There is a lot of poor structure in the way reviews work, and one of those problems is the reader. Comments on reviews tend to be one sided, with the audience agreeing with the reviewer; often without playing the game, or saying anything sensible.
This seems to happen most of the time with “badly” scored games. The most recent example is Destructoid’s review of Bionic Commando. I’ve played the game (and own it, too) and find it to be quite enjoyable. However, because the game got a 5 on Destructoid (which means average, using their true 10 point scale) the commentors rage and turn on the game citing it to be a “shame” and “pisspoor”.
Starting off with comments we have:
Such tragedy, all that effort, marketing, and money all wasted. Hope you guys didn’t pre-order the game.
Yes, hear that? Because of this review all the marketing and even the MONEY on the game is wasted! One review dictates the game’s entire success and profit!
Moving on:
I figured this game would suck for some random reason. I really liked the preview vid they gave us a while back, but something was off.
So just on a gut feeling they assume the game is bad, and reject it.
Damn it.
Sweet input.
And another classic revival goes all the way to the trash.
Good thing i didn’t buy it, sorry for those who did.
No, I feel sorry for you for being ignorant and basing your opinion on a single review without playing it yourself most likely.
Reviews are a good way to gauge a what a game is like, but ultimately one should play the game or see it themselves before passing judgment. Yes, I know every game out there can’t be played, but Bionic Commando’s reviews are somewhat mixed, with Giant Bomb, and IGN giving it an 8, and Gametrailers a 7.7. Would the quotes above be phrased like that on a different review? I doubt it, which shows how influential the reviewer is on the comments.
Review scores are pointless to me, and when there’s a divide in scores for a game it reinforces my belief. A review should be primarily read (the words!) to find out how a game plays, with the positive and negative aspects. The score in a review is weighed much higher than the actual content of the review these days, and has an impact on how readers respond to it. If a game gets even a 7, it may be deemed “utter crap” and claimed to be the worst game ever, because it didn’t match up with a AAA title’s score.
When reading reviews, try to get a variety of viewpoints before you judge a game, and think before you type.
iTunes
I agree with the article to a point. The commentors are clearly retarded, but honestly, we cant always dish out the money to be able to form our opinion if the demo isn’t conclusive. In this case, I think it’s perfectly ok to decide what to think of a game (i.e. whether or not to buy it) off the content of reviews.
Hello metacritic. Jeff at giantbomb gave the game 4 out of 5 stars and not an 8.
Bionic Commando is a pretty clear love or hate deal. If you enjoy the stupid story and the swinging you will certainly love the game, but if you don’t enjoy the swinging don’t even bother.
@ParaParaKing, I was under the impression that Metacritic interprets the “5 star” type reviews by extrapolating to the logical percentage point. Thus Sessler’s and Gerstman’s 4 stars become 80%.
I really like this article of Pyroph’s; the gaming industry should be the bestinformed when it comes to Consumer Reports type stuff. We all have the means and the broadband to check stuff out before it drops.
Why bother to analyse comments when basing opinions on gamers? You guys always whinge and bitch about how terrible most gaming sites are and how awesome you are with all the original content, but then you make articles like this instead of, you know, actually reviewing the game yourself.
Get your heads out of your own asses and actually contribute.
@Jason: I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. I thought the point about Pyroph’s article was to encourage gamers to take respeonsibility for their own purchases by frequenting many sites to achieve a spectrum of opinion about a respective title.
Maybe I’m just not clever enough to comprehend what you’re trying to say?
This quote was from me:
“I figured this game would suck for some random reason. I really liked the preview vid they gave us a while back, but something was off.”
I was simply saying that the game didn’t show signs of being anything other than a particularly generic experience. It’s a valid opinion, and I didn’t completely write the game off! That quote was taken out of context.
What I’m saying is essentially that taking a snapshot of the average gamer from Dtoid comments is the same as taking a snapshot of the average woman from the Cleo forums.
Most gamers will obviously take a gander at more then one review before making a purchase. Some gamers do follow reviewers (Look at Jeff from GB) and will purchase based off their recommendation because they may have been right many times before.
I read NG pretty frequently, and I notice that a lot of the time you guys generally take pride in trashing other sites for regurgitating news and following the PR spiel. You mention how original your content is, but at the same time, complain that you struggle to gain respect from other sites.
My point was, instead of ranting about how sheepy gamers might be, why not actually contribute to the information stream by reviewing the game yourself and providing that extra viewpoint.
Especially since many people may have read multiple reviews (the game’s been pretty trashed in most cases) and followed the trend that it’s more of a rent then a buy anyway, which could have spawned those comments.
I thought about it a bit, and also decided to write this.
Essentially, if I am correct, this is your thesis/point:
“Gamers take reviews too seriously”.
In that case, I believe that choosing a website like Destructoid (which negative gamer references quite often) is quite arbitrary, as opposed to citing a powerhouse like IGN. You see, Destructoid’s community is quite closely-knit, and the author of the review, Conrad Zimmerman has a very good reputation as an Editor.
You can’t expect gamer’s coffers to have an infinite amount of cashflow. There are a ton of “must-have” titles coming out in a short amount of time (think Punch Out!! Wii, UFC, inFamous, and apparently, Bionic Commando, at first). I know a lot of the community members you randomly cited, and I know for a fact that they were banking on Bionic Commando being a 9 or above, because they only had money for a few games. If someone says “damn it” because they expected it to be stellar, what’s the problem? If a bunch of community members have a large amount of pride for Destructoid as a whole, and trust it’s reviewers, again, what’s the problem?
