Journalists just can't seem to connect with their audience today

@GreggD said:

You really are Hitman, aren't you?

I hit men, but never women.

@GreggD said:

You really are Hitman, aren't you?

I don't remember that Hitman guy people is talking about, Was he as idiotic as this one?

@ick_bop said:

If some people here can't realize the fact that Buzzkill is a useless piece of dogshit troll from reading this thread, then look at him in the TNT chat. No one should be taking anything he says seriously.

Ignorance is bliss eh?

To be perfectly honest you're not even worth the reply and apart of a large problem with this community, but I was going over this thread again for the hell of it and decided why not. Enjoy your freebie.

@DonPixel: He was this whackjob conspiracy theorist with a penchant for PC games. Fucking loony toon, swear to Christ. Look up his profile, and look at his stuff. He was banned, but his URL should still work: user name HitmanAgent47

@DonPixel said:

@GreggD said:

You really are Hitman, aren't you?

I don't remember that Hitman guy people is talking about, Was he as idiotic as this one?

He still leaves comments on the Steam group, you can see how cool he is there.

@DonPixel said:

@GreggD said:

You really are Hitman, aren't you?

I don't remember that Hitman guy people is talking about, Was he as idiotic as this one?

I'm only as idiotic as long as you don't think. If by some chance you do begin thinking, then you'll come up with posibilities on your own why I may or may not be idiotic. Until then while you're stuck in this rut, you have my sympathy along with posters such as GreggD. ;)

I'm gonna the majority of the 0's on there are from PC gamers who are unhappy with the product. Journalists who don't review games on strictly PC's aren't gonna echo the same thing. Plus the internet is full of stupid people. In general.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

I'm gonna the majority of the 0's on there are from PC gamers who are unhappy with the product. Journalists who don't review games on strictly PC's aren't gonna echo the same thing. Plus the internet is full of stupid people. In general.

So when your version of the ford focus works fine, people from other countries who bought the focus based on sterling reviews are suppose to accept it at face value, even if it's manufactured with lower quality parts and more bugs than where it was reviewed? /FAIL

I've yet to see examples of where Journalists scored good games highly when the users reviews were poor, but there are plenty of examples like the recent ones in this thread and topic where the Journalists have scored bad AAA titles highly when the users have spoken the truth about said titles.

I still stand behind Journalists being out of touch with gamers. They are too afraid to score a AAA properly.

I'll be back in an hour or so to read more humorous bits from the locals.... maybe by then they can come up with something solid other than petty childish insults. LOL

I don't trust user reviews sorry but the unwashed internet masses that bitch over every perceived fault is not the voice i'll listen to for purchasing advice. Add onto the fact that reviews are looked at by fans more as purchasing affirmation than a actual critical thought about the merits of the game and that makes me REALLY not trust user reviews.

O knows a differing of opinions on the internet on the great bastion of truth Metacritic whatever shall we do.

Journalists aren't out of touch its the internet.

@MrMazz said:

Journalists aren't out of touch its the internet.

Journalists are paid based on their ability to keep and hold the attention of the masses. Swaying them is just cheddar. Think about it.

@Buzzkill said:

@DonPixel said:

@GreggD said:

You really are Hitman, aren't you?

I don't remember that Hitman guy people is talking about, Was he as idiotic as this one?

I'm only as idiotic as long as you don't think. If by some chance you do begin thinking, then you'll come up with posibilities on your own why I may or may not be idiotic. Until then while you're stuck in this rut, you have my sympathy along with posters such as GreggD. ;)

Says the pompous windbag troll.

@Buzzkill: So are you just going to continue to conveniently ignore all the other examples of games that were review-bombed on Metacritic user rankings for nonsensical reasons when you get back? It's amazing how your argument begins and ends with "LOL JOURNALISTS ARE CORRUPT AND EVERYONE ELSE GETS IT RIGHT," but when there's examples of games obviously being review-bombed, you either ignore them or, in Bastion's case, argue that it doesn't matter because the game sucked anyway, as if that somehow makes the review-bombing acceptable.

@Buzzkill: so that makes them inherently corrupt? I think its more of a problem with Metacritic than Journalist being corrupt. Plenty of examples of games being review bombed or user reviews not matching journalist reviews. Have you seen Rotten Tomatoes?

@Buzzkill: There's signal to noise ratio that you're ignoring when comparing user scores to journalist scores. Usually, the only time a person submits a user score is when they are incredibly mad or disappointed in a product. They're perfectly in their right to do so, but it doesn't account for the 95% of the user base that finds the product perfectly fine or enjoyable. The submitting user also tends to lowball every score based on their expectations or anger about a particular aspect of the game they've purchased. If you read most user reviews, many tend to devolve into "I didn't like the driving! SHIT GAME 1/10." or "The graphics got messed up when I panned around. Biggest fucking waste of money. ZERO STARS."

