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Forums - Sony Discussion - Exclusive: Critics Admit To Lowering Scores For Attention.

 

Do you agree ?

Yes 173 74.57%
 
No 59 25.43%
 
Total:232
Nate4Drake on 02 March 2015
eva01beserk said:
Nate4drake I'm at work right now so can't get into it right now, why don't you start a thread so all Vic can get into it and we come to an agreement we can submit it together. Maybe have one of the wrighters like sceece put it together and all back it up and post it on other sites like neogaf to get the word rolling.

Ok, I will start the New Thread, tomorrow.

Have a nice day mate.



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crissindahouse on 02 March 2015

There are a few who do that from time to time and well, it does maybe lower the Metascore (Forza Horizon 2 or some Uncharted as example would have maybe 1-2 points higher without Quarter to Three and the likes) but let's be honest here, for games with many reviews this doesn't change much overall. A game like The Order wouldn't be a 70+ game if a few reviewers wouldn't give it much less as it deserves. After all it also got a 95 and you can say the exact same thing about this score just in the opposite direction. Maybe it would have a 67 instead but some too high scores counter some too low scores already so that the average will be around the same as if these extreme scores wouldn't be there. 

Same goes for all the other games which got an average high or low score with a few scores in an extreme opposite direction but yeah, in the end we don't talk about games with only a few reviews so that single scores change much here since that are games where you can't get much attention for, we talk about huge games with 60+ different reviews on Metacritic.

The Order isn't 10 or even 20 points lower on Metacritic just because reviewers want attention, Ryse or Knack aren't 80+ games in reality (maybe for some single tastes) and Forza Horizon 2 is also not a 95+ game and "only" in the 80s just because Quarter to Three didn't like it^^



eva01beserk on 02 March 2015

Chrissinthehouse that's one of the points being made. I know this thread is focusing on the order, but it's just cuz is the lates casualty. Many games have gotten scores lower than they deserve and some have gotten even higher. The reson we need a standard that we need reviewers to follow. That won't stop the clickbait scores but it will help us identify which one's are clickbait.

Nate4drake I asked you to start the thread cuz I thought you where free right now while I'm at work, but if you will start it tomorrow we might as well collaborate. And this is the site to start petitionshttps://www.change.org



It takes genuine talent to see greatness in yourself despite your absence of genuine talent.

oniyide on 02 March 2015
DanneSandin said:
oniyide said:
DanneSandin said:
The sad thing is, if you wanna get an honest review you mpre or less HAVE to go to one of the bigger sites since the smaller ones might be dishonest about the score. And even the bigger sites might be forced to adjust the final score to please some publishers.

What we as gamers really should do is buying paper magazines instead. That way the magazine isn't dependent on ad revenue and can't be forced by publishers to give better scores to certain games.

But we're all too fucking lazy and CHEAP to do that, aren't we? We want everything for free and on our terms. WE have created this situation, no matter how indirect


I understand your frustration but i think you are being a little cynical. Magazines were just another casualty of the world becoming more digital. A couple of publications went away outside of gaming. But what are people to do now? I cant speak for everyone but i have a subcription to Game Informer, gamers hate that publication because of its ties to Gamestop (unfortunate as it is legit good), Sony doesnt have there PSM anymore, there is PC world (not everyone is PC gamer), Xbox magazine (not everyone is an Xbox gamer) and EGM which is only quarterly? are they even still doing print or did that die again?

And lets be real do you think people really want to wait a month to see if a game is good or not?

I completely agree with you here. I understand WHY paper magazines aren't doing so well, but a consequens of that is that gaming media is dependent on ad rev - which is the core problem we're talking about. Just because digital is the next logical step, doesn't make it a good/better one.

What game publishers COULD do to ease some of these problems, is to give paper magazines BIG exclusives, so as to drive people to that media. However, then we end up with the opposite problem: the publishers having such a strong grip over magazine publishers... So I don't really know what to do here...


oh i agree i dont know why people are so in love with digital. Unless its significantly cheaper. I'll go with hard copies. Thats not just games, books, movies, music. Movies have the right idea. Buy the bluray and get a digital copy. 

Funny thing is that Game Informer gets just that, exclusive previews on stuff no one else is getting but as you said that opens up another problem...yeah we're screwed



curl-6 on 02 March 2015

Wait a sec, you people are actually trying to pressure reviewers to conform to your standards just cos you're upset that your favourite company's exclusives are being criticized?

No offense, but that's kind of sad, frankly.



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TK14 on 02 March 2015

Gamespot. Tom McShea, especially (before he was laid off). All there is to say, in my opinion.



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oniyide on 02 March 2015
DanneSandin said:
oniyide said:
eva01beserk said:


Not the same, I got to give credit to nintendo here since they dont rehash the same on an anual basis(aside from pokemon wich is happeninng now to do aanual releases). They at least wait 3 years for another game, some only get one game per gen like smash, zelda, kart and others. Even if they where the same thing, we get a little brake and the improvemnts feel more meningfull cuz we get years acumulated of improobements than a little one every year.

This is how i genuinly feel and it is actually one of the things i do like about Nintendo. Now with that being said, serious question. Are these improvements ACTUALLY meaningful or do they FEEL meaningful because the gap in time between games is so much wider than most? 

