I wasn't, the EiC would complain / moan about how the game would be much better at such and such score. I would have quit due to this, but he never touched my words, so I made my peace (I mean, we all conceptualize the score differently, so as long as people can still judge from what I considered to be accurate information, I didn't think it was worth quitting over. I did fight him many times and won out about 30 - 40% of the time though) with it.

Now, the EiC was terrible about what he reviewed. For him, every review was done with the reader in mind and not in a good way. Like if he thought a game would average a 9, he would give it a 9 regardless of what he felt. His reviews were also largely based off the first hour or two and were intentionally vague to give the illusion of knowledge.

Since then I've written for a few more sites and I've seen people do things with agendas in mind. One site got the shaft on a few Nintendo articles, so the last Nintendo game they got went to the most bias person on staff so the game would get a perfect score and Nintendo would ideally send them more games. Another flat out gave The Walking Dead GOTY because the EiC reasoned Telltale would hype their site if they did so (worked perfectly). I mean, the more places I work, the less I enjoy writing about games. There are way too many people with hidden agendas and way too few people calling them out.

coolbeans4415d ago

@admiral

I see. Thanks for providing that insight.

admiralvic4415d ago

No problem. If Sony didn't implement the trophy privacy feature, I would link you to the EiCs PSN account. He had something like 215 games played and earned roughly 11% of his total trophies. While some might reason he wasn't playing for trophies, do keep in mind how many trophies are story related, how many will happen over time (like getting 100 kills) and how this person is suppose to be reviewing (as in doing as much as possible) and not simply playing it.

I could also tell a lot more stories, like how that EiC told me he couldn't finish the game as every character in Dragon's Crown, so he only bothered with two of them for his review, so I literally platinumed the game before the embargo was up (despite starting 3 days after him) just to prove a point, but I don't think people want to hear me ramble on about a bunch of random things.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 4415d ago
admiralvic4415d ago

While I understand where you're coming from, this article also seems to work off the assumption that every reviewer played a significant amount in the first place. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the extra effort will be worth it and I've known more reviewers that review the situation.

Let me explain. After you've spent some time in the industry and played a game before anyone else, you can start to guesstimate what the game will score. At first glance I thought Tearaway was a fantastic game (something I would score a 9), but after getting the platinum (according to PSNProfiles I was the first to do it), I didn't feel there was enough content to justify the price and lowered the score. Now, I figured the game would average a 9 and according to Metacritic it has an 87 (9 for user), so I wasn't off by much. I ended up giving it one of the lowest scores (bottom 7% or so) and was widely criticized by people for my review.

The funny thing is that if I didn't bother putting in the extra time, it probably would have got that 9/10 and people would be praising my review. It was only because I decided to do things right, did I run into problems. However, I could devote a whole blog post to my feelings about Tearaway and the game community (the amount of people that defend that game for being worth $40 dollars versus the amount of people that pan Zeroes for being $20 - $40 for roughly as much content is sort of comical).

Anyway, in my experience a lot of reviews are based off a small precent of the game and work off biases and side factors. Most small sites don't want to be labeled the "flame bait" review site (even if their scores are legitimate) and most big sites are perfectly alright doing whatever their corporate masters say. However, I largely blame the community for these problems, not the weak minded people.

When it comes to the community, we often see "token" stances like Tearaway vs Ground Zeroes. People often told me that Tearaways experience was worth the money, where as others say Ground Zeroes is 2 hours and thats not acceptable in my book period. Because people aren't setting universal standards and most people will simply agree with a score, they've created a reality where there really isn't any monitoring to prevent this stuff.

rambi804415d ago (Edited 4415d ago )

Thanks for your feedback, i really appreciate it. Don't get me started on the fiasco that is GOTY......sigh.

I want to ask a question though. I've noticed a lot of reviewers come into the industry without any formal journalism background or indoctrination into a methodology for reviewing games. Do you think that this could explain the wide variation in scores that seemed less commonplace when we dealt with physical magazines? Or has it always been like this? i've heard people criticize a game for reasons that left me dumbfounded at times.

admiralvic4415d ago

"Do you think that this could explain the wide variation in scores that seemed less commonplace when we dealt with physical magazines?"

No. I believe the reason we're seeing this has a lot more to do with how the landscape has changed in the past 5 to 10 years.

One of the biggest changes is how important being first is. In the past, magazines had ample time to research and follow a story before it got printed. This lead to less pointless filler and properly researched and well done articles. This is contrary to now, where people want to be first to put it on N4G and this has literally caused yesterday's news to become yesterday's news*. Because of this, a lot of sites will do little to no research and will post anything they think will get views.

This concept also impacts reviews too. For a lot of sites, the embargo isn't an embargo as much as it's a deadline. If the embargo for a game is Tuesday at 8 pm, then you better believe that review is due by 6 pm. Due to logistic problems, this could result in a reviewer having an absurd deadline like a day or two. Because of this, a lot of reviews are hastily written and ultimately the reader is given a huge disservice.

Another huge factor is the amount of writing and effort that goes into each. Unlike a site, magazines had a finite number of pages and only so much content could go on each page (plus a number of other related factors). Due to this, several reviews are little more than a sentence or just a paragraph with a score. Since the articles were so short, a lot of reviews didn't have to really rationalize their score. Remember, we're talking like 100 words, which is equivalent to the average closing of an online review.

Finally, I think one of the biggest problems is Metacritic, since game reviews do not have a strict universal standard. For instance, Quarter to Three gives a score based off how much the reviewer liked the game. This has resulted in a magical world where The Darkness 2 and Brutal Legends can get a perfect score and Beyond: Two Souls is on par with Aliens: CM. PlayStation Lifestyle is another site on MC and for whatever reason they consider 6 to be average (as per their rule guidelines). So I ask you, what is the point of an average if all the metrics come from different logical stand points? Especially when Metacritic considers a 61+ green for Movies, TV and Music, but for games it's a 75.

Anyway, to get back to what you said, I think the "dumbfounded" reasons relate to an overall lack of standards in the industry. No one calls anyone on anything (more or less) and people seems to like the shoot first and ask questions later trend we have going, which is largely what this comment is about.

* Sorry if this was confusing, but I was going for a play on words using that idiom.

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