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Forums - Gaming - What you think about Clickbait Reviews ?

Veknoid_Outcast on 13 March 2017
Rogerioandrade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
I wouldn't be so quick to call all outliers clickbait. These reviewers might genuinely hate a beloved game or love a hated game. If every critic agreed with every other critic it would be super boring and not very representative of the wide range of tastes among consumers.
I'm sure there are fans out there who think Breath of the Wild and Uncharted 4 are poor games. Is it so unrealistic to imagine reviewers hold the same opinions?
I'm not saying all are innocent -- there are certainly clickbait sites out there -- but I think we should be tolerant of minority opinions, as long as they're justified.

Reviewers actually are supposed to review a game based on its technical merits, not on their personal tastes. It´s ok if they don´t like a certain type of game, like all of us, but they need to make clear that their tastes don´t intervene in their technical analysis.

It´s a very different thing when a product is reviewed by its technical features rather than by subjective, personal tastes. So, very discrepant reviews may point to the incapacity of the reviewer to, at least, try to be unbiased

I have to disagree. Sure, it's easy to objectively measure frame rate, resolution, draw distance, etc. But gameplay? That's very much in the eye of the beholder. Reviewers aren't hired to count pixels. They're hired to analyze a game in an informative and entertaining way. To do that they need to bring to bear their subjective interpretation of what makes a game worth playing.



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jonathanalis on 13 March 2017

I think metacritic should use a tool for discarding outliers.
In sports based on judge scores, generally they discard the best and worst scores and average the rest.

Here metacritic should do the same. Discard 10% higher scores and 10% lower scores.
So clickbait would not be relevant anymore. (also works for click bait review for giving 10 for a crappy game)



vivster on 13 March 2017
jonathanalis said:
I think metacritic should use a tool for discarding outliers.
In sports based on judge scores, generally they discard the best and worst scores and average the rest.

Here metacritic should do the same. Discard 10% higher scores and 10% lower scores.
So clickbait would not be relevant anymore. (also works for click bait review for giving 10 for a crappy game)

Except that in sports it's done to help the integrity of an objective competition whereas Metacritic lists points for video games. I mean what would be the benefit to the consumer here? Would marginalizing certain reviews make it any easier to decide?



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vivster on 13 March 2017
John2290 said:
I think everyone is entitled to there opinion but if you are going to hurt a developer just for clicks then Metacritic should moderate with staff who play the game objectively and read all other reviews and then take off reviews that go for the yellow or even red to get traffic. But if the review is valid and they don't suspiciously contrast with the average or mean score, leave them on however tag them on a list for future reviews and if there is a trend then black list that site/reviewer.

But what if the staff decides the game is only worth a 7 and then deletes all 10/10 reviews?



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

KLXVER on 13 March 2017

Meh. Its a bit cheap, but the internet becomes a more interesting place when it happens



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etking on 13 March 2017

Metacritic should focus on median scores instead of average scores. So these reviews had no influence at all. Not all of them are clickbait however, not everyone likes every game. I don't like BOTW for example, it is not even in my top 5 Zelda games and I would give it a 8.5/10.



Vinther1991 on 13 March 2017

I'm not sure I have ever read a clickbait review. On that list I only read the Uncharted 4 review, seemed like a fine review to me...

I don't doubt some make controversial reviews just for clicks, but it's too difficult to tell which do that or which just dislike the game. I don't think metacritic should remove reviews or make outliers not count, that doesn't create a more accurate picture of how good the game is. They should however remove reviews from people who have been proven to post dishonest reviews (if they for instance haven't played the game).



Rogerioandrade on 13 March 2017
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Rogerioandrade said:

Reviewers actually are supposed to review a game based on its technical merits, not on their personal tastes. It´s ok if they don´t like a certain type of game, like all of us, but they need to make clear that their tastes don´t intervene in their technical analysis.

It´s a very different thing when a product is reviewed by its technical features rather than by subjective, personal tastes. So, very discrepant reviews may point to the incapacity of the reviewer to, at least, try to be unbiased

I have to disagree. Sure, it's easy to objectively measure frame rate, resolution, draw distance, etc. But gameplay? That's very much in the eye of the beholder. Reviewers aren't hired to count pixels. They're hired to analyze a game in an informative and entertaining way. To do that they need to bring to bear their subjective interpretation of what makes a game worth playing.

Actually... gameplay is also technical -  controls, rules and mechanics.

Things like art style or story can be pesonal, subjective, but not gameplay. For example, I personally don´t like the plot of  GTA series, but I do admit that the gameplay is great and I can see why people enjoy those games.



Qwark on 13 March 2017

A disgrace for the industry by downplaying the work of hundreds of people for no good reasons. All for a bit more views.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

Veknoid_Outcast on 13 March 2017
Rogerioandrade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

I have to disagree. Sure, it's easy to objectively measure frame rate, resolution, draw distance, etc. But gameplay? That's very much in the eye of the beholder. Reviewers aren't hired to count pixels. They're hired to analyze a game in an informative and entertaining way. To do that they need to bring to bear their subjective interpretation of what makes a game worth playing.

Actually... gameplay is also technical -  controls, rules and mechanics.

Things like art style or story can be pesonal, subjective, but not gameplay. For example, I personally don´t like the plot of  GTA series, but I do admit that the gameplay is great and I can see why people enjoy those games.

Well, gameplay is the result of the interaction between the player and a set of rules and mechanics. There's a lot of room for subjectivity in that interaction.