I think series media oulets should change the word review to "opinion" So we can read the official opinion of said media outlet. It would eliminate a lot of hostility.
Ehm, I think that all the smart people have already figured out that a review is also nothing but the opinion of a review guy.
People that complain now about the unfairness of reviews and regard it as some Greater Truth, will also complain if they were renamed, only then they'd complain about the unfairness of opinions
just change the title to " Opinion" and make it offical .
Reviews have always been nothing more but opinions, since the early '80s when the first game reviews appeared
Don't see why they should be called any different when that truth hasn't changed at all.
Because a directed paid advertisement dressed up as a review is not an opinion.
I am not saying that ALL articles etc are paid or influenced but it's obvious the landscape with regards to game reviewing has changed a lot over the last few years.
What you are reading now, especially on the internet, simply is not guarenteed to be the opinion of the writer.
We can't take that for granted any more, sadly.
Whatever the actual percentage of paid reviews and shill posts out there, the practise has damaged the integrity of everything I read. It's a shame.
IGN is a walking testament on how to be a bad reviewer. This is in part why I decided to do writing for MMORPG instead, the site is pretty untouched by the tendrils of big companies.
I have no trust in any writer or any site for reviews of games, all reviews are self opinionated, and my believe is all sites and magazines are bought. My opinion on that will never change.
Having been a gamer for 20 years I can agree with some of the points the OP has raised. If you like a particular genre or style of game or you have respect for a game studio/publisher you will undoubtedly rush out and buy the game you have been waiting months/years for.
The following does not apply solely to MMO's but games in general.
I am harshly criticised by friends for diligently reading video games reviews before buying anything. In these hard times we cannot in good conscience blow £30-£40 on a game to get it home and discover it is S****.
"Gametrailers" are the worst offenders for overhyping a game in my experience. They gave "L A Noire" a rave review at launch and then a couple of weeks later they were talking about it in a podcast and were bemoaning the fact it was boring and repetitive after a few days playing it.
I enjoy reading reviews on Metacritic and was astounded at the negative user reviews for "Mass Effect 3"
The disparity between user reviews and "expert reviewers" is shocking.
After further reading elsewhere it turns out reviewers are sometimes given copies of the new releases early in return for a positive review score. Gamespot was detailing the reason why "Mass Effect 3" , for example, got terrible user review scores whilst the critics loved it.
In short the review system is broken or corrupt.
The "Diablo 3" launch was a farce and a great disappointment to a former Blizzard fanboy.
In the end I think the user is generally the most reliable source of feedback if you are looking for assurance that the game is really as good as its cracked up to be.
Anyway, just my thoughts on the whole "Review" thing. I would suggest you continue to read reviews and watch gameplay segments on "Youtube" before buying anything.
People would rather believe in conspiracy theories than mundane reality, reality is boring, conspiracy theories are just more spicy.
Which is why the "reviews are paid for" badwagon (intentional mis-spelling of bandwagon) persists.Game companies of course have special funds set aside for giving reviewers backhanders - except they don't, go ask them if they pay for reviews & you'll get laughed at for the idiot you are.
Even the old Sinclair magazine had reviews of games you actually had to type the code in yourself
"outraged" is something for death real life, for injustice in the world, you know things that actually matter.
Games will always and have always been overhyped, its that space between your ears that is suposed to filter and realise the truth.
I think of games reviews as slightly more moderate versions of TV adverts with personal opinion thrown in, we all filter and realise that if you buy a toilet duck cleaner a duck in a biplane does not actually come along and blast those germs.
This is the kind of filtering you need, some reviewers are better than others but it is YOU who needs to filter the content.
People would rather believe in conspiracy theories than mundane reality, reality is boring, conspiracy theories are just more spicy.
Which is why the "reviews are paid for" badwagon (intentional mis-spelling of bandwagon) persists.Game companies of course have special funds set aside for giving reviewers backhanders - except they don't, go ask them if they pay for reviews & you'll get laughed at for the idiot you are.