Those aren't good reviews, and while the fact that the game's faults caused knee-jerk anger in some accounts might make them good things to point to as failings of the product, they lack the analysis of game mechanics and design in a clean, concise, and well thought out manner. Rage might be a disappointment based on anticipation, but production value and the game mechanics are very solid, so the idea that it is a 2-star game when judged as a whole package is silly. It is not a game on the level of the Silicon Knights X-Men game, and to say it is just because you were let down by Rage is being disingenuous. Games should be judged on what they are, not what someone thought they should be, and based on the user reviews I've read for many games in the past, they tend to fall into that trap regularly.

That isn't to say there isn't a problem of scores skewing high in professional reviews, but I feel that itself is a pandering to the gaming public rather than the game publishers. If a game gets anything below an 85, gamers jump all over it as being a shit game. I think a lot of game journalists go in with this in mind now more than ever. It's why I appreciate GiantBomb's five-star rating system. A 5 can be anything from a perfect game to a nearly perfect game with some flaws, a 4 is a great game with some concerns, 3 is good to ok, 2 is mediocre, boring or bland, and 1 is gaming poison. It encompasses the actual feel of a game's quality without assessing it an arbitrary pin-point number like an 88.3 or some other nonsense.

User reviews are too on-the-sleeve to be taken seriously as a whole. Its true that we hold the money, but we also are given to hyperbole when faced with dissatisfaction, so it is incredibly difficult to wade through who is bitching and down-voting out of spite, and which review is a genuine critique of the product at hand. At least with a professional review, there is a vetting process in place. It's just a matter of finding a reviewer or reviewers who you feel have gaming sensibilities similar to your own. I feel I've found that with much of the team here, or at the very least I can appreciate their point of view even when I disagree with it.

are you seriously a buzzkill

@Buzzkill said:

@FreakAche said:

Most of the time, crazy user reviews on Metacritic are just the result of a bunch of 4chan kids who think they're funny.

They've proven that's not the case with the Binding of Issac. Why give an obscure indie budget title a sterling score then a AAA title a shitty score? The users have dialed in, it's the journalists who are out of touch.

Shut up.

@GreggD said:

He was this whackjob conspiracy theorist with a penchant for PC games. Fucking loony toon, swear to Christ.

LoL whackjob conspiracy theorist..

@PeasantAbuse said:

He still leaves comments on the Steam group, you can see how cool he is there.

OMG, those comments are gold, haha

@Buzzkill

Your argument is fundamentally flawed. You're saying that journalists just can't seem to connect to their audiences. You bring up the disparity between the user metacritic score and the giant bomb score for Rage as the foundation of your argument. However, you neglect to mention that this line of reasoning is only valid if you look exclusively at the PC score of 3.4. The metacritic xbox score for Rage is 6.8. The metacritic PS3 score is between the abysmal PC score and the less than stellar xbox score. This trend is summed up verbally by the original review. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following line from the original review:

“…the PC version launched in a miserable state that rendered it unplayable on ATI cards, though a matter of hours later an emergency set of drivers seems to have things working fine on both brands of GPU.”

The proximity of the metacritic user xbox score to the giant bomb score and the verbal downgrade of the PC version by the giant bomb reviewer indicate that the reviewer is well aware of the complaints that the average user would levy against this game. This makes your conjecture of "like, journalists are being paid off, man" false (I'm paraphrasing).

An initial analysis of why you would present the data so poorly presents two broad possibilities: you're too stupid to analyze the data or you're actively trying to mislead people.

I believe that the truth falls somewhere in between. The real issue you want to bring up is that you're being ignored by id as a PC gamer and this is your one and only outlet, whether you are insightful enough to realize it or not. Sorry to break it to you, but big developers are migrating away from the PC as a gaming platform since it is not as profitable as consoles (GoW3 selling 300,000 units in the first week is not something to take lightly as a profit seeking company and WoW is a unique entity, an outlier).

You are a minority for having made the PC your gaming platform of choice. You could continue to slam your dick against a wall and complain that it doesn't feel as good as having sex, or you could pay closer attention to the text of a review when it says: this does not work on the PC, it has no story, but is a solid, pretty shooter on the right console. Don't be a douchebag and troll a gaming site forum; before paying for a game, make sure it's what you want by listening to the smaller, more tight knit community you have become a part of.

Or you could just buy a console jackass. God I hate PC elitists. They think they're entitled to some shit just because they dropped a thousand dollars or more on a gaming system.

o well, i think it happens sometimes. also note that it is a person's opinion on the video game. i don't go to that website but maybe it had something to do with the ads. something like that happened to jeff back in the days of gamespot. the website might have a lot of rage ads on the site, the person reviewing it didn't want to get fired.

