Polygon changes review score...again

@jimbo: If somebody went out to buy SimCity based off of Polygon's review alone, they must've done nothing but look at the number and said "Welp, good enough for me" because they have a whole sidebar about connectivity.

Review scores on most sites are inflated to the point of being worthless... and a trip to the IGN comments shows exactly why it's happening. Though even if someone does give a super inflated score, they should have to eat the backlash of making the mistake instead feigning outrage by lowering the score.

eh, the 8.0/4.0 seem pretty arbitrary, they should have just taken the score away and added a note saying don't buy the game till server issues are fixed.

though im glad people are crapping on it cuz it sucks and EA needs to be held accountable.

So when the servers don't have a problem and the game is as good as when they reviewed it will they raise it back to a 9.5?

@jay_ray: I don't think they'll raise it that high, but I think it'll be boosted back into decent/good status. If you read their ethics statement Polygon states that all of their reviews are subject to change at any time if the reviewer feels like updating it.

@likeassur said:

People use review scores like that all the time, and this is a discussion about review scores, soooo...

I have been having hard swings about how I feel about this situation. I'm now not sure if the site is either trying something new or ass covering after giving such a high score to a game that had a really effed up launch.

@jimbo: I don't think generalizing helps your case any, but by now, we're going to have to agree to disagree. Anything after this point and we'll just be talking past each other, and/or in circles, and it'll look like the most awkward verbal square dance ever.

Or should I say...verbal polygonal dance?

No. You should not say that. Ever.

Apparently at Maxis they agree with what Polygon is doing with the games score.

Huh..

As far as i'm convinced their credibility is still out the window.

The servers suck and one of the game speed options is gone, yeah, that's the issue with the game.

Every other legitimate gripe that's been brought up by other websites and people who actually bought the game that was never mentioned in the original review is still fine to ignore.

No instead he spouted off bullshit like this:

And the ability to create near-perfect simulations of existing small cities and towns (right down to traffic patterns) is truly amazing. Even thinking about the possibilities for applying this type of simulation to solving real world problems makes my head hurt. It is as much an education in miniature on the vast interconnectedness of every facet of our modern lives as it is a game.

Yeah, after watching the quick look this guy had to have been playing another game or he just simply isn't qualified to provide consumer advice.

The game speed option isn't actually gone, so I have no idea why they are saying that. It was still there yesterday and it's there today too.

Can still do all the speeds - 1, 2, and 3 (Cheetah).

@sooty said:

You can still toggle the highest speed, but there's currently no actual difference between the pace of Cheetah and Llama.

I'd love to go in and test that but the thing is all the servers are dead.

Glorious.

I can confirm that what @hunter5024 said is true, plus they pretty much announced that they removed the feature with the last patch notes.

Oh no. Review update 2.1 hasn't gone live yet.

Taking the game completely out of the equation, if I was depending on a review to see if I will buy a game or not, a 9.5 to an 8 really isn't too big of a deal. However, an 8 to a 4 takes it from, "This game is pretty good" to "This game is pretty bad". I do understand them wanting to get the review out early though. More page views, blah blah blah.

Also I feel pretty fucking bad for the people who worked on the game that did their jobs well, but in a way are still getting punished.

"I'd like to say that it's not fair — that the game score shouldn't be punished for a server problem," she wrote. "But it is fair."

"SimCity is an online game and critics and consumers have every right to expect a smooth experience from beginning to end," she wrote. "I and the Maxis team take full responsibility to deliver on our promise.

At least Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw is talking sense. More than can be said for some apolog...errr, gamers.

It's a shame. I wonder how many people are getting sacked.

@likeassur: I'm not sure why this isn't getting though.

The Diablo III review was done a) a week after the launch, when the server issues were (by and large) ironed out, and b) when Polygon's staff were writing under The Verge's "gaming" heading, not on their own site. The Polygon site, as detailed in the documentary, runs on a newer version of their tech, which allows for dynamic review scores.

Not sure why so many people here are up in arms with a dynamic review. The game you're getting now in comparison to the closed, fully functional review version differs greatly both in playability and features.

@johnlongview: Then maybe Polygon should wait to publish an online-only game review until a week after launch. Either way, this "dynamic review score" sounds pretty easy to abuse, and they've already proven that.

I do not fucking get the "hard-on" people have for everything polygon does. Polygon is filled with a crew of pretentious little pricks who truly believe they deserve a Pulitzer for every one of their reviews and tripe they puke forth. I know i'm gonna come off sounding like a asshole, but this had to be said and I do not feel one bit of remorse for saying it.

I don't really have that big of a problem with Polygon revising their score. They should've waited, but they didn't. Whatever. The bigger issue to me is that this is not a 9.5/10 (or hell even a 8/10) game under perfect conditions. The always online DRM, the small scale of the cities, ignoring SimCity's legacy and focusing on a multiplayer game...this isn't any better than a 7/10 game to me.