You obviously know nothing of how the industry works, the leverage applied, and the resource allocated for 'creative marketing' and the forming of extremely tight relationships between individual 'opinion formers' and corperations
Of course they will laugh at you to your face and dismiss the suggestion that reviews are in any way controlled or directed ... what else would they do? What would the sites involved do? Admit it and blow the whole illusion? You are suggesting the fact that they don't as evidence that the practise does not occur?
I guess some people would rather believe in just their own version of 'reality' because it's the lazy option and it takes too much effort to think and care about what is happening outside of plain sight.
Seriously why you even bothered writing all that wall of text when all you wanted to say was that you think Tera was better than SWTOR. Personally I disagree.
just change the title to " Opinion" and make it offical .
Reviews have always been nothing more but opinions, since the early '80s when the first game reviews appeared
Don't see why they should be called any different when that truth hasn't changed at all.
Because a directed paid advertisement dressed up as a review is not an opinion.
I am not saying that ALL articles etc are paid or influenced but it's obvious the landscape with regards to game reviewing has changed a lot over the last few years.
What you are reading now, especially on the internet, simply is not guarenteed to be the opinion of the writer.
We can't take that for granted any more, sadly.
Whatever the actual percentage of paid reviews and shill posts out there, the practise has damaged the integrity of everything I read. It's a shame.
Let me tell you a simple truth: this has always been the case. Game magazines couldn't afford to alienate game companies by completely annihilating their games in the '80s and '90s just as little as they can't or won't to these days. And this also isn't limited to games, but any area where there's something of a relationship between companies that has benefits to both. For example, you think that newspapers and broadcasting companies participated in or owned by media molochs that have certain conservationist beliefs are any different?
It has always been like that, because that's how things work in business since perhaps the dawn of time, only people have become more aware of it, becoming more sceptical in some areas (while at the same time having become more naive in some others).
As for filtering the info you need from reviews, sorry, but that's really a skill everyone should've learnt by now, especially after years and years of experience with the gaming market but even more, with advertisements, commercials, and the way how things work in music, media, television and corporations in general. It's not as if we've all grown up in an illiterate or media depraved society, we all should be somewhat media savvy and aware to a degree by now.
just change the title to " Opinion" and make it offical .
Reviews have always been nothing more but opinions, since the early '80s when the first game reviews appeared
Don't see why they should be called any different when that truth hasn't changed at all.
Because a directed paid advertisement dressed up as a review is not an opinion.
I am not saying that ALL articles etc are paid or influenced but it's obvious the landscape with regards to game reviewing has changed a lot over the last few years.
What you are reading now, especially on the internet, simply is not guarenteed to be the opinion of the writer.
We can't take that for granted any more, sadly.
Whatever the actual percentage of paid reviews and shill posts out there, the practise has damaged the integrity of everything I read. It's a shame.
Let me tell you a simple truth: this has always been the case. Game magazines couldn't afford to alienate game companies by completely annihilating their games in the '80s and '90s just as little as they can't or won't to these days.
I won't argue with the part in red, but, the money or global influence simply didn't exist back then in the industry to control mass opinion like it does now.
The landscape HAS changed, it has not always been like it is now.
You cannot compare I think the balance of opinion in buying two magaizines in the 80's and reading two 'independent' gaming sites now regarding the launch of a major title from EA (or whoever).
Corruption in the industry has always existed but the scale of it now is huge. It has moved from the exception to the rule.
Back then, buying or influencing a good review from Crash magazine (for example) had limited impact... The games industry was in general a lot more regional and so throwing money at individual reviewers had a lot smaller return and so was simply not anywhere near as worthwhile or prevalent.
Word of mouth from friends was far more important then the directed 'opinion' of some reviewer as well, and this usually came from personal experience rarther then the buyers comments section of Amazon or wherever.
I also believe (from first hand experience) that the wash of money that has come from the cash rich dev corperations has changed how games 'journalists' (and the reviewers in the 80s saw themselves as just that) see their role. I think most 'journalists' in the modern sense are now very comforatble in their roles of corperate mouthpieces. Their is little pride or integrity in the industry any more.
