Is it time we fixed the review system?

[Twistedpixel]

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Twistedpixel said:

Tell that to the Avatards!

In any case the problems with reviews for games also stem out of the fact that people rely on them so much because people just love to rock in their game shop first day a game is out and buy a $60 game straight up. That means that publishers like Sony, Microsoft, EA, Eidos, Activision etc want to control this process because hype, advertising, and reviewer pressure gets them their payola first day or week of release. Noone really cares what a movie reviewer says because they people rely on other information as well.

Game reviewers fall into the 'hype' crowd WAY more than movie goers.  If anything, movie critics will downscore a movie because its 'too popular' (like Ebert) while game reviewers will automatically give a game a 9.0 or above simply because they're scared of alienating their readers.  Is either side right?  Not really, as its just two sides of an extreme.

I suspect the answer isn't as simple as that.

Games which have high review scores tend to be popular amongst their particular genres. Very few titles score above 90 on metacritic and fail to sell more than 2M units. You could almost say that its a like-ability score rather than a score judging the qualities of the game itself. Scores like 50% for FFXIII from Edge are more an indication that the userbase which finds FF games in general appealing isn't totally satisfied with the game and lower popularity yields lower sales for the game overall.

Movie reviewers seem to review to their own standards or to standards which aren't reflected in the general public. Critical appeal doesn't mean that a movie is going to make money or please the general audiences or even appeal to them. So one can say movie reviews themselves are as irrelevant to the general public as reviewers for games are to the Wii audiences.

I suspect the biggest complaints which can be laid at game reviewers feets are that they are working for the industry as much as the reader and that they are too quick to give out high scores when they ought to have a realistic scoring grade. At present games are scored for the people who are definately getting the title in question or very tempted to, whereas they ought to be a guide for people who may not be directly interested in the series in question. Reviews for games are meant to be a buyers guide, but not for buyers who have already made up their minds!