It seems to me like the contrarian has taken the place of the fanboy from last generation. While we still get fanboys, I see many more people who seem to hate things because it seems like so many more like them. If I had never played a game before and decided to jump headfirst into it, and I came online, trying to use review scores and user reviews as a baises of what to buy (not sales numbers), I would think reviewers are crazy. I mean look at these metacritic scores 
 
MW2: Critics: 94 out of 100 Users: 60 out of 100 
 
GTA 4: Critics: 98 out of 100 Users: 70 out of 100 
 
Halo Reach: Critics: 92 out of 100 Users: 72 out of 100 
 
Halo 3: Critics: 94 out of 100 Users: 75 out of 100 
 
But look at these, this is where is gets real weird 
 
R.U.S.E: Critics: 77 out of 100 Users: 84 out of 100 
 
The Saboteur: Critics: 73 out of 100 Users: 86 out of 100 
 
Army of Two: Critics: 72 out of 100 Users: 83 out of 100  
 
 
I know metacritic is not the end all be all of ratings, and really, these numbers are based on a number of different factors, but they are still interesting. R.U.S.E. better than GTA: 4? Army of Two better than Halo 3? The Saboteur better than MW2? On top of that, we have the contrarian critics. In film these type of critics (like Armond White) are considered a joke. This generation, it seems as if we celebrate game critics like this (take Yahtzee or Jim Sterling for example). Other critics are guilty of this too. How many podcasts have you listened to or blog posts have you read where a reviewer sounded as if he didn't like a game he gave a good review to? 
  
I do not want to come off like I am trying to discourage people from having their own opinions, and I do understand that, well, haters gotta hate, but I am starting to believe that some people are annoyed by all things popular and that unfortunately affects peoples opinions the same way envy affected the fanboy culture of last generation.     

I watched that episode of Family Guy too.

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

" @zombie2011 said:

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

Huh? Sorry, can't stand Family Guy. "

" @greennoodles said:

" @zombie2011 said:

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

Huh? Sorry, can't stand Family Guy. "

Really? Because the new episode of Family Guy had Louis saying this exact thing to the dog Brian, can't be a coincidence. "

People want to pretend they have better taste than they really do. Thus, if something is popular or well regarded then it is automatically for the rabble and only the niche or underappreciated will suffice. That's how it is.

Hmm. It's an interesting point you bring up, as well as an interesting theory. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was true. 

I'd say its more the fanboy corollary.  Fanboys have strong feelings about their own game/system, and so go out of their way to trash any competitors or other games.
 
Sample review (0/10) from metacritic of Reach: 
 
"Halo Reach is so short of a campaign its so sad it definitely wasn't worth 60.00 dollars. Multiplayer is pretty much the same has Halo 3. I would rather play Modern Warfare any day of the week and when Black Ops comes out watch out Halo. The Call of Duty franchise will REIGN once more."
 
For little known or appreciated titles, it's more that the only people who care enough to rate a game are those that loved the game.

Maybe you can go onto Screened and ask Contrarion yourself.

I don't hate popular games, I just hate how they are over-hyped. Let's take MW2 for example. The game has a really good single player campaign, but forget multiplayer. Do to the fact that it's over-hyped, we have annoying and cheating people on there. Now, head over to BC2. The game doesn't have us much attention than MW2. Therefore not as much cheaters and not as much annoying little kids. 
 
So in the end. You'll catch me playing single player on these over-hyped games, but don't expect to see me online.

You cant really accuse people of being a contrarian unless they give a nonexistent reason for hating something. The best example is MW2. There's a lot of people (myself included) that have legitimate problems with the game. I don't just not like it to be different.

" You cant really accuse people of being a contrarian unless they give a nonexistent reason for hating something. The best example is MW2. There's a lot of people (myself included) that have legitimate problems with the game. I don't just not like it to be different. "

" @zombie2011 said:

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

Huh? Sorry, can't stand Family Guy. "

When the fuck did Jim Sterling become a contrarian??? 
  
Also I think it just comes down to people who really like the game, people who don't care, and then people who actively hate because it's popular. 
 
The people who actively hate are the loudest, so ergo you see the numbers. This isn't new...it's been like this forever...

I think you're mistaking contrarians for Trolls, who don't deserve such a fancy name.

MW2 SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

" When the fuck did Jim Sterling become a contrarian???   Also I think it just comes down to people who really like the game, people who don't care, and then people who actively hate because it's popular.  The people who actively hate are the loudest, so ergo you see the numbers. This isn't new...it's been like this forever... "

I really don't care, but you did remind me that I want to play The Saboteur. I can get it on the cheap now and users are never wrong.

" You cant really accuse people of being a contrarian unless they give a nonexistent reason for hating something. The best example is MW2. There's a lot of people (myself included) that have legitimate problems with the game. I don't just not like it to be different. "

I'd say its more the fanboy corollary.  Fanboys have strong feelings about their own game/system, and so go out of their way to trash any competitors or other games.

The difference between fanboys and contrarians, who often are one and the same, is that fanboys disparage games that are in the same genre as their preferred game (Call of Duty fans hating on Halo) or because of its platform (Halo fans hating on Killzone 2). Contrarians are more dismissive of entire genres as a whole, often due to fundamental differences in taste between them and the rest, applying both to professional criticism and to the popular concensus.
 
I find most other peoples enthusiam to be obnoxious, except when it's something I'm not in favour of. Jeff and Brad's recent Mortal Kombat fanboyism has annoyed the fuck out of me, but if they were cooing about Virtua Fighter my reaction would be completely different. I found people's obsessive love of Persona 4 and the Endurance Run that it made me be less active in the community so I wasn't exposed to it so much because it was driving me up the wall. Does that make me a bad person? Almost certainly, yes. It's a bias, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I also acknowledge that I am the most uncool person ever to walk this earth, and when I hate on something, it's not to get others to like me or pay attention to me or anything retarded like that.
 