The fact is that is HAS gotten a lot worse over the last decade, and this is in no small part due to the internet and how easy it is to control mass opinion now.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Anyone who allows their mind to be made up for someone else deserves what they get.
I personally beta'd TOR, I /still/ bought it, even though I don't currently play it because I know that in a little time it'll get back around to where it should be and I want to give them that opportunity.
TOR isn't a horrible game by any stretch, it's fun, entertaining, has some replayability due to storylines and leveling via pvp. It however is a totally different style game than TERA. It's sort of like comparing Mario Kart to Gran Tourismo. Both are racing games but they're very different beasts.
When dealing with a review it is a review from that person and there is no such thing as a complete 100% zeitgeist. No opinion will ever be fully shared.
There are people who think that ME3's ending wasn't NerdRage worthy, where as for me that ending killed my enjoyment of the entire series. Haven't replayed it ever since beating ME3 once. Which is a shame as ME3 was an awesome game till that last 15 minutes.
Essentially you should take any review with a grain of salt as opinions do vary and often wildly and make your own opinion. TSW has been getting some rave reviews, but, they're taking the game in a direction I am disappointed in so I won't be getting it. My choice.
Everyone needs to make their own decisions. They need to man up and own that decision as their own or admit they're a frikken Lemming that needs to run off a cliff.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Factor in customer brand loyalty to major review sites, and you definitely end up with a lot more 'noise.' Even those who call out these sites as frauds and corrupt are simply outliers part of a bigger system, and their participation only adds site traffic, video views, and draws attention to said major review site. It's hard to dissuade others from going to these review sites when the only means to do so attracts more attention to them.
I won't argue with the part in red, but, the money or global influence simply didn't exist back then in the industry to control mass opinion like it does now.
The landscape HAS changed, it has not always been like it is now.
You cannot compare I think the balance of opinion in buying two magaizines in the 80's and reading two 'independent' gaming sites now regarding the launch of a major title from EA (or whoever).
The fact is that is HAS gotten a lot worse over the last decade, and this is in no small part due to the internet and how easy it is to control mass opinion now.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Since we both don't have exactly proof except merely speculations, it's kind of futile to debate this anyway. People are people, corruption or let's say business/profit before truth and integrity has always been around, only the array of tools available has been expanded.
You say that internet has made it easier to influence mass opinion. Well, in the same way it has also allowed in all kinds of ways to have a far vaster sea of information to be available than it ever was, to the amount that even kids know more about the world and stuff than their same-age counterparts ever did 30-40 years ago. I'd say the current generations know more and are less naive than in the decades before 2000, due to internet and all kinds of social media.
I and I assume others as well have no trouble at all navigating the vast info landscape of today, and there's far more to learn and to investigate these days than there ever was, with a far greater ease.
If that doesn't work for you or you have trouble filtering the available information to the stuff that's useful for you, well, I don't know what to say. I can't really help you with that. Sure, there's more chaos in the ocean of information, but also more in useful information to dig up and vastly quicker too, if you know how to surf that information see to your convenience. To translate that to game reviews: regardless who wrote it or what agenda they might have had (just like irl happens), so far I've had no trouble learning the information I wanted about the games I wanted to play. In fact, for me it has become vastly easier than 10+ years ago, with little unpleasant surprises so far in the games I wanted to play. So for me, it works.
After I read the Review on SWTOR on this site back in december, i stopped reading any kind of review on this site, will never ever trust anyone who do any form of offical review who get add money.
Every single professional reviewer is paid by add money.
As for filtering the info you need from reviews, sorry, but that's really a skill everyone should've learnt by now, especially after years and years of experience with the gaming market but even more, with advertisements, commercials, and the way how things work in music, media, television and corporations in general. It's not as if we've all grown up in an illiterate or media depraved society, we all should be somewhat media savvy and aware to a degree by now.
Certainly filtering isn't a common user skill; else people would not be seeking a ratings-system Simple Answer or a reviewer to summarize and give me an easily-digested opinion to call my own.
