Modern Game Reviews or: How I Don't Trust Those Lying Sacks of [Redacted] Anymore.

What is going on with gaming reviews as of late? Why are games like Titanfall and Dark Souls 2 getting reviews even though the full experience isn’t available to the reviewer? The question is somewhat rhetorical, I know why, you need those page views (read ad revenue) which wi;; decrease if the review isn’t there day one. But you’re hurting the people who rely on those reviews to inform their purchasing decisions.

It seems to me that waiting to see what the online is like for Dark Souls 2 is important for the reviews. You could easily argue it’s critical to the review because it changes the game experience (covenants, invasions, summons etc.). Just like how the having the servers working and stable are important for Titanfall (or Battlefield, or SimCity). But alas, most sites ran their reviews anyway.

I trusted Polygon when they said SimCity was a 9.5. Then they lowered the score, which really upset me. It was like an extra special fuck you for trusting them. EA got their money, Polygon got their ad revenue, and I was out $60 with an unplayable game. The same happened with Battlefield 4 (which is at least playable now but the “to be fixed issues” are still numerous. It’s kind of bullshit. They’re here to protect the consumers. They should be our advocates.

When reviewers attend review events, they take what the developer (or publisher) tells them about the server stability as fact, and relay it to us as though it’s a fact. And it’s wrong. It’s kind of like if Consumer Reports gave a safety rating based on what the cars manufacture said rather than testing it themselves. That wouldn’t fly, and neither should this. In fact the FTC says, “Advertisers are subject to liability for false or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements, or for failing to disclose material connections between themselves and their endorsers [see § 255.5]. Endorsers also may be liable for statements made in the course of their endorsements.” http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-publishes-final-guides-governing-endorsements-testimonials/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf A review is an endorsement according to the FTC. " A film critic’s review of a movie is excerpted in an advertisement. When so used, the review meets the definition of an endorsement because it is viewed by readers as a statement of the critic’s own opinions and not those of the film producer, distributor, or exhibitor."

So, can we trust reviews of games anymore? Why can’t game reviewers do their due diligence and test the retail version of a game? Why not forgo the ad revenue and do what‘s morally right? Jeff did right by me. He had his initial impression but held off on calling it a review. Bravo Jeff, thank you! It’s like Jeff said, “Stop pre-ordering games so you can actually get some use out of the reviews as actual purchasing advice.” http://blog.jeffgerstmann.net/post/43215496882/game-reviews-embargoes-and-a-reality-check But the advice I’m getting is poorly informed and created solely for purpose of generating page views, that is, ad revenue for the site. Reviewers aren’t fighting for us anymore.

Don't really disagree with any of this, gonna keep my popcorn on standby for the inevitable weak argument made against ya though.

I wonder if anyone has tried applying those FTC rules to game reviews, and if most review sites have some boilerplate somewhere disclaiming that.

I think you can trust reviews as long as you understand that what you're reading is indicative of the quality the game if it works as intended. You just have to shift your thinking to always waiting to buy a game you're interested in a few days after launch. You do, however, make salient points.

Well at least now you'll move away from blindly trusting internet reviews. There is only one true way to evaluate a game, and that is to play it yourself.

Yes you should read what is in a review and get a picture of what you might be in for, but the whole score thing only exists so that people can argue over them on the internet.

It was around when Simcity came out that I started being more critical too. It's amazing how many more games get great scores but are released in a horrible state these days. Games are more complex now and that could be argued as an excuse for all of these horrendous launches but they almost always EVENTUALLY get to a playable and "bug free" state.

I don't think the sites and reviewers are aware of how ethically poor their practices are. Marketers are just so good at their jobs and have so much information on how to correctly sell products now with the help of big data that there's almost no way to avoid it. Game marketers and gaming websites are essentially relying on the same things so it makes complete sense that reviews basically turned into another form of marketing rather than criticism.

The reader is now the product honestly. So the marketers can learn how to sell better and the game sites can learn what to put out there that will get the biggest response.

You act as if you're surprised.

I understand that this is frustrating for those of us who look to reviews to sway our minds regarding whether we ought to purchase a game or not, but there's no helping it. It's business, and it makes sense from a business perspective to get their "reviews" out as quickly as possible, as it'll earn them attention, and ad revenue. Morality has no place in the discussion.