Trolling Metecritic has become something of an internet passtime ever since it dropped that people could potentially loose pay over bad scores. You simply cannot take user reviews on that site seriously, negative or otherwise.

Almost every single user review I read were problems with the optimization.
Almost none of them are actually about the game itself, which journalists actually do cover.
 
They don't actually care about the quality of the game, just how it runs. Just like the people giving Intel products 1/10 because their computer wouldn't boot up.
 
EDIT: I change my motherfucking statement.
EVERY SINGLE ONE of the reviews are about how horribly the PC version is ported, not about the quality of the game which 
99% of people in this thread do not seem to understand! I've now read 20 reviews, and they were all giving the game less than 3/10 because it would not run well.
I've seen NO OTHER REASON to why the game would be rated low. No reviews covering the actual gameplay, the story, the interaction, NOTHING.
Only optimization.

@Buzzkill said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

I'm gonna the majority of the 0's on there are from PC gamers who are unhappy with the product. Journalists who don't review games on strictly PC's aren't gonna echo the same thing. Plus the internet is full of stupid people. In general.

So when your version of the ford focus works fine, people from other countries who bought the focus based on sterling reviews are suppose to accept it at face value, even if it's manufactured with lower quality parts and more bugs than where it was reviewed? /FAIL

You compared a game with Ford Focus. You have really slipped Shitman.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

I'm gonna the majority of the 0's on there are from PC gamers who are unhappy with the product. Journalists who don't review games on strictly PC's aren't gonna echo the same thing. Plus the internet is full of stupid people. In general.

So when your version of the ford focus works fine, people from other countries who bought the focus based on sterling reviews are suppose to accept it at face value, even if it's manufactured with lower quality parts and more bugs than where it was reviewed? /FAIL

Journalism... that's socialist!

I agree that games journalists are out of touch. There are lots of reasons their perspectives are different to the average gamer. They don't have to pay for games. They play a far larger amount of games than we do. They play games in the best situations (full online, and able to dedicate tons of time to them).
 
I think most of all though, journalists feel like they have to 'cheerlead' for games as a whole. Apart from the fact they need to cosy up to developers for access, I think journalists give the benefit of the doubt too often. If it's been a shit year for games none of them would say so. If a massive, hyped, triple A title is somewhat disappointing, they'll still look for something positive to say rather than be objectively critical. 
 
Movie reviewers can criticise films as they see it, but games reviewers look at what they're given and adjust their perspectives accordingly. If they didn't, it would make gaming as a whole seem like a waste of time, which is a widely held opinion we all try to dissuade.

Sorry I never got back to this and lol I don't know who mr hitman is, maybe I'll name my headache after him since apparently I was possessed by his ghost. Lets just stay I should stay away from booze in general having quit over a year now, but yesterday I was catching up with some long time buds and you know the saying, when in rome. I was in a extremely combative mood and all around general ass to everyone, not just these forums, so I'd like to apologize for any major feathers ruffled. I trust most of you are adults and can handle an apology from one.

It was a good discussion if a bit unfair to journalists because metacritic's sample size does leave it open to question and taint, but journalism has it's own pitfalls I'm sure. Every once in a while I love putting some screws to an online community just to see if they've got the mental gusto to tackle the problem I put forth and you did not disappoint. Some of the more ignorant will consider it trolling, but the subject matter and topics were very much game related, so say what you will. It was a good debate and fun thread while my evil juices were flowing. I look forward to our next encounter, Giantbomb.

@Buzzkill said:

@BrockNRolla said:

Your logic is ridiculous. Do you know why they don't ask everyone in the US to vote for the Academy Awards? Because often movies that are objectively well written, strongly acted, and inspired aren't enjoyed by a wide viewing audience. People go and see LOTS of bad movies though and enjoy them. Do I fault someone for enjoying something that is bad? No, but I do fault people who can't see the good in something that is genuinely well made. The same goes for video games and user reviews. Critics are supposed to be able to separate their fandom and the hype from the objective reality of a product. Whether or not they always succeed is questionable, but I would trust them over a bunch of raving members of the general public any day.

Case and point, Taylor Lauther's "Abduction" currently sits at a critic score of 5% while the audience score sits at 49%. Do I think the audience got this right? Or do I think there are a lot of tween girls and middle aged women who really like "that guy from Twilight"? You decide.

5% + 49% = a shitty movie. The critics and fans were both correct in your example, a poor one at that.

Ugh. Yes, clearly there is no difference between 49% and 5%.

