The whole point of having reviews is to give the consumer an idea of the quality of the product they intend to purchase. Right now reviews only do justice to day one purchasers as the score only reflects it at a day one state.

For instance, I was playing Destiny and Shadow of Mordor when Driveclub released so I did not have time to play at that point, however by the time I got it in December it had major patches and most of the stablility and connectivity issues were fixed and they had added alot of free content. The game was no longer a 7/10.

For instance I was looking for an old PS3 game to kill time this weekend before T-0 arrives and I did not have time to research every game and learn and figure out which ones were completely different in quality based on updates since it released. I just looked at Meta and found a few games with good scores and then read reviews on each. There could be a game that score in the low 70s I did not even consider but is now over an 80 because of new content or fixes to issues.

It would not be that time consuming for reviewers to do this. They should already have a system they use, and they need to do is keep track of why the deducted scores and how much they deducted it for what. If they took 10 points for stability issues but a patch releases and fixes it the should give 10 points back. If lack of content was the issue and they add free content then the score should reflect that.

If I am looking at a review to buy a game I dont care how good it was 6 months ago I want to know how good it is now. You know when I am buying it.

Most other mediums that have a review system are static, for instance if a movie is panned for bad acting or bad plot or directing they cant just go back and patch in new actors. Essentially movies never change so the system works. Same with books. Same with just about everything.

I think hotels are a closer example of how videogames could work. If a hotel is 5 stars when it opens but 10 years later they no longer have the service quality or ammenties they get reduced to reflect the current state. If a hotel gets downgraded for X reason and they can fix it or add services they can improve their rating.

Reviewers are not doing their job right now and it does a disservice to the gamers.

I disagree, developers should make sure their game is ready to go from day 1. I think the amount of patches a game receives should lower a games score.

Reviewers should stop using scores...problem solved

Yea no... If they start doing that, then developers won't care to release fully functioning games in day one cause the reviews will just update when the games gets fixed so games will be even more broken in day 1 than they are currently so no thanks

At least the non-updated way will teach the idiotic people that release games in a broken state to stop releasing them in a broken state or else it the game will get a low score

And I guess we should go back and downgrade every game based on their bad graphics and outdated gameplay.

 But really, read your OP again and think about what you're asking. You want them to do your research for you when they already go great lengths to provide with a complete enough picture of a game..

all i will say is, if a reviewer takes the time to do a second review to lower the score of a game (like a reviewer did with Driveclub because of its constant online problems) then they should commit to update the review when the game is actually fixed especially if said game got a lot upgrades since then.

If a developer puts out a broken piece of shit day 1, they deserve to get trashed. I don't care how good it is a few months later, if you make people pay for something that isn't finished then you deserve everything that's coming to you.

/thread

Thats just not true. Games sell a ton at launch when hype is the highest and a broken or lacking game at launch means a TON of lost sales.

Reviews are not about "punishing devs" as they SHOULD be meant to educate consumers.

And they should lose even more sales for giving out a broken game in the first place. Reviews do educate consumers... By telling them to stay away from the money grabbing idiots that don't put in enough effort to release a working game and only fix it after they have the people's money. I am surprised that anyone would even suggest rewarding these nonsense devs/publishers that think they can get away with releasing a broken game in the first place