Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[LESS T_T]

Developers and a reviewer's take: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-02-10-are-review-scores-pointless

Brian Fargo, inXile Entertainment founder

"My understanding is that websites either have a policy of not updating the scores based on future editions or Metacritic won't update their rating even if they do. With that in mind I would prefer that gaming sites use a summary system and let the players give it a score if they want. Games are more of a service than in the '90s and certainly more complex. The updated versions of games could be light years ahead of the original release and that needs to get reflected somehow. Developers should be rewarded for continuing to support their games long after launch and this goes a step towards that."

Nathan Vella, Capy Games president

"I grew up with review scores. They're etched in my brain as a metric for 'quality' because of how much of my life (as a player and a developer) has been spent looking at them in magazines, and later, online. However, I am totally aware that it is my history with them that drives my comfort with them. I think this history affects a lot of us developers, consciously or subconsciously."

Rami Ismail, Vlambeer co-founder

"I've always disliked the notion of scores on something as abstract and subjective as games. This is the one medium in which both creator and user express creativity, in which the player is tangible part of the experience - and then magically a number appears based on someone's experience. I'm fine with them existing, I'm fine with them not existing."

Perrin Kaplan, Zebra Partners principal, former Nintendo of America VP of marketing and corporate affairs

"The technical measurement plus the dynamics of the marketplace are so different now. With games from consoles to Steam and mobile, it is apples and oranges at best. That said, for developers, business leaders, marketers, those ratings have meant a lot and in many cases, still do."

Paul Hellquist, Robot Entertainment lead designer

"Hallelujah! So many sites have so many different models and ways of trying to project their opinions and they're so dramatically different, it just really skews people's perceptions because they go to the scores without actually reading the text. So I love it. I've always liked Kotaku's play-it-or-don't-play-it system. Siskel and Ebert always had it right. Thumbs up, go see it. Thumbs down, don't waste your time. That's what it comes down to, so I'm excited to see more sites go to a system like that. Read the text and decide if what we're describing sounds like something you'd enjoy."

Patrick Hudson, Robot Entertainment CEO

"Isn't Destiny a pretty good case study of this recently? How much wrangling and articles have been written about their Metacritic score? Does it matter if they're a 70-something? There are millions and millions of people playing and enjoying that game every night. And I think it becomes harder in a world of live games that grow over a long period of time. They're going to be pumping massive content into Destiny for years to come; is it fair that they get saddled with some review score from three years ago? It's a real problem."

A reviewer's take
I also reached out to a former co-worker in ex-GameSpot editor-in-chief Justin Calvert. At this point, Calvert has left the gaming media entirely, but over his near decade-and-a-half with the site--much of it spent as a staff reviewer--he said the things publishers wanted from reviews systems were essentially the same.

"High scores and box quotes mostly, but then the vast majority of my dealings with publishers and developers were through PR channels, so that's hardly surprising," Calvert said. "I'll say that when dealing with development teams directly they were often genuinely interested in discussing and taking on board feedback from reviewers."

That's not to say the way publishers treat reviews has stayed the same. For one thing, Calvert said publishers have become a lot less concerned about having reviews hit before launch to build up hype.

"They're less dependent on reviews for preorders and day-one sales because they've gotten so much better at speaking to their audiences directly," Calvert said. "The impression I got, at least from some companies, was that the potential benefits of a positive review pre-launch were outweighed by the damage that a negative review could do at the end of a successful marketing campaign.

Calvert himself is still a fan of systems with review scores, provided they're presented with context such as when the review was published, and which version of the game was reviewed.

"I've been basing my own game-purchasing decision on reviews ever since I picked up the first issue of Zzap! 64 magazine in the UK almost 30 years ago, so I hope that they continue to be relevant in the future," Calvert said. "I don't put nearly as much stock in user ratings where video games are concerned as I do when buying practically anything else (thick wool socks on Amazon being a recent example); I'm not entirely sure why that is, but after working alongside so many great reviewers during my 14 years at GameSpot I'm still inclined to look to professional reviewers first. The day that I'm unable to go online and read a Kevin VanOrd review of New Game X will be a sad day indeed."