Polygon is weird. I read Arthur Geis' God of War Ascension review and it was like a litany of issues and problems he had with the game. Then, <drumroll>... 7/10. The fuck?

Dice aren't polygonal, they're polyhedral. A polygon is a two dimensional object composed of a closed loop of straight edges connected by vertices, a polyhedron is a three dimensional object composed of flat edges and flat faces.

I'm sorry, I can't help it: I'm a nitpicker.

How about nitpicking where he said dance, not dice...? ;)

Oh, christ, I didn't even see that! My brain is stupid! :)

It is instructive at how angry people get and how much they care about a score changing. Its a score folks, not the end of the world.

[breaks into song]

...Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "E"
That ends with "A"
And that stands for Fool,
That EA made you a fool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!

And my picture was 2D :)

False, SimCity is still in the 9.5 section of reviews listed in ascending order by score.

Seems legit.

they went to 4 today... I think a lot of people is flipping over this, I don't think its that outrageous but common.. they should think twice be more careful.

It's kind of unfair to expect that stuff to go to shit after. You'd think they would have learned you need to have a shit ton of servers at launch and slowly take them offline, not the other way around.

I don't get why people get pissy over this shit.

Also, the game is good, genuinely. So it's a bit weird that it's score depends on some servers. It sucks that people can't play it right now, but I'm fairly confident that soon, you won't hardly notice that stuff. I hate that bullshit, I really do. But at the same time, most people will have a good time with the game when they can get in without worrying about the shit that is going on right now.

Hopefully when things stabilize, the review goes back up. It'd suck if the devs were punished by EA's dumb DRM choice.

It comes down to what you include in the review. Are server issues included? If Simcity had a perfect launch, but out of nowhere 2 weeks after release the servers dive-bomb and it breaks for a unknowable amount of time, is the review changed? Is it still a "9.5/10" game (or whatever score) stuck in a "0/10" service? Where is the line there?

Reviews. Tricky stuff. Throwing limited opinions out there and calling it some sort of "final word" on it. But hey, I come here everyday to read reviews! Who'm I kiddin'.

April 3rd update: The game is now a 6.5!

http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-2013/2630

If @superjoe would be so kind as to update his chart to reflect this new update it would be great!

Why do they even bother at this point? Do they think people still care beyond the mockery this invites?

It makes for some reasonable entertainment! I did laugh for a minute reading the update and remembering the chart!

Fan-fucking-tastic. What a complete shit-show.

This is so dumb.

They bother because it is how their review policy has been set up. If they didn't change it, then they would be going against what they are trying to stand for. If what they stand for is good or not has already been covered extensively in this thread, and I believe it's very obvious that you do not agree with it. That's just why it is though.

@pr1mus: I give up.

In other news, rather than fixing a broken game, EA has implemented wonderful new Nissan Leaf DLC!!!!

@superjoe: This is awesome, thanks!

They bother because of the following scenario: I am a casual gamer, it is August 2013, Sim City is on sale for $10 and is working like it should. Now I go and look for a review and lets say Polygon is my goto site and I just look at scores. I don't give a fuck if they had server issues in March and therefore the score of 4.0 is not representative of the current state of the game. I want to know what the game is like right now and the score should reflect that.

This bring me to my problem, the reviewer thought Sim City, when working as intended, was worth a 9.5. So when everything is fixed the score should return to a 9.5 and if the score doesn't return to 9.5 can we trust that reviewer to give a proper score at the launch of a game ever again?

@jay_ray: Polygon doesn't strike me as a site for the casual gaming audience. You're also presuming that the game will be working as it should by that time. :P

@hailinel: Polygon isn't a casual browsing site right now but given their style I have to believe they want to get IGN/Gamespot viewership numbers in the future and it's for this crowd that this system I believe is intended for. Also their are more games released today that go through major rebuilds, MMO's are the most common but in 3 years games like Destiny will be more common and these games will go through major rebuilds which could make the game play vastly different than it was at launch. Launch reviews of WoW do not represent the current WoW experience and this review system allows them to easily adapt their score to the game that you would buy when you read the review.

If SimCity never works like it should then yeah the score shouldn't be put back to 9.5. But from my play as soon as Cheetah Speed is back in the game it will be operating like the game reviewers reviewed and that is when I'll see if Polygon can really be trusted for reviews at launch, or at the very least that reviewer.

I find it hard to take the review seriously when there's a string of scores at the bottom of it. It reads more like the editor can't make up his mind.

I get what you mean, but with the state of games now it totally makes sense. These aren't scores that have to run in magazines that need to be decided on weeks early to make a print deadline.

Wow you're so cool and edgy. You sure showed them.

The fuck are you even going on about?