Sure, it'd be great if it did, but you could say that about anything. Even non-profit organizations tend to be stone-cold in their approach to the business aspect of helping others.

Giant Bomb is an exception to the rule, but they're only able to be more honest, and expressive, regarding their thoughts and feelings on games because GB is not a website that thrives off it's reviews. Said reviews only really exist, on paper, in order for them to be a part of metacritic, and thus be able to receive games early on, which lets them comment on the games and function as part of the game-press. Not to suggest I don't enjoy their reviews, but to me, they mean a lot less than hearing them speak frankly about the games on the podcast, or watching their reactions in a quicklook. Such is the nature of prepared words versus gut reactions.

Trust those who have earned your trust, or formulate your opinions from what you've deduced out of reading multiple reviews. Scores tend to mean far less than what is actually written in the reviews. There's at least 50 kinds of 9 out of 10s.

I think he somewhat mischaracterized that FTC law. I think it only applies to a review that is used in the advertising for the game. A review in and of itself does not constitute that. I also don't think you could make the case that the reviewer made "false or unsubstantiated" claims in the review because as of the time of publication everything stated within the review is information and editorial based on actually playing a build of the game.

That doesn't invalidate the OP's issues, but you might want to hold off on your class action lawsuit against the likes of GameSpot and Polygon.

A fucking waste. Just because a movie gets an Oscar doesn't mean I will like it. It also don't mean that if I don't enjoy it, it is a poorly made movie. How many people point back to Super Mario RPG but all I remember as a kid was being sorely disappointed by that game.

I really like the Joystiq idea, giving a best-case rating and a "state of service" status if something is busted to hell.

But I hate to say, if I buy a game I want to go online with... I kind of don't expect to play it for a week or two because of launch issues.

I use reviews less nowadays to make personal purchasing decisions and more because I find Jeff or Alex's opinions on a game to be thought-provoking. I Kickstarted Banner Saga and played a bunch of it, but I read Alex's review anyways because I find hearing his opinions to be rewarding.

When I want actual purchasing advice, I use a wide swath of reviews, and I judge by a combination of text, tone and the credibility of the writer more than just scan the scores.

After the Sim City fiasco, I'm pretty much done with pre-orders. There's more for me to lose than gain when it comes to this crap. If there is a really good pre-order bonus, I will punish the publisher further by waiting for a GOTY edition that has everything included at less than half the price.

Anyone who uses reviews as anything more than judging what the conversation around the game is like are foolish foolish people. If you aren't well enough equipped to know your own tastes then that is squarely your problem.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Reviews have no incentive to change until it's audience does.

PC Gamer once took a stand - stating they wouldn't review a game unless they had a physical copy in their hand, so that they knew they were playing the same version that the average gamer would. It ruined their subscriber numbers as they were left printing reviews months after they were relevant. They reverted back pretty quickly.

Gamespot used to actually do just that (maybe they still, I'm not sure). They would hold the review until they could test the online functionality. It never got them any gratitude. Just a lot of complaining online by users about how useless a review was after a game was already out.

Meanwhile, sites get a lot of traffic if their review is up first. Whether or not the review is complete doesn't even factor.

Same reason why sites continue to post rumours based on the littlest amount of information, no matter how many times they get burned or embarrassed about their poor research. If you post the "news", you get a ton of traffic. If you wait until you can find out more about it, you get none of the traffic. And if it turns out you posted a hoax or something incorrect, nobody will remember or care the next time you do it again.

So the issue is the same as with a lot of things: Too many people like to bitch a lot online about the problems with games journalism, but refuse to change their actions to match their words.

@demoskinos: It's about games being broken on launch. A review sans any discussion of stability with a high score implies a technically sound product. Yet, we are getting numerous games that are broken on arrival. Much of this is due to the way games are reviewed and publisher/developer controlled events that guarantee ideal experiences.

Try reading the OP next time, ok?

As a member of the press (I'm an editor at The Dallas Morning News, and a freelance writer for several sites including GameSpot and Joystiq), I understandably hear this a lot, and I (hopefully understandably) get sick of it a lot. Most of us hold ourselves to pretty high editorial standards when it comes to the things we publish, and yet no matter what we do there's somebody out there saying we're either paid off or just doing it "for the hits."