That said, even Calvert admits there are times when YouTube videos or Twitch streams are the basis for his purchasing decisions.

"There's something very appealing about watching a game being played and knowing that the footage hasn't been edited in a way that might misrepresent the experience," Calvert said.

 

[Whiran]

Since reviews are personal opinions their value is dictated entirely by how much your tastes are in line with the reviewer's tastes.

If the reviewer likes the games that you tend to like then that reviewer is useful. If the review likes games that you do not like then that reviewer is useless.

The biggest problem with review sites is that they try to take the reviewer out of the equation and slap a "analytic" and "objective" measure to a game.

Reviews would be marginally more useful if the reviewer would have a list of game genres (and individual games within that genre) that they enjoy so one knows where the heck they are coming from.

But, then again, I don't really care anymore. I haven't checked in with a "professional" review in years. I do check out the average for user reviews on games I know nothing about 'cause it's interesting to see how the majority of gamers of a game feel about a product.

 

[pippin]

Following reviewers is like following a podcast. You hear TB or Yahtzee or whoever because you want to hear that person talk about games. And even if you wanted reveiws as some sort of news source, companies to that themselves via social media. It has been discussed before, but this is yet anoher sign of middle men finding out they don't do anything useful.

 

[balmorar]

Scoreless reviews were always useless for me. So eurogamer is now useless. Site will probably be closed next year.

So you need somebody to show you a score for a game, instead of reading the article/watching the video and make your own impression based on what is related by the author?



These days, its enough to watch a let's play, and you will get a better insight into a game than any review, no matter how retarded and clueless these let's players are.

Dont tell me, you play a lot on consoles... and Bioware is the best company eva?

I don't need thanks to warez but the fastest and easiest way to see what to except from a game is to check the score and read the summary. If i'm interested in a game i watch videos of course and maybe read the review but wall of text reviews are pretty much useless since ~2004. So if it doesn't have a score then why bother reading it and most reviewers fill their articles with pointless unrelated crap anyway, i hate when they waste my time.

 

[Zetor]

The Massively article was so fucking sad to read. I will never understand people willing to work in such shitty conditions. No vacation time? No benefits? The reason the game journalism industry is in the state that it is in is because too many naive idiots with no self-worth are willing to work such thankless fucking jobs just because said job is "in the game industry!!" The only people who benefit from that kind of insane devotion are corporate overlords. And frankly, if they were doing something that was truly valuable with a truly distinct audience (and I'm not saying these things aren't true), they could be doing what they're doing without being funded by some other group. I hope they make the attempt, because at least then they will know.

They did, actually: they started a KS and got funded in short order. The new site 'MassivelyOP' should be up in a day or two.

 

[Decado]

The Massively article was so fucking sad to read. I will never understand people willing to work in such shitty conditions. No vacation time? No benefits? The reason the game journalism industry is in the state that it is in is because too many naive idiots with no self-worth are willing to work such thankless fucking jobs just because said job is "in the game industry!!" The only people who benefit from that kind of insane devotion are corporate overlords. And frankly, if they were doing something that was truly valuable with a truly distinct audience (and I'm not saying these things aren't true), they could be doing what they're doing without being funded by some other group. I hope they make the attempt, because at least then they will know.

They did, actually: they started a KS and got funded in short order. The new site 'MassivelyOP' should be up in a day or two.

Good to hear. Though looking at their kickstarter page, they asked for 50k. Which is almost nothing. I hope they have a good business plan.

 

[Zetor]

Yeah, the 50k is just for setting up the site and getting started. They're probably going to use ads and patreon in the long run (WOW Insider, one of the other AOL sites shut down, does that too -- they're already up and running at http://blizzardwatch.com/)

 

[Kem0sabe]

i wonder how much these "journalists" will pay themselves, anything above minimum wage is way too much for unqualified work.

