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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Petition: Remove Uncharted 4 Washington Post Review from Metacritic

pokoko on 16 May 2016
LudicrousSpeed said:
pokoko said:

You have no freedom of speech in a private forum.  None.  THAT PHRASE DOES NOT APPLY TO THIS SITUATION.  It's like saying Metacritic is taking away my freedom of speech because they won't post the review I did on my blog.  The concept refers to government censorship and has nothing to do with this in any way, shape, or form.  

Sounds like you need to start a petition to get this guy to remove freedom of speech from his petition :)

Why would I do that?  I haven't even signed this one.  Either way, it doesn't make you any less wrong.



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LudicrousSpeed on 16 May 2016

Just quoting what the article says, hope that helps. Feel free to continue with semantics.



forest-spirit on 16 May 2016
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Man, this is embarrassing.

I'm all for cleaning up the standards, journalistic and ethical, of video game publications and sites, but this attempt to adjust the score of a single game is not the answer. And let's all be honest with ourselves: the petitioner is upset his favorite game got knocked down a peg. This isn't about getting things right. It's about a low-ball score for a PlayStation exclusive. After all, the author can only justify a score as low as 8, and he wants to respect the developers for their "time and money." He definitely seems more pre-occupied with the "flawless reputation of the game" than he does any kind of truth-seeking.

Aggregate sites like Metacritic and video game journalism in general are flawed, yes, but so are consumer expectations. We fight tooth and nail to secure the best coverage for OUR games, but leave "rival" games in the dust. We champion freedom of expression, as long as it means high scores. And we refuse to allow critics to use a full rating scale. WE are part of the Metacritic problem, and petitions like this show why.

 

Well said.



Tmfwang on 16 May 2016
Bandorr said:
So looking at the two reviews.

One is an "Associated Press" article since it says "AP" next to their name. So it isn't the Washington post official review -just one persons review.

The second one doesn't have an AP tag next to their name - so it IS a washing post official article. It is in "comic riffs" though - and is meant to be taken tongue and cheek as a a joke right?

Assuming the 4 out of 10 came because the WP said it was a 4 out of 10 - why is metacritic linking to the article under "comic riff".

Is WP saying that even though it is under comic riff it IS their official review?

MC has said that they couldnt count the 4/4 review seeings as the person who wrote it wasnt a staff member, BUT, neither is the person who wrote the 4/10 review, so theyre being a little bit hypocritical...?



Predicted 15+ million lifetime-sales for God of War:

- http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=234612&page=1

Culipechi on 16 May 2016

LOL



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Livewire on 16 May 2016
Muffin31190 said:
Where does it give a 4/10 in the review. I mean like I don't see it

He gave that score, but Washington Post decided to omit that from his review.



Veknoid_Outcast on 16 May 2016
pokoko said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Far from it. My post, and others on this site, draw attention to problems on Metacritic and in the industry at large. In fact, my post details a potential problem: us. I'm pooh-poohing this particular "problem," yes, but I'm urging people to think more broadly about bigger and more consequential problems. So I'm not sure where you're coming from.

And we seem to be arguing the same thing, I think? I think factionalism and parochialism make this Metacritic situation that much worse. You appear to believe the same?

Again, this comes down to whether you believe the petitioner and his supporters at face value or you don't. I don't, clearly. 

But, again, your post doesn't make much sense. You bash me for assuming the worst in people, and then assume the worst in me?

Again - and this is something I've posted dozens of times before - we need to stop crying foul only when a Nintendo game gets a lowball score or when a Sony game gets shortchanged. We need to protect all consumers and the medium in general. We can't just make a petition when we feel our favorites are under attack. We need to demand better from ourselves and from critics.

Let me say first of all that I don't like Uncharted.  It's not a favorite of mine by any means.  I don't like platformers and that includes auto-platformers.  The actual game itself is immaterial.  The score being a 94 or a 93 or a 78 means nothing.