This entire editorial is riddled with personal opinion. When talking about Bionic Commando in the first place, you dismiss Destructoid’s review by saying “[I] find it to be quite enjoyable”. Also, you go on to say “Review scores are pointless to me”. Again, another very opinionated statement, that someone could probably write up a very similar counter-editorial to.
What strikes me as odd regarding this Editorial is that you seem to think that Destructoid thinks a “7″ is “utter crap” (your words). This couldn’t be more wrong. Jim Sterling, the Reviews Editor for Destructoid constantly states that a 7 is a “great score”. There really wasn’t a massive amount of research that went into the community, and the staff, when this editorial is written.
I actually like this site, I just wanted you to know that a lot of your information regarding Destructoid is mis-quoted, and mis-informed. I see where you’re going with this (people take reviews too seriously), but this was a bad example.
Since when was UFC a ‘must have’?
I don’t really feel too comfortable with this article. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I think it might partly be the weight attached to the amount of negative comments surrounding the review. From what I saw purely on the Destructoid article is that the majority of the responses to the review were still largely positive. The readers may have changed their minds a little into not buying the game but in their cases they still were interested in it enough to want to rent it
I don’t see any problem with not buying a game that’s simply mediocre, but then again I wouldn’t have scored BC only a 5 on that scale anyway as there are so few games which are truly absolutely average. That aside, I don’t really see there’s a massive problem here, there were a select few negative commentors that were maybe too easily swayed by a single review so yeah.. maybe that’s an arguement to be had in regards to getting a more varied amount of input regarding the game. But then that would be supposing that every commentor or reader is exactly the same. Some people may never ever rent games, some like me might rent the vast majority and only ever spend money on the occasional RPG or import. I think all the DToid post did was provide a cross-section of the gaming public on the internet, of which there will always be a group which enjoy baseless arguments against games for no sensible reason.
Or simply by there being a miscommunication between two people through mediums such as this, hence part of Chris’ confusion above me.
@Jason: I think I agree with the majority of your last point. It’s something I’m very aware off with the site and something I’m actively looking to change.
Over the next few weeks and months you should notice a greater frequency of reviews coming out, as well as more gamer related talk, as oppose to industry talk.
Re: people not sure where they stand with this article, and i know this is a sudo op-out, but it’s categorised as a “rant”, rather than as an “article”. This is something I actually added to the site myself and differentiates between one writers frustration, and a well balanced article.
I should probably make that more obvious. But the rule of thumb I have been going of is that if you are pissed off at something and just want to vent some steam, write a rant. though, of course you are welcome to disagree.
Thanks for replying wardrox. One of the best parts of this site is that you truly write honestly and without any bias or willingness to succumb to the PR beast that most of us (yep, us, no, will not say ;p) have to rub the head of on a daily basis.
This article just irked me a little bit, and mostly because of the point you replied to. I’m glad you guys will start covering more surrounding the games, it can get a bit much when you’re constantly just covering the flaws of your fellow media outlets and, well, general audience :D
There’s heaps about the actual games you can trash too, and I look forward to more brutally honest reviews too.
@Chris: Sorry but I don’t see where you’re going with this. I never said to buy every single game that comes out, just to get a better viewpoint in reviews before you write a game off. This story is about that whole idea, not just for Bionic Commando. I never said a 7/10 was bad, that’s just the general thought of the mass public, not Destructoid, or me. And of course this is opinionated, that’s what an editorial is.
Well if we’re ranting…I like carrots but I really like getting blow jobs. Grrrr. Darn it darn it darn it. Why does there have to be such a difference in those respective experiences? Why oh why?
@Jay
I was just saying that UFC is a must-have for many of the commenters used in this editorial.
@Pyroph
True, an editorial contains opinion: I write them, so I do understand that. what I should have clarified is that editorials usually have sound, factual opinions, so they don’t turn into an internet rant, which is what this became. I was stating that solely using Destructoid for this point was lazy, and uninformed journalism, considering none of your points hold true when you actually look at the community as a whole.
See, what confuses me is that you call this an editorial, and then Wardrox comes in and says “oh, no, it’s not an “article”, it’s actually a rant”. In the future, using better examples when citing websites, and citing “rant” at the top would warrant more positive responses, like Jason is saying :D
Oh snap, I had not noticed there were red tabs in the corner of every article. I think we can thank Wardox’s vlog for this one. Which is odd, but as I seem to recall the corner of anything is the last thing that anyone’s eyes will be trailed to. I’ll remember to check that in the future (and now I feel I’ve disappointed Wardrox because I’m clearly not clever enough to realise it’s a rant, haha). Actually ignoring that I just used a parenthesis, I wasn’t really levelling my response at a set ‘grade’ of post. I mean I wasn’t thinking specifically that this is a rant/article/editorial or what have you, instead I just wanted to clash ideas with it as it is.
As simply a rant I do still clash with it, but then again I do have to deal with stupid comments myself, especially whenever I write about a game and get something back telling me it isn’t a game and shouldn’t be on the site. Having someone else tell you what should be on your site I guess is kind of stupid on the commetors part. So it’s understandable overall. Specifically in this example I don’t quite see it being as large a problem as you do, but I can certainly grasp the issue as a whole and acknowledge that it is one of the more annoying internet phenomena.