Polygon changes review score...again

Dumb. Then again, Polygon.

i know it's a bad thing and shouldn't be acceptable, but it's kinda funny to see people lose their shit over something that will 99% be a non-issue in a few days/a week.

How is this a disservice to the readers? On the site reviewing policy page there is a massive section dedicated to explaining why their scores will change. It has been there since the beginning, it was there when the review launched, and it is there now.

Their review system is developed with the idea that games are not just single - packaged products anymore. They are now fluid systems that have the potential to change drastically. Look at World of Warcraft as an example, the game is completely different than the game that launched. You cannot even play that original version of WOW anymore (and why would you? The launch game was shit in comparison) and if you were to review the two side-by-side, only a fool would rate the games evenly. So why would a reviewer be burdened by a concept like creating a buying guide for a games launch, essentially relegating yourself to being a publishing tool and the game to being a product, when you can create a review of a game with the idea that it is a work of art.

@monetarydread: I explain why it's a bad decision in this case. All you did is telling me they always had this possibility of changing score... which i already know and it's pretty clear that i know that when you read my post.

As a game evolve and change and or get fixed changing the review to reflect that may be useful. But changing the score of a review published before the game is released is a disservice to anyone who placed a pre-order on something that may be unplayable at the moment purely based on that review that as now been changed after it's too late to cancel the pre-order.

Reviews of games that are purely multiplayer or using an always-on scheme like this one should never be published before the game is out to begin with. Changing the score after the fact like is the case here proves that point.

This is why scores are dumb anyway.

But sure, floating scores are fine, nothing wrong with them. Considering every other site uses a static score, it's not a bad idea and it's not like it'll destroy the credibility of the site or the industry. It's a bunch of people telling you their opinions of video games, it's fine for them to change over time.

Polygon promised us a revolution, and gave us the same old shit with a new URL.

Publicity stunt.

@zudthespud: No. In today's day and age, this kind of fuck up is inexcusable. Especially after we've seen a handful of terrible "always online" launches. You are releasing a new version of one of the biggest franchises in gaming and you can't account for the server stress you'll see at launch? Ridiculous.

Reviewing a game that relies on server connection before it goes live is a hell of a lot more dumber than this pointless score change. So Polygon went from recommending this game to recommending it. Cool.

Silly site.

I understand that in the world we live in a game may not be the same today as it is tomorrow, but this is just poor decision making. Unfortunately, it's this kind of managerial ineptitude that leads so many people to scoff at the legitimacy of video game reviews.

Is the text unchanged? That would be the ultimate cherry on top.

They went from recommending it to recommending it a bit less. Major difference!

LOLygon.

If they were transparent about the reasoning then good for them I think. On the other hand, they should have done what Alex did and waited, that seems like the responsible thing to do.

I don't get why they didn't just leave the review but with a redacted score. It would still give users all of the relevant information, and push forward that the game was unplayable upon release with the expectation of a quick fix. Lowering the score within the range of it still being good while it's unplayable seems rather short sighted and panicked. Especially since neither of the changes will be reflected on Metacritic. They might have well have just omitted the score on the review page and left an explanation as to why, and when it would return.

@weltal said:

If you completely ignore my point (by hyperfocusing on my example), yes, the two situations aren't comparable. But fine, you want a better example? How about that other game that had a bad launch, it was slightly well known....oh, yeah, Diablo III? A perfect 10 from Polygon, and no mention of them ever changing the score, despite launch week problems. They even go so far as to mention the launch problems, and it still doesn't change the score. Why couldn't they have done the same with SimCity?

Why did they do that? Because Diablo III the video game was fine.

I'll say it one more time: They are paid to review the game itself, not the circumstances surrounding the game.

Isn't Polygon the site where the reviewer writes a review and the other reviewers give it a score based on the text?

Doing a pre-release review of a online only game, seems really incompetent.

If they just called it an impression and not given it a score, everything would've been swell.

When EA fixes the servers, will Polygon change their review score back to 9.5?

They really should have just waited till the game launched before they put up a review.

I don't think the score should have been changed at all. It isn't even an issue that effects everyone. I've had no problems at all playing it today, and I've been playing it basically the whole day. Also it's a launch day server overload. This is not representative of what 99.999% of the rest of this games life span is going to be like. Dumb.

I like the way some sites review MMOs. They come back to them in regular intervals and provide updated impressions. I guess Polygon needs to adopt something like that for this coming generation of Always Online games.

It's stuff like this that really challenges the status quo of games journalism... by constantly adjusting review scores. On one hand, I support the principle of reflecting the status of the product in real time, rather than just reflecting the ideal. On the other, I think it seems kind of silly and dumb in practice, especially since they'll probably change it back when the server issues are resolved.

Seriously, even parts of IGN figured that out.