But rather than make the same arguments over and over again, I instead wrote a big blog post recently that serves as "my official response" to threads like these. No, video game critics are not corrupt; mostly, anyway

I often do a type of post at the Dallas Morning News similar to what you mentioned Jeff doing: It's a post of impressions, not a "review," that says, "This is how I feel about this game right now, before it's released." That also helps me cover a lot more games, since I'm a one-man game coverage team for the newspaper and I'm strict about finishing a game before reviewing it (most professional critics are).

Bottom line, though? Yeah, stop pre-ordering games. I wouldn't do it in your shoes, unless it's a case where I'm, say, ordering something from Amazon for release day delivery of a game I know is good (most recent example: the latest Professor Layton, which had already been released and reviewed in other parts of the world). The games press doesn't care if you pre-order games or not. We have absolutely no stake in that.

Yep. I really think it's fine if any site puts up a review without testing post release situations... as long as they make it clear they're doing so. And almost anyone who is interested enough to read a game review in the first place knows based on when the review comes out that the reviewer potentially didn't test the game in the way it will soon be tested when it's played by millions of people.

I don't know how many times folks like Jeff have to say it, a review is the description of the author's personal experience with the game in a specific context. Nothing more.

Don't like companies and reviews not considering the game post-launch? Don't pre-order games.

8.8

Insert clapping gif from Citizen Kane

Agree with everything you said and why I take most reviews with a grain of salt nowadays, especially ones that rely so heavily on internet interaction (Simcity, BF4, Titanfall, etc). I disagree somewhat on Dark Souls 2 only because I don't care about the online part as much as the single player stuff. I played Demon's Souls recently with little interaction and it was totally fine, at least you can play DS2 offline and still have essentially the same experience. Titanfall on the other hand IS online interaction and EVERY game sucks at launch. Every. Single. One. I don't have sympathy for those that engage on day one launches of multiplayer only games, you HAVE to know what you are getting into at this point.

BUT I hate reviews even more that run before hand that give amazing scores and the game is unplayable at launch and days, weeks, even months afterwards. Its gross and Polygon's stupid "we go back in and edit scores" B.S. is the worst. It really means nothing, its not like metacritic goes in and re edits scores, they said they won't so it really is worthless and just an excuse of "we didn't know it would be that bad so we are un-recommending it. That doesn't help the end consumer. I at least like Joystiq's idea because they don't change their initial score but at least try to inform the consumer that there is problems, it's not perfect but it is a start.

I would normally agree with you, but we're talking about broken games here. Broken games aren't a matter of taste. Nobody ever says, "Wow I love the way the servers dump me out every 5 minutes!"

Personally, I already don't rely heavily on reviews because I know that... A.) Game reviewers are typically more dependent on publishers/developers than they are users/consumers to run their business (conflict of interest)...and B.) Like you said, I prefer to use them as a way of measuring the temperature of a game, rather than looking for an absolute word of a games worth (I'll leave that part up to myself).

That being said, and as I mentioned before, straight up broken ass games really don't play a part into any of that. In that case, reviewers need to evolve to deal with the fact that more and more games are shipping straight up broken. Consumers should also be more wary at release, to be fair.

Do people really trust game reviews?

It's an opinion.

Of one person.

On the internet.

Who plays lots of games.

Doesn't that sounds like 100 million other people you know??

When you slam all those reviews together you get something called: Popular Consensus Thermometre, a measuring stick useful to only fanboys and marketers really, or I guess to those interested in trends. Some us, I imagine, only enjoy/ever hear about things that have a really high PCT, so that works out for them. But for the rest of us?

Really all you should care about is if you enjoy reading that persons reviews, find their perspective interesting, and so on.

But, OK. Let's say I agree there is value in "Official Consumer Advocacy Reviews" - yes, the system is antiquated, and reviews should be updated over time/revisited/held back/whatever to reflect the so-called "Current Quality" of the game.

Erm, no?

I don't really base my purchases off of reviews unless it's something I'm iffy about like Thief (Which I'm waiting on for a price drop). That said, whenever I do look at a review, it'll be from GameInformer or Giantbomb. Most other sites reviews are shit. Looking at you Polygon.

By the way, I think you should've made it more clear that your complaint is based on early multiplayer game reviews. Doesn't seem like some people get it.

