Beint outed like this fucks a dev or game over more so then they think. Think about it, how credible are any 9(+) reviews that are out now? Aren't those scores bought?! Might Computer bild spiele be the only mag thatgives a fair score?!

I'd say that all sites and mags should just oust all devs from here on out and hope that this incredibly retarded practice stops as soon as possible.

Gta4 was probably a main culprit of this. I mean really, this game has a 98 on metacritic currently. It should have a 90...

And this is why I hate people using reviews to judge the worth of a game. Reviews are made by another person who can be easily be just as fair or as biased at the same time. Plus, people are easily subjugated and influentiated to better fulfill some agendas.
In the gaming business, almost all developers know that a good review score can easily mean more sales for their game, so it's no wonder that more and more cases like these come out.

I think gamers should only judge a game based on it's worth and whether they want it or not, not let anyone else tell you what the game's worth or if you should buy it or not. One of my favourite games of all time has like a 67% rating in most sites, yet to me, it's one of the best experiences ever.

Let this article be an eye-opener or a warning for you who judge a game based on what other people tell you.

It's even worse because most magazines and sites do not rely 100% on movie advertisements. For example, the New York Times probably gets only a few percent of their income from movie ads.

Most game magazines and sites rely nearly 100% on video game ads. Some of these companies would die if they got cut off from their biggest game advertisers.

But most of the time I have found the metacritic rating to be correct

BTW what game is that 67% one?

@Darth

Metacritic scores can be inflated artificially due to them having a Gausian Bell type of statistical count, as long as you push the final 5% of the scores, the entirity of the statistics will come along, the same goes for the first 5%. So, most of the times, that Gausian spread is artificially inflated or deflated until the scores even out, at that moment it doesn't actually matter much what scores are added, the statistics per se is tamponized.

The game that i'm referring is a PS game, The Grandstream Saga, it had a 6.7 in Gamespot and a 4/10 in RPGDreamer

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/granstreamsaga/index.html?tag=result;title;0
http://www.rpgdreamer.com/gs/gsrev1.html

What? I don't understand at all.

@Slimebeast

Take for example a game that has the following scores:

90,85,90,85,90,90,90,95,90,90,85,90,90,90,100,100,95,90,100,90,85,90,80,85,90,85,90,90,90,100,100,100,95,95,95,90,80,85,85,80,90,90,100

If you average it (and that's 43 different scores) you'll get a 92,67 score. Even if you add, let's say, a 70 score, the score will be 92,15.

As you add scores that are kept to a normal pattern (and in my estimations I did too many variations so that my Gausian Curve was as wide as possible), it will come to a time that even adding a score that differs in a huge way from the normal pattern (the low 5% or the upper 5% of the scores), it's effects won't be felt too much.

This is what happens with reviews. As long as there are tons of 10's - 9's in a game score, you could have an odd out 8 or 7 score and it won't reflect as much on the final result, thus that score being "discredited" in the statistical analysis.

Not really a comment about the article as such but a thought about the need to get mid to high nineties scores.

It seems to me that this whole process is so hit and miss it almost depends on the type of game and how many sites will review how it ends up. A lot of sites still work scores of 1 - 10 with most not giving out the ten but hanging in with a 9. I you look at any game released recently that has been widely favourably reviewed you will see this.

It makes you wonder what sort of score Uncharted 2 would of received had the 1 - 10 been more flexible.

I wonder if they did this with every Magazine. "Bild" Magazines have a reputation for generating sales with their headlines and claims.