Really what it comes down to is a philosophical difference between me and the masses. I just physically cannot enjoy any game that is heavily focused on multiplayer, which obviously is the foundation of the Call of Duty and Halo series as well as the MMO market. The masses love them and obviously most reviewers don't have the same anti-multiplayer bias that I do, so while critics and enthusiasts gush over the likes of StarCraft II, Street Fighter IV and pretty much any FPS series that doesn't begin with Bio or Half, I feel completely indifferent, but because of bombardment by coverage it becomes a vice and indifference turns to disgust. It's my problem and no one elses, and it will always be a barrier between me and the wider audience. GTAIV is an anomaly; I just really didn't care for the game's tone or it's characters, whereas Red Dead Redemption was entertaining as all hell. Also, it's incredibly easy to mock games like Halo and Call of Duty especially due to the extremely vocal and extremely fucking annoying sector of players who have no interest in having a reasonable social gaming experience with other people. StarCraft II on the other hand, I have much respect for the people who play that game competitively and play it well, but I have absolutely zero interest in becoming one of those people, and the same applies to SFIV, because that would require me to have contact with other human beings.

The character of the users who rate games is important for drawing relevant points out that table--which I thank you wholeheartedly for creating, I was tempted to do something similar recently. 
 
Anyone who hates a popular game is automatically driven to action by standing out in the community; whether they are truly alone or not, the appearance of non-conformity (critic reviews) makes them feel the urge to say their bit. They have "pushed" into the limelight. This is the foundation for the concept of a "vocal minority." 
 
In the case of games like RUSE the critical and user scores actually line up alright and I would assume in these cases that pressure does not exist to rate the game. This means that only people who rate everything and people that either really hated or loved the game will rate it (possibly). 
 
All speculation of course. Haters gonna hate.

People who think of things in terms of fanboyism and contrarianism aren't the least biased folks. Such are the true jokes.

Gamers generally score games entirely subjectively, whereas most reviewers (rightly or wrongly) still try to score them objectively.
 
Don't forget that Metacritic also has an inherent conversion bias which will typically force up the Reviewer average compared to the User average, particularly for the top games you are looking at. (ie. a 5 star review is always erroneously converted as 100% by metacritic, but if that same reviewer were using the 10-point User scale instead then they'd be just as likely to give it a 9 as a 10 - probably more likely to in fact).

when you think of Call of Duty what comes to your mind? MW2?  
MW2 is a step backwards to everything the CoD series has done(the storyline is still great) and only one of 6 great games, 4 are set in WW2. 
 
i bet most MW2 fanboys never touched the first MW (the 4th game in the series) , its impossible to not hate MW2/IW/Activison for what they have done to the CoD. 
 
All in the name of profits.

To this thread, and all those in it, I say:
 
NO.

Depends on the game, but I will say that there are a lot of big games that aren't good. Not all of them (that'd be stupid to say), but some just suck. I only know this from experience, so I'm guessing the contrarian is the asshole who posts an MW2 review on day 1 just to tell us how much it sucks.

" @zombie2011 said:

" I watched that episode of Family Guy too. "

"

Believe it or not, but there are people out there that legitimately dislike some games that are considered popular to most people. I wouldn't classify this as hate, this word has been misused quite a but these days. You do have douches with little to no knowledge of games who give their opinions, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

Well you see- 
*notices you're quoting metacritic* 
...nevermind.

Personally its nothing to do with hate, simply that if I'm scoring something I don't give perfect scores. Its a matter of review scale. In the gaming press it seems like anything lower than 7/10 is just a bad game, whereas for me most games would end up around there.

Personally I feel that Jim Sterling is just a huge troll and his popularity stems from his contrarian manner. Yahtzee on the other hand just hates everything equally.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but I think the greater significance user reviews have been given in the redesign of Metacritic is fucking ludicrous. I personally couldn't give a shit what xXxTweetMonkeyxXx thinks of Game X, the mope probably hasn't even played it. User reviews should be nothing more than a footnote at the bottom of the page like how it used to be.
 
Even then, there's a lot of crap wrong about Metacritic, but that's for another thread.

" @Doctorchimp: If there are more contrarians because the internet is spreading, then doesn't that mean that there ARE in fact more contrarians? Giving a reason for the spread means that you agree with me. :)  I see your point about fanboys, and you could always find a reason that I am wrong since I am pretty much speaking hypothetically (People that don't like MW2 or Halo just don't like 3rd person shooters, people that don't like gta mw2 or halo just don't like m-rated games so on) but at some point you have to ask the question "Do people just hate this because other people like it?"  "

I've noticed this trend as well, can't say I'm very fond of it.  I don't think Yahtzee is really a reviewer, though, and frequently warn my friends against considering anything he says while determining whether to buy a game. He's strictly going for entertainment value, not genuinely reviewing the games he plays. As for the users, the concept of hating popular things and liking unpopular things has always been around; look at people who bashed Avatar and Transformers simply for being large, pop-culture friendly movies, or those annoying "indie kids" who only listen to bands who have never been published.
 
On a side note, though, at least one of those examples is accurate. In my own personal opinion, based on experience with the game and not just because it's the popular thing to say, Grand Theft Auto IV is not a very good game, especially when compared to the previous games in the series. As an example, apart from the storyline (which is gangsta cliché garbage), Saints Row 2 is better in every way.

With user reviews, you can expect a lot more 10 scores as well as a lot more 0 and 1 scores (depending on which score is the lowest possible). Those low scores can really drag down the average score, but for popular games there tend to be enough high scores to at least keep the average above 50, and usually above 60.