 

[Zetor]

Probably depends on how much they get from patreon/ads/etc. WOW Insider v2.0 is currently making $14k / month from Patreon alone and has 5 writers... subtract server costs blah blah.

BTW, Massively was actually one of the few gaming blogs (or maybe the only one?) that employed mythical creatures known as editors.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Probably depends on how much they get from patreon/ads/etc. WOW Insider v2.0 is currently making $14k / month from Patreon alone and has 5 writers... subtract server costs blah blah.

BTW, Massively was actually one of the few gaming blogs (or maybe the only one?) that employed mythical creatures known as editors.

Imagine being the editor to a cadre of writers who can barely manage to form sentences. An education well spent.

 

[Decado]

I don't have a problem with sites like Massively asking for a decent wage, mostly because they 1) have shown themselves to be pretty upstanding over the years and 2) they are not passing themselves off as journalists in any real sense. They readily admit they are a fan site. They are basically a third-party Nintendo Power, which is fine with me. At least you know where they stand.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Gaming blogs are losing their unique selling proposition this way though, which was skimming pull quotes while fast scrolling to the score and then read/rant in the comment section. If you are only casually interested in a game, that's far more efficient than watching youtube let's plays / long reviews.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Eurogamer taking the RPG Codex sale of banal shit boring, good, and OH GOD IT'S HEAVAN, leaving no middle ground. That's sure to make me start reading game reviews again.

 

[jcd]

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[Multi-headed Cow]

Eurogamer taking the RPG Codex sale of banal shit boring, good, and OH GOD IT'S HEAVAN, leaving no middle ground. That's sure to make me start reading game reviews again.

Nope, they said they're just not going to give a seal to games that don't fall into these categories.

So instead of scrolling to the bottom of the review and looking at a review score people can scroll to the bottom and look for a recommended or better tag. Nice.

 

[Blaine]

Probably for reasons... mmmyes, quite. Quite, indeed.

 

[tuluse]

So instead of scrolling to the bottom of the review and looking at a review score people can scroll to the bottom and look for a recommended or better tag. Nice.

Bad, gud, gr8 is actually an improvement. What's the difference between a 7.8 and 8.2? Is that a meaningful distinction? When you're talking to a friend about a movie/book/game/whatever, you either say "this is amazing", "this was pretty good", "it was ok, but had problems", or "shit sucks". So revising a review scoring system to match this makes perfect sense.

These reviewers are still going to have terrible taste and be self-important, but no review system can fix that.

 

[Delterius]

Hmmm... can't Metacritic still agreggate those scores by guesstimating or does that take permission from the publication itself?

 

[Havoc]

No sign - 5.0
Recommend - 7.5
Essential - 10.0
Avoid - 1.0

 

[Jaesun]

So basically nothing is changing.

 

[Delterius]

So basically nothing is changing.

Well, if Metacritic may indeed aggregate those reviews by forcing a 5/4 star score system on them.... well, things will change. There's a big difference between a 10 and a 7,5. In the end it will depend on how liberal they'll be with recommendations. I personally expect everything mainstream to be handed out 10s even more easily than before and everything different to never reach above mediocre scores.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Nothing has really changed.

Burn this industry to the ground and restart.

 

[Jaesun]

I more meant that basically nothing is changing at all.

All Bioware games and Bethesda games (all AAA Published games) will all get Essential rating, so it's the same retarded bullshit. Nothing is changing.

 

[Delterius]

Let's assume that Havoc's numbers are correct and forget BioWare for a second. Imagine something like D:OS - fairly unique and even capable of attracting the attention of the mainstream public, still no Triple A Action Adventure though, which makes it niche. For that niche, yeah, 'Recommended' sounds about right.

