Gaming Trends Part 4: Reviewing Reviews
by Roly Reyes on March 4, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing quite a few themes that have been making their way through the industry. Throughout GDC, many of these took center stage in a variety of forms. Today, we review the reviews.
I left this one for last, as I know it may very possibly be my most controversial topic. I know that I may be wrong in the text that lies ahead, and I know I and Ripten as a whole are guilty of some of what I’m about to discuss, but I still want to make my point.
Reviews shouldn’t come with points attached to them.
What do these points mean anymore? Most publications are now working off the 7-10 scale, meaning that all titles worth playing are within that range, and anything that lies below shouldn’t deserve to exist. If you’re going to use a scale, use it responsibly.
Don’t give a mediocre game a 6 and an average game a 7.5. The scale is there for a reason. Obviously, reviews are mostly subjective and there are always going to be some exceptions that have earned themselves a bit of wiggle room.
A thought that’s been making its way through my mind lately is the possibility of evolving reviews to the point that they’re exclusive to just audio or video.
Picture this: A reviewer is assigned a game. Said reviewer plays through the game as normal, except when it’s time for he or she to type the review, they instead throw on the podcast headsets and in essence review the game on-air with some of the staff, who offer questions that readers of that game may potentially have. Just an idea.
Should reviews eternally stay as text, it should be just that: text. Explain the merits, downfalls, and caveats. With, at most, a thumbs up or down.
I feel that that the review standard that we have now has to change, hopefully one that will render aggregators like Metacritic useless. They don’t really do much besides act as an e-penis, or measuring sticks for publishers. If the Metacritic score is not up to par, publishers can put pressure on reviewers to sell out their editorial integrity.
A lot of this came to light in a very big way in the aftermath of the unfortunate firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot.
Even if the GameSpot situation isn’t what we all portray it to be, it still begs the question — is it possible to function solely off non-endemic advertising or as a whole, is gaming journalism forever going to be tied to some sort of advertisment pertaining to the same subject matter?
Will reviewers ever be able to pan a game without getting a call from a publisher asking why their shit game got a 3.5?
I’d like to believe as much, but it’ll take an equal amount of maturation from us as the press and them as publishers so we may coexist with less friction.
A prime example is the way Ubisoft has blocked Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine from early access to games, over EGM’s less-than-favorable coverage.
It’s the publisher’s responsibility to realize that when they rush out a bug-ridden game with major flaws, just to meet a specified launch date, it may not end up getting such a favorable review.
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- Gaming Trends Part 1: Narrative in Games
- Ripten has new reviews, previews coming soon…
- Andrew Podolsky, Editor (US)
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction Released Today– First Reviews Promising
- Gaming Trends Part 3: Rise of the Indies
- Patrick Steen, Editor (United Kingdom)
- Metacritic Founder Talks About LittleBigPlanet Low User Score, Fanboys, and the Site’s Future
- Gaming Trends Part 2: The State of PC Gaming
on March 5, 2008 10:45 am
Well then just cover up the number and read the text of the review. The number is an added element of (ideally) precision, and while very small ratings differences are meaningless, like between an 8.0 and 8.3, at least it’s more precise than having 75% of the reviews saying the exact same thing: “well, this game is pretty fun, but has some flaws so it’s not a slam-dunk.” Then how do you differentiate them?
And eliminating the numerical rating will not curb publisher pressure as much as you think. They’ll just complain about the tone of the reviews.
on March 5, 2008 11:44 am
Removing scores seems to be the easy/lazy way out of this. What might actually be good is for sites like gamespot to have some goddamn integrity and not let money drive their decision making regarding reviewing games.
on March 5, 2008 5:17 pm
I wouldn’t mind the idea of audio or video only reviews done in pdcast form with one exception. It seems if you get a group a gaming nerds together doing an audio review the damn thing will last 1/2 hour. So many times these people try to turn into a stand up comedian when you shove a mic in front of them. I just want the review and not some kid rehashing an episode of Robot Chicken because he “somehow” thought it was relevant to the game review. I guess it would depend on the professionalism of the site but I like to read it, see the score and move on.