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silicon on 28 October 2011
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Runa216 said:
silicon said:
Why ever trust reviewers????

1) They're not experts, i.e. they don't play all games and study the art of making games. They play a few and give a number. They're heavily biased based on the games they've played previously. Metacritic CEO argued for people to play worse games (which have very few reviews by comparison) so that people improve their sense of judgement.

2) Even if they were experts, there's a lot of evidence showing the experts don't know shit. I.e. wine experts couldn't tell the difference between red and white wine, while the average person could!

3) People don't like new and innovative ideas. There are studies that show people associate creativity with vomit.

4) People have a ton of biases in their opinions. One is selection bias. If someone makes a choice between several options, they will like their choice more regardless. Basically if you buy a game because you want to, you'll likely enjoy it more rather then make the choice based on someones opinion.

5) Who knows who they talked to!!? Studies also show that if someone tells a person something, that may replace their memory of the actual event!

6) Internets are made for hits! Sites like Huffington post constantly change the headings of their articles in order to get the most hits for each article. Economics says site views > integrity.

7) Everyone has a different personality type! Meaning, everyone will enjoy something for different reasons!!! More time should be spent understanding yourself then interpreting and understanding someone else.

There are probably more reasons to never take reviews into consideration.

Whooooah boy...slow down a bit...

1 - Reviewers may not be 'experts', but they know games.  If you're doing reviews you're expected to have a wide range of tastes and play a lot of games, so it's fair to say that MOST reviewers do in fact know more about games than the average gamer (who in turn usually picks a genre or two and doesn't know much outside of that).  Also, we're expected to play good games and bad games, but in my experience, any attempts to give a game a deservedly negative review (see: Duke Nukem Forever) is hit with a wave of hatred, which is likely why too many reviwers are scoring every game in the 70-90 range.  Hell, Eurogamer gave Uncharted 3 an 8 (which, while low compared to others and their own review of 2), which wasn't that bad and the internet went nuts!  

2 - I have no words for this statement.  

3 - urge to mock rising...

4 - This happens to everyone, even regular gamers.  though a lot of the reviewers I know are able to differentiate between their own opinion and their objective score.  for example, I HATED Final Fantasy Dissidia 2, but when I reviewed it, I gave it an 8.6 because frankly it was a good game...regardless of my tastes. Just because you (and the general public) are unable to differentiate between objectivity and subjectivity doesn't mean that everyone is.  

5 - what in the hell does this refer to? 

6 - Yes, but most sites would rather have hits for integrity than hits for sensationalism.  It's the publisher in-between that's often the problem. 

7 - This is another point about the objectivity vs subjectivity thing.  a good game reviewer knows that a sports game is not likely to appeal to the same crowd as a family title, so they review according to what THAT group would want.  Simple as that.  If you don't believe this happens or is at least the goal, then perhaps YOUR bias is getting to you.  

Seriously, I can't tell if this post is a joke or not since half of your 'arguments' can't be taken seriously, while t he others are common misconceptions which would, under normal circumstances, merely be grounds for correction. 

I was being serious :(

I'm not sure if they're misconceptions since they're based on research, so maybe the misconception is that they are misconceptions?

Regarding 5 - there was a study which showed that people are easily influence by social interactions. People will generally remember an event differently if someone tells them the event occured differently. Basically if your friend likes a game and describes it as being fun, it might change the memory of your experience with the game.

Another take on #5 is reading a review and becoming aware of a fault that would generally be unnoticed. If someone points out the characters in a particular game don't blink, for example, it may draw too much attention when playing the game. Before I may not have thought twice about it. But once I become aware of it my enjoyment of the game could be negatively impacted. 

It sounds like you're a game reviewer... and I don't mean to say that game reviewers are BAD, but for me personally, I generally enjoy games more if I don't read game reviews.