The way this was all handled feels very anti-consumer. "Yo, we gotta get this review out quickly!"

@milkman: Polygon is pretty transparent in the fact that they change review scores as a game becomes better or worse, under the discretion of the editorial staff.

Now, they all expressed their great concerns about server stability, so perhaps, in this case, they should have waited.

That being said, I'm not upset about this, and I'm 100% glad they changed the score with the disclaimer of why, and when it may change back.

@chavtheworld: You realize the score will go back up upon this being sorted? That the article states that?

Polygon is a bigger joke than IGN.

I think I agree with this? It's not a direct analogy, but it would be like if a reviewer rated Fire Emblem: Awakening poorly because physical copies of the game have attained mythical status, and are only mentioned in whispers, appearing on retail shelves only until you direct your gaze on them, then POOF, gone, in a puff of smoke.

It's not the developer's fault that Nintendo really crapped up manufacturing/shipping the right number of cartridges in North America. The delivery failure of the game is Nintendo's fault, and isn't entirely related to the content of the game.

Similarly, launch day server woes are hardly Maxis' fault, and one would assume that within a week, it should be a relatively smooth process to get into SimCity and sync up with the server. I actually think it's kind of silly to have this lower the score of a game. The delivery failure of the game is EA's fault, though in this case it is more directly tied to how the very gameplay is structured.

It's expected that games should be released with a minimal amount of problems related to the actual game code. It's a big fuckup when they ship with game breaking bugs (I'm kind of shocked XCOM reviewed as well as it did; if more reviewers played on Classic where the enemy count is higher on each map, more of them might've noticed the incredibly frustrating bug related to enemy positions teleporting on top of your squad that still exists). It's less of a fuckup when the servers get slammed for the first couple days, because seriously, what do you expect? Was the Half-Life 2 launch super smooth? Are most MMO launches very smooth? Was the Diablo 3 launch smooth? Wasn't there an entire Bombcast segment, and numerous articles on other gaming sites, about how companies will always have these launch day woes and expect them because your usual playerbase will be a few hundred thousand people at a time, and it's just silly to pay for enough servers for like 5 million people when that will only be necessary for about 72 hours after launch? Was I imagining all of that?

I just don't get why anyone is surprised at this point. If you don't want to be frustrated, wait until 2 weeks after launch to buy this sort of always-online, everything-stored-server-side sort of game. Simple as that.

I've always believed that scores for certain games should be fluid, if massive changes or patches occur. Good for them for changing their initial score to reflect the poor servers, and I'm sure they'll learn from this mistake. They seem like pretty sharp individuals.

Yes, and when the servers go down for maintenance, it'll drop back down. Then back up.

This seems logical to me. I think it's fair to say most people would have preferred the game to at least have single player options and if it weren't for the game requiring an internet connection, for little reason beyond it being DRM, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Lowering a score because of bad design that wasn't apparent when the game was first reviewed, seems totally reasonable.

I like it.

Like it or not, the always on DRM is part of the game, and if it affects the playability, they need to take it into account in the review process. The score change was added at the end as an addendum, with the original score still there. They can change it back to a 9.5 with a second update, but that black stain will still be there.

You all of course know that the server shortage is a calculated risk for EA right? Planning for actual capacity on launch would cost extra money, EA weighs this cost against the damage inaccessibility will cause for about a week. If x is less than y, then they don't plan for actual capacity, and just ride it out, harming their best customers, those who play games day one. The only way to make x greater than y and make EA actually service their best customers is to make it hurt in the ratings.

I played a bit tonight, and it wasn't just inaccessibility; it was unstable, buggy and I lost about 3 hours worth of data. This isn't something that would have been experienced in pre-release, but deserves to effect the score.

I dunno man... it doesn't sound like you're speaking from first hand experience here. I logged in tonight on the Europe servers and managed to get a few hours in... the game itself is not fine, in fact, the game is all fucked up. It's not just server queues, but the game is glitchy as shit (why are people building houses in the middle of my highways?), and I lost those few hours of data. This was something not experienced in pre-release, and affects the game itself. A lot different than the circumstances surrounding Diablo, as that worked fine once you got in. This doesn't.

I think it was a ridiculous decision. They should either stand by the original score, on the assumption that within a few days the server problems will be ironed out, or wait until the game is out, and make sure their review reflects the actual user experience.

Justin McElroy defended the early review on Twitter, saying they wanted to make sure they had purchasing advice for people who bought the game on day one, except that this essentially means they gave erroneous information to those day one buyers in an effort to "be first", since they later adjusted the score.

Docking a review score post-facto makes sense, if it's missing something content-wise from the review copy, or plagued with bugs that the review copy somehow didn't have. But docking a score for server congestion that will no doubt be gone by the end of the week at the latest, is pointless and ridiculous.

