If there weren't so many preorders and review embargoes I would be more inclined to agree. There are also many other people who don't read reviews, save for the choice ones placed on the game box, the opinions of store employees, and the very unreliable scores on PSN/XBOX store. Other than that I see it is a valid notion.

Just curious: what would be your ideal timeframe for an updated review?

as long as you know the game is fixed and doing great now, why still bother about those bad launch review score...

publishers and developers are the one that responsible to let gamers know how good is their game doing now and not those reviewers...

I guess the point of this whole thread is that we might miss out on actually decent games that had issues on launch, and besides if these companies were greedy and all, they wouldn't bother fixing these issues.

Does anyone remember Burnout Paradise? It was a great game at launch and they added tons of free content + fixed bugs and other issues, they even added trophies almost instantly.

This.

DC didn't get knocked for its server issues. A vast majority of the lower scores don't even mention them, or make a small comment about them. You know what's even better than a different review system? A different development system where devs ship working, complete games.

What happens years down the road when a game that needs a bunch of patches to fix its bugs and issues is no longer sold in stores and the console it was made for no longer has the servers to provide those patches? Its update score would not reflect the real game to the retro gamers later down the line who can't download these patches correct?

That doesn't even make sense. That would make a broken game that won't be supported score higher than a slightly broken game with support.

The Zelda games for CD-I get 10/10 while Skyrim gets a -4/10

the game that launched is not the same game I just platinumed (literally 5 minutes ago... lol)

Its not just about DC anyways, its about being able to go back to older games and being able to trust the reviews for them. Like I said like 5 times in this thread already 2 years from now I am not going to care about what a game looked like and am going to want to know what I will get if I buy it and play it. And its not just about broken versus not broken, sometime things get free addons (which actually is the main reason why DC has improved so much) and that factors into the value of the game.

I know GTA 5 has about of scores as you can get and I have not played online heist, but it is added content and if they are good and they make the game better it changes the product that was reviewed. If someone did not purchase it because they read the online was not compelling it could make a difference to them.

I love how everyone is focusing on broken games. Then again, I find it hardly surprising. It's as if game with no bugs = good game. For me, it doesn't follow. I'd take a Walking Dead: Season 3 game with tons of problems rather than a game I find boring or feel like I've played it before.

At any rate. I agree 100% with the OP. He keeps mentioning a point that people seem to ignore. What if the reviewers review the game in a great state with no online problems only for the game to launch and the online mode to become broken as hell. How is the score reflecting the overall game? What if they release a patch that creates a ton of problems and they never manage to fix the problems they created?

I also find it misleading when they knock off points for not being worth $60 as if it's always going to cost that much. That is certainly not helping someone who is considering buying a game and only looks at the score. And some of you may feel superior for reading the content and not the sore "like those fools", but most people have a fraction of your (and my) free time. Not only do we have time to game, we spend such a long time arguing on forums. The average gamer doesn't have that luxury. So, the score of the review does not reflect the game in its current state.

Although I don't like the reviewing system and I agree with the OP, I understand that from a practical point of view, updating the reviews will never happen properly, because it's not worth the reviewers' time. But that doesn't make it right.

As another user mentioned, the very least that I expect from them is if they're gonna change their score some time later because something is not working, they should at least have the decency to change it again, when it does work. And the other way around.Consistency is key.