| IkePoR said: Look at it like this: whatever direction a reviewer would get more heat from, expect scores in the opposite direction. It is not benificial for reviewers to highly rate highly subjectively bad games like Other M and Amiibo Fesitval. It's in the reviewers best interest to ride the tide - rate it where it belongs, because to be adverse will cause backlash. On the flipside, high profile games - that's, games that don't have budgets the size of a toilet paper roll being relased on very dead consoles - are highly over blown as "system seller" material. Nothing could make the Wii U move, yet every game over 80 meta is dotted as a system seller. |
That's not a Nintendo-specific problem that you're describing, though. Not saying I fully disagree, just that any game with hype could get a backlash from a poor review. Since we're talking about ARMS, I don't see any reason a reviewer would believe they'd get heat for rating it below a 90(the claim of which is what kickstarted this whole side discussion a few pages back, I don't remember what you actually predicted the score would be, if you made a prediction). Splatoon got an 81, turned out to be insanely popular among Nintendo fans, but nobody got heat for it that I recall. The other games I mentioned had scores below 80 and budgets of general Nintendo high-profile size(even Tomodachi Life, probably, had a budget similar to most 3DS games).
Some reviewers did give Other M good scores, though. Some gave it bad(mostly middling, which in that generation was the same as bad). If anything people often claim that giving bad reviews to good games is effective clickbait. And how do they know what is "highly subjectively bad" unless they're formulating their own opinions? Since Jim Sterling was brought up, I'll point out that he gave Mario Kart 7 a bad review, but Mario Kart 8 Deluxe a great one. Are you accusing him of fearing Nintendo fan backlash? Because I don't see that, at all. I think he just happened to love one game and not the other. Not every reviewer is that consistent but once again, I'm not seeing any proof that this is a Nintendo-centric problem rather than some reviewers being crappier than others.
Whether people mistake a good Metacritic score for a system seller seems beside the point unless I missed something, I'll admit I kind of jumped in when you were conversing with other people so maybe I did.