I think the answer is, do the improvements ADD something to the already established formula? If it adds something, then I think they're meaningful. Do they enhance your experience? And that answer is gonna be different for everyone that plays the game. For me, the motion controls of Zelda SS was something that added something for me, so that was meaningful for me. Sometimes, it was immerive breaking, but most of the time they were a great addition. The same thing goes for the Silent Realm in the same game; it was nice to change up the pacing and mechanics of the game some times.

fair enough. IMHO i think some series get a pass because they release so infrequently. Ill pick on the NSMB series. The original actually TOOK stuff away. Less items. No Yoshi, more bland worlds(imo) and what it did add was one new item that only showed up in the first wolrd a wall jump and new graphics engine. But it got praised all over. The AC series add more stuff between the original and 3 and it didnt take 20 years but thats up to each person to decide.



eva01beserk on 03 March 2015
curl-6 said:

Wait a sec, you people are actually trying to pressure reviewers to conform to your standards just cos you're upset that your favourite company's exclusives are being criticized?

No offense, but that's kind of sad, frankly.

Not my standard, Im making a thread for everyone to give an opinion so we all come to an agreement. And frankly Im not a sony fan, im a nintendo fan.Its not about games getting bad reviews if they dont deserve it, its games that also  get great reviews when they dont deserve it And even I got to admit that some nintendo games get praised when they are not so great, like bayonetta should not have scored a 91, still a good game, but not that much.

The other problem is clickbait reviews, even if we cant change the score, we want to be able to know wich reviews are them.

all we want is mainly fr reviews to separate scores for the most imprtant aspects of games, so a reviewer that dosent like one aspect of a game to give it a horrible score for that one thing they dont like and ignore the rest of its qualitys, also goes both ways, average games that get super high scores for the one thing that they do right is also unaceptable. And even if they decide to give a undeserving score by lowering something else to get the average low, we would know, like saying 

the order 1886

graphics   60

story 60

gameplay 60

the average for that review is 60, while we know that this game focuses on graphics and a 60 for that particullar aspect is undeserved and the average is to low. even if the result is 80 for graphics, the average would not be to high anyways but it would still be more trustworthy. 

the same could be said fro a game with a score over the top with probably a bad story and they claim the story is 90 just to bring the average up, we would know a game that dosent focus on story like destiny or COD or bayoneta or titanfall dont deserve it cuz the focuus is gameplay so getting a 70-80 average on thoe types of games would still be conider a great game. A problem is that we tend to ignore flaws with our favorite games, and this way we would score each part independently and the biggest change I belive will happen is not lower score games getting better score, but games that score to high will be lowered a bit, fixing the baseles comparasion of diferent games.



It takes genuine talent to see greatness in yourself despite your absence of genuine talent.

curl-6 on 03 March 2015
eva01beserk said:
curl-6 said:

Wait a sec, you people are actually trying to pressure reviewers to conform to your standards just cos you're upset that your favourite company's exclusives are being criticized?

No offense, but that's kind of sad, frankly.

Not my standard, Im making a thread for everyone to give an opinion so we all come to an agreement. And frankly Im not a sony fan, im a nintendo fan.Its not about games getting bad reviews if they dont deserve it, its games that also  get great reviews when they dont deserve it And even I got to admit that some nintendo games get praised when they are not so great, like bayonetta should not have scored a 91, still a good game, but not that much.

The other problem is clickbait reviews, even if we cant change the score, we want to be able to know wich reviews are them.

all we want is mainly fr reviews to separate scores for the most imprtant aspects of games, so a reviewer that dosent like one aspect of a game to give it a horrible score for that one thing they dont like and ignore the rest of its qualitys, also goes both ways, average games that get super high scores for the one thing that they do right is also unaceptable. And even if they decide to give a undeserving score by lowering something else to get the average low, we would know, like saying 

the order 1886

graphics   60

story 60

gameplay 60

the average for that review is 60, while we know that this game focuses on graphics and a 60 for that particullar aspect is undeserved and the average is to low. even if the result is 80 for graphics, the average would not be to high anyways but it would still be more trustworthy. 

the same could be said fro a game with a score over the top with probably a bad story and they claim the story is 90 just to bring the average up, we would know a game that dosent focus on story like destiny or COD or bayoneta or titanfall dont deserve it cuz the focuus is gameplay so getting a 70-80 average on thoe types of games would still be conider a great game. A problem is that we tend to ignore flaws with our favorite games, and this way we would score each part independently and the biggest change I belive will happen is not lower score games getting better score, but games that score to high will be lowered a bit, fixing the baseles comparasion of diferent games.

But who are we to say how reviewers judge a game? Everyone has their own personal preferences and opinions. For some people, one element may completely ruin or redeem the experience. 
Forcing a standardized process ignores that different people have different analytical approaches and perspectives, in my opinion.



Aeolus451 on 03 March 2015
Nate4Drake said:
Aeolus451 said:


Well, a lot of 'em kinda do that but it's different for each reviewer. I wish there was a universal rating system and that reviewers were regulated. I personally don't use reviews to figure out If want to buy a game or not. They are fast becoming irrevelevent in the today's gaming world. Giving such low scores like you mentioned to perfectly working games is sad and it discredits game reviews as a whole.

Yep, I agree.

I'm the first one who does not consider the final score of Meta; I bought KZ :SF, LBP3, The Evil Within, and I enjoyed all, though Meta was a bit low.

Do you think it's possible to go with a Petition suggesting a 'Universal Rating System' for Metacritic ?


Honestly, I don't know if it would help with it or not. If it didn't work then maybe boycotting the site might work. Metacritic also needs to stop taking any reviews from sites/magazines that have extreme reviews/scoring or show any overt bias for a certain length of time.