Also, I rarely buy games day 1 unless it's something I really look forward to (which is mainly single player games) and indie games. So reviews are pretty useless to me either way. Besides a bunch of indie games I've bought since January on PSN, the only retail/AAA game I have bought/pre-ordered is Infamous Second Son, but only because I wanted the collectors edition. If that wasn't a thing, I would've bought it digitally the day it came out if it isn't buggy as hell (Which I highly doubt because Sucker Punch is great at polishing their games). Multiplayer games like Destiny, I will be waiting on to make sure it doesn't pull a Battlefield 4. Games that I'm interested in like Dying Light, I will have to wait for reviews because as cool as Dead Island was, it was broken as hell when it launched (Good thing I never bought it).

@chaser324: That makes a lot more sense, I didn't think the FTC was in the business of regulating ostensibly editorial content.

How reductive of you.

Why do you believe anyone on GiantBomb let alone any where are running any site to protect us? Journalism is at best about recording information. The staff at GB is responsible for noting that Dark Souls 2 was released today and what they thought about it. Whether or not you buy or enjoy Dark Souls 2 has nothing to do with their work.

A journalist isn't going to protect you from anything let alone the petty and trivial thing like buying a bad game. Also just because you had a different experience with something than someone else doesn't mean they lied to you but that they simply had a different experience.

Thanks for your perspective.

I tend to agree with you, as I think people outside sites or papers which do reviews can often get a distorted view of what they actually are. And in cases where performance may be an issue(with online-focused games in particular), not pre-ordering is often a wise decision.

Also, I read the Dallas Morning News off and on! Not as much as in the past, but still get it every Sunday. :)

Yeah, well as long as people keep pre-ordering day 1 busted games no one is going to care.

Maybe if there was some real consumer protection, where publishers had to hand out refunds for broken products, things might change. That would indirectly increase the cost of games and probably fewer big games would come out. I think it would be a net benefit.

Exactly! Use your heads, people! Stop pre-ordering games you know are going to be busted upon release!

GameTrailers is withholding a review score until they can test the multiplayer, and have a short 1 minute clip explaining that before their review, which is marked as Review (Singleplayer) if that makes you happier. Especially considering how much the multiplayer appears to have been enhanced and made more obvious since Dark Souls 1, its really quite strange that many reviewers just treated the game as just a PvE affair. As someone who didn't get involved with the MP at all in 1, I am seriously considering joining a PvP or co-op covenant in 2, they seem great.
Reviews are ultimately just the opinion of a single person, but part of what makes them interesting reads are when the reviewer is clearly good at writing and can properly explain why certain mechanics were appealing/unappealing to him/her. From there, the reader can make their own judgements as to whether a particular mechanic or aspect of game deserves their hatred or if they hold an appeal. Sessler is a good example of a reviewer who can go into the 'why' of games, and not just say 'this game is bad because I say so'.

It's truth, not reduction.

And a positive, not a negative. It means people like you are as worth listening to as Jeff and Brad.

Most of the time :D

Which means my blogs in 2014 are just as worth listening to as my blogs in 2004.

Quick looks sell more games to me than any review ever has. Reviews I sometimes read, though only Giantbomb ones, as a nicely formulated opinion. Unless I'm super-invested that is and want to know more opinions, fake or not.

Throwing my "this" in as well. I can understand someone who has tracked the progression of a game and participated in prerelease/beta and whatever who know the game for themselves and they are getting into and pre-order for day 0 delivery but someone doing the same because they read something on a web page?? That is just a recipe for disappointment.

For almost every game out there, one will be fine if you wait till the weekend or even another week to buy it. Buying into "pre-release hype" and pre-ordering does nothing but pressure sites like GiantBomb into making snap reviews.

It's dumb to blindly trust all reviews you read, but it's also dumb to blindly assume all reviews are compromised bullshit. Yeah, it's a problem that game reviews aren't coming out like they probably should, in lieu of recent developments relating to games where online is absolutely crucial to the experience. That doesn't mean game reviewers are dirtbags. If the higher-ups tell them they need to have a review up by the game's release, then that's the reviewer's job. Giantbomb's in a unique position where they have the liberty to post reviews whenever they feel it's best. Not all sites have updated their policies in such a way, and I don't think most sites would be able to anyway given the business of how websites make their money.

Basically, most reviewers don't have the kind of power we wish they had, and so the best they can do is reflect on the quality of the actual games themselves, apart from the experience that a properly-working, or otherwise, online infrastructure adds to the games. It's not that reviewers aren't fighting for the consumer; it's more that they can't.

That was supposed to be sarcastic. Damn it.