This has nothing to do with "saving face", and everything to do with logic. Lowering the score might satisfy frustrated SimCity owners on a cathartic level, but it's nonsense. If Call of Duty's servers go down for a day next week, will they change it's score to a 6.0 for the day too?

And furthermore, in their update they admit the 8.0 is most-likely a temporary change, since presumably the server issues are also temporary. Except if the change is because people temporarily can't get in to play the game, how is a literally unplayable game still an 8/10 experience?

"The game doesn't work right now -- better dock it 1.5 points!" Completely absurd.

If a week from now the server issues look to be permanent, THEN you dock the game - permanently - for being a permanently hobbled user experience.

This is indefensible on anythying other than a "frustrated at EA/SimCity and want to show it" level, which isn't what a review of a game is supposed to be about. I own the game, and I'm super-pissed at EA for not being ready for the server traffic the game has gotten, but I'm also not a dumbass, and I recognize that the current state of affairs is probably temporary.

There's no excuse for shipping broken, unplayable games, day one server load or not; don't fucking release busted games. And if that means not requiring a connection, so be it. Fuck, do these big publishers have no respect for their customers?

Anyway, it's a weird spot Polygon's in now, because what exactly is gonna happen to the score when everything's in working order? But on the other hand, I think it's almost completely justified, given the simple fact that the game people payed for DOES NOT WORK.

I'm actually stunned that anyone thinks this move makes an iota of sense. I like the Polygon guys, but this was a really dumb move. Even Alex Navarro was very politely questioning the sense it made, on Twitter.

Heck, I'd actually say Kotaku's "Wait and See" fill-in for a review is better than posting a review and then changing it a day later. They could have done the whole review and said it was simply too early to give a score. Instead, they posted a score, then changed it, and a week from now, it'll probably be a 9.0 or something.

Though, it's only to their gain, as this review will probably get even more views than just a straight score. A successful publicity stunt for Polygon, a site with the highest rhetoric around being something better consistently reminding us that it's more of the same.

It's not the always online DRM, it's not the small scope of the cities, it's not the bugs that other sites encountered, it's not the ominous micro-transactions, it's not the amount of restrictions the game has relative to other games in the series and it's dependance on multiplayer.

It's day one server issues.

No Polygon. No.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Especially since you're dead wrong.

I would hate to work in games media. You get constant shit for every little thing from readers/gamers, because they are the biggest group of whiny asshats on this planet.

So does this mean when a game down the line that Polygon have reviewed shuts down its MP, they will go back to their old original review and change the score? Polygon continues to be awful.

They fucked up. And I'm not against the "changing the review" ability. I think that's a good thing, but for long-term scenarios. Say, a game that was buggy on release but a year later it's all fixed or a game that gets updated heavily that it's a very different game a year or two from its release. These are a couple of examples where a revised review makes sense.

Now, changing a review a day after being published, now that's a different beast. I mean, I myself couldn't care less, but Polygon readers will now always have in the back of their head the thought of "yeah, this review is out and it's a 8.5, but what if tomorrow is a 7?". This decision brings a precedence that only leads to distrust.

The eager to get a review early sometimes comes to bite you in the ass.

Imagine you were reading a Diablo 3 review today, trying to decide if you want to buy it, and you read "there's a lot of disconnections, it's almost impossible to get into the game and Blizzard hasn't fixed the problem yet". You'd think exactly that. It's completely false 10 months later, and yet it's there in your review.

I think this goes to show how pointless numbered scores are for games. How do value numerically what could be temporary problems with servers. Supposing the game becomes unplayable for a week - does the score drop to 0 for that time?

This makes me more and more believe that if you are going to have a scoring system it needs to be as vague as possible while still having some mean. So basically a 5 or 3 point scale. There is no point trying to mark games cod-scientifically on a 20 point (Polygon) or even 100 point scale - it tells the average gamer nothing.

Changing scores is even more silly - I get that reviewers want to be able to react to the ever-changing, patching, online world we live in, but updating your text or writing a article is the best way.

The only possible case I can see for changing the score is if the game is changed in some permanent way by a patch or update, this example just seems like they have made a mistake initially by reviewing the game in a state which the general public are never going to get their hands on, so they are right to change it - but it is them correcting their mistake, not being adaptive and forward thinking in their reviewing process.

Then again, static reviews are losing value, and far from just DLC. Reviews of GT5 are mostly useless because the core game's been updated and enhanced so much that it's a new game, 2.0.

let bygons be bygons?

It is fine if Polygon wants to be "transparent" and feels the need to change review as time and the situation evolves but as long as they "track the history" then it is fine. They need to be clear which is the release review and which is and why it changed later.

Personally I believe it is silly to alter the score depending on release difficulties unless it is extra grievous. No one is going to change a review to be more positive if it had a smooth release.

Whatever. It's not like review scores aren't a load of bunk to begin with anyway.