What I and others have been talking about is that the circumstances around this review counting were questionable and that bears discussing as an issue unto itself.  Forget Uncharted.  This same situation happens with Mario or Halo and it will still be an issue.  Why can't we talk about that?  I don't even care if it ends up being resolved and it turns out that Metacritic acted according to their rules.  However, I see nothing wrong with asking them for clarification or talking about why things seemed questionable in the first place.  

It is not embarrassing to question when something seems out of the ordinary.  I don't even care about Metacritic but I'm not going to deny that it has impact on gaming.

That's fair enough. Believe me, I'm all for questioning the rules and ethics of Metacritic and games journalism. However, I still think this petition is embarrassing. And that's because (and again, this is just my interpretation) I feel that the author and most of the signees are more concerned with their GOTY dropping a point on Metacritic than they are with the integrity of the process. Maybe the majority of supporters are seriously invested in reforming the sytem. I would love that. I would love it if we took Metacritic less seriously and held journalists more accountable. But I can't help but feel this is just another chapter in the never-ending console war that textures everything in this industry.

In any event, it sounds like we're on the same page. All games and all genres should be given a fair chance. The same rules should apply to Uncharted, to Halo, to Super Mario.

I just worry that this petition, if successful, will signal a victory, an end. And the victors will retire until the next exclusive or favorite is under attack. One bad or misinterpreted score for a single game isn't the problem. The problem is systemic and we as consumers are complicit.



Muffin31190 on 16 May 2016
LudicrousSpeed said:

Then you get into why MC would accept the review with no score, and why they gave it a 4/10 score. Well, it's the policy of the Washington Post that their reviews have no score. I've read other reviews on there, none of them have scores. Yet, you check Metacritic, WP has lots of reviews on there with scores attached. When MC contacted WP for a score, a 4/10 was the score the writer gave the game. It's not included in the review because that's just how WP does things. Does this mean it should be excluded from Metacritic?

(Of cource I post before I see this).
Is there any source of where I can find the 4/10 score, also is there any source on the other reviews that have no scores but are taken as 10/10's because I saw on MC that they have a section for those reviews with no scores

LudicrousSpeed said:


"I want to make clear that the purpose of this petition is not to silence the reviewer and strip away his freedom of speech." - By removing his review from Metacritic, you actually are silencing him. And you are stripping away his freedom of speech.

That is not actually silencing him its removing an unscored review from the scored review section and putting him in the unscored review section.



pokoko on 16 May 2016
Bandorr said:
So looking at the two reviews.

One is an "Associated Press" article since it says "AP" next to their name. So it isn't the Washington post official review -just one persons review.

The second one doesn't have an AP tag next to their name - so it IS a washing post official article. It is in "comic riffs" though - and is meant to be taken tongue and cheek as a a joke right?

Assuming the 4 out of 10 came because the WP said it was a 4 out of 10 - why is metacritic linking to the article under "comic riff".

Is WP saying that even though it is under comic riff it IS their official review?

The confusion seems to come from the goofy way the Washington Post does things.  THEY don't post a score even if the writer included one BUT they give that score to Metacritic.  The writer in this case is a freelancer who they paid for the review.  So, ultimately, it's legit, even if it's not very transparent.  The Post really needs to either include the score both places or not include it at all, since it's attributed to them.

On a related note, it's odd that freelancers count.  That seems like bad quality control.

On a personal note, after reading some of this guy's work, I can't believe they pay him for articles.  His articles come across like he's making stuff up off the top of his head while being as obtuse and wordy as possible.  Might even be what they want in order to seem high-brow, who knows.



midrange on 16 May 2016
Bandorr said:
Livewire said:

He gave that score, but Washington Post decided to omit that from his review.

Well I guess that answers all my questions then. It is a real score. So that is the right score for the right article. That makes sense why Metacritic links to it, and uses that score.

I can agree with this. It only took a few hundred posts, but finally someone posted evidence I can agree with. So with that said, I was wrong (assuming no new information arises)