In the risk of sound like a douche or "elitist" some of you guys are investing great amount of over-thinking, over-writing and over-whining on the internet about this, Make it seem like 40-60 spent on a videogame is such a big deal. If this industry is creating so much anxiety in you; Use that energy wisely, get a better job or get another hobby, one that is not full of evil corporations and media conspiracies.

Sure stuff like Sim City was disapointing but it was not a rip off, game was fun for a couple of weeks, cool beans I moved on, no need to start a gamer revolution.

I agree with @video_game_king! It's your fault you buy broken games. Grow up and realize that video games are business, and business is booming. Capitalism, yay!

Thankfully we have someone like VGK to look out for the video game companies, when you consumers complain about the purchasing decisions you make, knowing full well you are buying a broken game!

@donpixel: Don's had enough of your discussions, its time to get back to what a message board is for... Wait a second...

I really like Metacritic and I think it's a good general rule-of-thumb way to tell if a game is worth paying attention to. What of it?

Would you trust a single movie critic?

While I understand your concerns and mistrust I don't understand why you would take any single review as law. Especially a game relying on an online service. Granted this failure of server side support really didn't pop up until 2013 so I can see why you'd feel blindsided by this distance gap between reviewer and finished product.

Game reviewers have a hard time when it comes to reviews compared to other forms of media. Movies, books, and albums are static products. A movie seen 2 weeks before release won't change on opening day. A video game doesn't follow the same format.

For any reviewer to stay relevant he/she must review the game beforehand not only to get the views you need to survive as a website but also to give a purchaser the advice they want when venturing out to a store.

It comes down to quite a lot of factors. Can you wait to play the game? If it's online required, can you wait to see how that works out? Can you trust the reviewer's (not the website but the actual writer) review? Is the review talking about what you're looking for/enjoy in the game?

Keep all that in mind and more than likely you'll enjoy more games on your shelf and not be sitting and staring at error screens and broken games.

@video_game_king: in a different way, but yes.

It matters...

to someone.

?

VIDEO GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Curse your correctness! :) Don't pre-order games that seem to have a high degree of being broken at release. For some reason, people are still surprised when a highly complex game that requires a bunch of highly complex systems to interact in concert fails to launch smoothly. Its like a complete mystery to them on how anything could have gone wrong.

Is not that I fundamentally disagree with some review outlets being better than others, But this is an entertainment business. Basically you are paying money for a product to spend a great amount of non productive time with it, by very definition videogames are already an economic nonsensical waste.

What do you guys want a reuters report treatment of every dumb ass videogame coming up? That sounds like a no fun read to me.

It's always best to wait for word of mouth, because their experience is going to be closer to yours than the reviewers.

Friends don't let friends pre-order games.

I got no problem with Polygon changing their score. e.g. what if say EA's servers were to crash in week 2 of a launch and stay down for an extended period of time? That would be worth changing the score imo. Thi

Polygon's problem is they published the initial score without waiting to see how the servers were going to hold up. Given how important that is to game's like Simcity, Bf4, Dark Souls 2 etc that is reckless anymore.

The way Giant Bomb handled the Titanfall review imo is the right way to handle it, publish a preliminary written review hold the official score until the online situation is settled one way or the other.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or mocking me.

What has happened over the past few years is the review system on most sites never evolved and are using old, outdated systems that doesn't take certain issues into account. What Jeff did with Titanfall is the right way to go about a review even if Metacritic doesn't get its precious number.

I think some sites are attempting to fundamentally change how reviews are done, but not everybody is going about it the right way, particularly Polygon who can definitely misinform potential buyers by jumping the gun like they did with SimCity then changing the score even though early adopters already bought into the review. I know every website under the sun is looking to be the first on the block, but in the case of Titanfall, server issues are a significant factor which should impact the score so I can't trust those scores entirely.

Then again, I rarely base my game purchases on professional reviews when Qiuck Looks and word of mouth do such a better job. Do your own research, guys.

Just piling on to make it look like you were extolling something contrary to what you actually intended. I agree with you.

Early reviews, bullshitting to fill out a review of the game left unfinished in playing or development = Money.
Money = Everything, even when this happens in baltic state gaming media.
Wait and see unless you have full faith in a game and you are ready to dive in blind = Don't be afraid to ask for your money back and take it to the media if it's like Sim City or BF4 or too many other titles.