The problems lies in the outlet, not the developer.

If the publisher says that they are going to give the developers a bonus if the game reaches a certain score, why is it a ridiculous policy?

This happens in every job.

Hell, even the people that flip burgers on a Mc Donalds can reach the Employee of the Month if they exceed and do their work right.

Do you have a job in real life?

Because developers have more control over the quality of the product they make than the reception the game might get. If publishers want to reward good work, they themselves should rely on their own opinion of a product rather than the opinion of the internet.

Yes, I worked fast food during my college years. Employee of the month didn't rely on an internet aggregator and any complaints were investigated to see if they were valid or not. For a publisher to just rely on an average on an internet website is ridiculous.

Someone started a petition.... (If anyone wants to sign)

https://www.change.org/p/washington-post-remove-the-washington-post-review-from-uncharted-4-s-metascore

Scores for games should stop existing, we should focus more on the content of the review. Sadly that's not gonna happen... low score for a hyped game=lots of clicks

Frankly, most of the people upset about controversial reviews aren't qualified to judge them. A review isn't merely an opinion - its an academic assessment of quality. 99% of reviewers and 99% of readers and 99% of gamers aren't even remotely qualified to be making that kind of assessment. People think that because they are decent writers and have opinions about video games, they are suddenly qualified to write are a review. They aren't. Publications think that hiring people who are decent writers and have opinions are enough to write a good review. It isn't.

Reviews don't need oversight - Reviewers need curation. From people who actually know what they're talking about. And no, playing every Final Fantasy game and being a good writer doesn't make you qualified to review Final Fantasy XV.

Starting a petition will only get this potential clickbait more attention.

As Shaggy used to say "It wasn't me".

You did bring it up though :P

I don't think that's necessary. Everyone is capable of reading a review and evaluate if it matches what he/she looks in the game, if it's well or badly written... Scores shouldn't exist though. People are obsessed with scores. I must admit it's fun to talk about them, but they don't have a proper value to me. Mainly because what the "general opinion" says it's bad, could be good for me, so scores would be automatically misleading for me. It's better to read them and have a proper opinion.

If the quality of the game was guaranteed, shitty games wouldnt exist. Developers fuck up too, and theres a press that is supposedly specialized in gaming that judge the game quality. Ideally without a bias. 

Publishers are the ones taking almost all the finacial risk, and they have to make sure that the final product is worth all the money invested.

Without deviating the topic, i isist that any extra incentive from the publisher to the developer is well received, including the press reception.

Also, my fast food example could be compared with what we are talking about.

The Employee of the Month bonus or whatever depends on the opinion of a human being aka the manager. If he happens to hate you for whatever reason, you can kiss good bye that bonus.

Your hard work is being threatened by a person who is not looking at you from an objective point of view, so you are being directly fucked no matter how good your performance was on the job.

Case in point, the Uncharted 4 review for example.

Lets say that Sony promised Naughty Dog a Million Dollar bonus if the game achieved a 94 or more on Meta.

Well, because of some fucking retard who gave the game a 4 out of 10 and lowered the score to 93, they lost a bonus for their hard work of years.

There are 90 reviews, that is the ONLY negative review of the bunch.

Who says that maybe he is a disguised XXXXX fanboy? Which is mostly the case?