I'd explain to you that these percentages are not "scores" but rather percentages of people who "liked" or "did not like" the movie, but the ignorance of your posting seems to imply you're just trolling anyway. Thankfully, the vast majority of patrons on this site will see through your paper-thin rationale. I'm sorry I engaged in the conversation at all. You were clearly interested in proselytizing rather than debating a topic.

@Buzzkill said:

Sorry I never got back to this and lol I don't know who mr hitman is, maybe I'll name my headache after him since apparently I was possessed by his ghost. Lets just stay I should stay away from booze in general having quit over a year now, but yesterday I was catching up with some long time buds and you know the saying, when in rome. I was in a extremely combative mood and all around general ass to everyone, not just these forums, so I'd like to apologize for any major feathers ruffled. I trust most of you are adults and can handle an apology from one.

It was a good discussion if a bit unfair to journalists because metacritic's sample size does leave it open to question and taint, but journalism has it's own pitfalls I'm sure. Every once in a while I love putting some screws to an online community just to see if they've got the mental gusto to tackle the problem I put forth and you did not disappoint. Some of the more ignorant will consider it trolling, but the subject matter and topics were very much game related, so say what you will. It was a good debate and fun thread while my evil juices were flowing. I look forward to our next encounter, Giantbomb.

You fucking liar.

@SeriouslyNow said:

You fucking liar.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. <3

@crusader8463 said:

No idea about your specific example, but something I have always said is that journalists never appropriately take into account the cost of a game and how much that means to poor people.

@Vodun said:

@crusader8463 said:

No idea about your specific example, but something I have always said is that journalists never appropriately take into account the cost of a game and how much that means to poor people.

Did I ever agree with this yesterday? Well who cares I'm agreeing with it now. It's my observation Journalists often bring the price into account when it's a good game with small issues. Issac is another perfect example of this as the GB crew constantly brought up the fact it was only 5 bucks because of the quality and glitches. When a bad AAA gets reviewed generously, the price is seldom mentioned or justified based on the publisher behind it, and not the game's merits. Obviously journalists could not fall into the rut of feeling like they are forced to give games 5 stars because they are 5 dollar mobile games, but price is an ever increasing issue concerning gamers. Even in poor economic times people will still have their luxuries, but one of them more easily cut from the budget are games. Consider offering opinions as weather to purchase or "rent" titles. I never hear of titles being suggested as rentals anymore, and it's disheartening. More reasons why Journalists need to become more in touch with their audiences.

My simple suggestion would be to look at user ratings from more than one source. User ratings on metacritic are well known for their incredibly low scores for certain titles. To use that as a metric for the average consumer is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

Are you new to the internet?

@Buzzkill said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

You fucking liar.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. <3

Psychosis is not something you fix by changing your name. <3<3<3

Going on Xbox 360 user ratings at time of writing on Metacritic Rise of Nightmares is apparently a better game than El Shaddai, Gears 3, Renegade Ops, Radiant Silvergun, Vanquish, Portal 2, GTA 4, Left 4 Dead, Alan Wake, Super Meat Boy, Dirt 3, Halo Reach and countless more worthy games in my opinion. Oh and Orcs Must Die is the greatest Xbox 360 game ever.

If user ratings are right I really want to be wrong.

@project343 said:

@Buzzkill Internet trolls are neither people, nor human.

Entirely agree based on several of the replies I've had in this thread. There are quite a few sub-humans lurking around this community it would appear.

Joystiq gave it a 3/5 seems fitting to me.

So I was checking out the Dead Rising 2: Off The Record quicklook today and something during the second half of it caught my attention. (not that outfit, ugh that made the first half of that quicklook unwatchable. jump to 17:00 in skip it) Anyways back to my observation. Jeff and Brad were having a little quib over price. Yes price, and how it directly related to the value of the title. Now Jeff's a master at candy coating words when he doesn't like a game, and it's pretty obvious he had his foot out the door regarding Off The Record. For 40 bucks it does seem a bit steep for a rehash of DR:2 with horrible frame rates, but the sandbox mode if it's a true one could justify it. As for the price discussion, I'm impressed. Lack of compassion for price and value was quite damning as to why journalists seem out of touch with gamers these days, and a good chunk of the rational portion of this thread.

The Giantbomb guys did a great job with the quicklook and discussion on price, showing they are more in touch than both fans and critiques realize. This kind of proof is refreshing to see so shortly after it was heated and topical. Price won't be an issue I'll need to bring up for quite a while, respectfully. Well done.

@JoeyRavn said:

@Jimbo said:

80 is the new 50.

I have to be honest, 80 is my 50 when it comes to my marks in college. But for games, I guess it's becoming the new standard. I can understand the rage* over the game on PC. Those texture/performance bugs are a giant FUCK YOU to the PC userbase.

*Zing.

Same here. I thought I was the only one lol.

I hate seeing anything less than A or 90+. :P