And down it goes to 75, instead of its current metascore of 87.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-09-editors-blog-weve-revised-our-editorial-policy

Hello! We've just published a revised editorial policy for Eurogamer.net - the page formerly known as How We Work. This document covers the philosophy, practices and ethical standards of our reporting and reviewing here at Eurogamer, and explains how we handle the relationship with the commercial aspects of our business (such as advertising) and our parent company, Gamer Network.

The revised policy is based on the previous version and very close to it in spirit; it underlines Eurogamer's proud 15-year tradition as an independent gaming website with high standards of accuracy and professionalism, clear separation of editorial and commercial activities, and thorough attention to detail in everything we do. There are some substantial revisions and additions to the previous version which have been prompted by a couple of things in particular: Gamer's Edition, a new Gamer Network venture announced today that crowdfunds physical special editions of digital games; and the new review system (without scores) that we introduced last month. It's a pretty long read, so here's a quick guide to what's changed and why.

Gamer's Edition
You can read more about Gamer's Edition in our coverage of the announcement. In short, Gamer's Edition will produce physical special editions of games that wouldn't otherwise get them, using a preorder system based on a crowdfunding model with a minimum number of orders - ensuring that Gamer's Editions will only be manufactured if there's a big enough demand from the games' communities. The first Gamer's Editions are of Hotline Miami and its sequel, and Papers, Please.

The Gamer's Edition business within Gamer Network is completely separate from our editorial department. It is entirely at the discretion of the Eurogamer editorial team whether, and how, to cover Gamer's Editions and the games they are based on. Commercial considerations and relationships will never influence our coverage, which will never be subject to prior approval by partners or clients.

This is exactly how we have handled our relationships with advertisers, and coverage of their products, for the lifetime of the site. Here at Eurogamer and Gamer Network, we've always had a tradition of a clear separation between our editorial and commercial activities, and over the last 15 years we've got pretty good at it. I'd like to think that we've earned the trust to cover Gamer's Edition and the related games fairly and responsibly - and that I've earned the trust to tell you that I think it's a really cool idea (I do!) without assumptions that my boss is holding a P45 to my head. At any rate, I'd urge you to check out the Gamer's Edition websiteand judge for yourselves.

However, it's important that we are transparent with you, so all coverage of Gamer's Editions and the games they are based on will disclose the business' relationship to Eurogamer. This is also true of the events run by Gamer Network, such as EGX and Rezzed.

Check out the 'Gamer Network' section toward the end of the document to find out more.

Retailer links
We occasionally link to retailers such as Amazon on the website, and Gamer Network receives a small percentage on purchases made. This isn't a new thing - it was previously handled by a small box on the side of article pages, but from now on will be done in text links within the article. We only link to products relevant to the article in question (such as games or PC hardware) and the links do not influence our editorial decision-making in any way. We'll only use neutral language in these links and we won't promote them on our social media channels.

You might have seen examples of these links in our pick of the best Wii U games, which we published yesterday. You'll start seeing them cropping up more frequently in our day-to-day coverage in the near future, but they should be pretty discreet.

Retailer links are referred to at the end of the 'Advertising and commercial activities' section of the editorial policy.

Reviews
The new reviews policy reflects the changes we introduced last month: the removal of review scores and introduction of our new recommendation system; only reviewing from retail versions; and reviewing online games after launch. If you read the article I wrote announcing the changes last month and were familiar with our previous reviews policy, there won't be anything here to surprise you.

There are a couple of additional small changes worth pointing out, however. When we still used review scores, we would occasionally run reviews of Early Access or games or games in commercial beta testing without scores. As we can no longer make such a clear distinction between these articles and finalised reviews, having dropped scores altogether, we'll no longer review these titles. We'll still publish articles about them, though.

Also, we'll no longer be reviewing individual episodes of episodic games, saving our final review for the full series once it's complete. Again, you might still see articles about earlier episodes - particularly series debuts.

There are three segments of the document covering reviews: 'Review process', 'What we review, and when' and 'Review recommendations'. You'll find these in the middle of the policy document (and also, separately, linked at the foot of all Eurogamer reviews).