Exclusive: Critics Admit To Lowering Scores For Attention.

[Nuvendil]

Tachikoma said:

Nuvendil said:
What people are ignoring it seems is that the article makes it clear that this is about a rotten *minority* composed of small to midrange sites that need traffic. But nope, there will be people who will take the "evidence" from this article and use it whenever a reviewer hurts their feelings. Wonderful.

You are burrying your head in the sand and pretending the situation is all paranoia except for "Isolated cases"

If you think major sites don't stoop to such tactics to remain relevant, you're being way too nieve.

I'm not saying it never happens.  Not saying it doesn't occasionally happen at big sites.  Polygon used to be big, look what they have been doing for a while.  But my point isn't that.  My point is that there are a LOT of people who say this every effing time a game that they are excited for gets a score of seven or lower.  And I'm here to tell you that most of the time, the claims are BS.  Not all the time.  But most of the time.  Critics aren't perfect and there are other flaws in the system, so the score won't always align with what a particular person wants.