But whose fault is it most users are too lazy to do research for themselves, exactly?
And whose fault is it that users are terrified that they might make a mistake and omg buy a bad game?
Way, way, way too much weight gets attached to those evil Marketing and Hype words, the kneejerk anti-corporate responses are delivered automatically.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
First a quick history lesson. A long long time ago there was no game reviewers there were just people that made games, and people that brought them.
Wrong. Even the very earliest computer games had reviews, and I know that for a fact because I have had a computer of one sort or another in my home for about 35 years and read the magazines of the time.
I won't argue with the part in red, but, the money or global influence simply didn't exist back then in the industry to control mass opinion like it does now.
The landscape HAS changed, it has not always been like it is now.
You cannot compare I think the balance of opinion in buying two magaizines in the 80's and reading two 'independent' gaming sites now regarding the launch of a major title from EA (or whoever).
The fact is that is HAS gotten a lot worse over the last decade, and this is in no small part due to the internet and how easy it is to control mass opinion now.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Since we both don't have exactly proof except merely speculations, it's kind of futile to debate this anyway...
Was we debating? I thought we were discussing...
Not every conversation on the internet has to be 'PvP', y'know?
If that doesn't work for you or you have trouble filtering the available information to the stuff that's useful for you...
lol and an attempt to slide in a little insult... nice. This isn't about me 'having trouble filtering', but I think you know that and just want to have a dig to troll me a bit.
But, no, as I have said, it dosen't work for me. I can't be bothered with wading through the poisonous crap and nonsense 'opinions' so I choose to disregard it all and rely on friends views and personal experience.
As I get older my tolerance for BS and obvious manipulating gets less and less. I personally have not bought a game based on a review in over five years and can't see that changing any time soon.
I get that you do it another way, and that's fine. Whatever works for you.
just change the title to " Opinion" and make it offical .
Reviews have always been nothing more but opinions, since the early '80s when the first game reviews appeared
Don't see why they should be called any different when that truth hasn't changed at all.
Because a directed paid advertisement dressed up as a review is not an opinion.
I am not saying that ALL articles etc are paid or influenced but it's obvious the landscape with regards to game reviewing has changed a lot over the last few years.
What you are reading now, especially on the internet, simply is not guarenteed to be the opinion of the writer.
We can't take that for granted any more, sadly.
Whatever the actual percentage of paid reviews and shill posts out there, the practise has damaged the integrity of everything I read. It's a shame.
While it might be true that ad money influences game revies in some form, I think you give it way too much credit. It's more of a "let's not bad mouth the publisher and developers, and keep it about the game," whereas a review you might write coming from EA is probably going to slam EA as much as the actual game.
There are simply too many monied games that get bad reviews for your tin-hat theory to be true.
Games backed by a lot of money due tend to get higher reviews in general, but I think that's more due to the following reasons:
Money = polish, and polish > innovation in the minds of the majority of consumers and the reviewers who try to reprsent them.
Game sites lose critical credibility if their opinion differs too much from the norm, hence the back-lash at the IGN review of TERA. Their review scores are more influenced by gaming fans than publishers, imo.
After I read the Review on SWTOR on this site back in december, i stopped reading any kind of review on this site, will never ever trust anyone who do any form of offical review who get add money.
Every single professional reviewer is paid by add money.
Back in the late '80s and '90s I worked for a family owned kitchen and bath company, meaning we made our own decisions and weren't subject to the orders of a larger corporate structure.
All the trade magazines were pushing frameless cabinets as the new thing that everyone wanted. From fron cover to back page, these trade magazines were full of that push. The adds from the industry giants were all about frameless cabinets, as wellas all the articles written by "staff". But our experience was that people wanted framed cabinets, and the same came from everyone we talked to at the national shows. All of our information told us the opposite from the industrial magazines, as well as the industry itself.
We knew the score. The industry wanted to sell frameless, and their advertising dollars were pushing the magazines to say what they wanted us to hear, their own marketing agenda. Because magazines don't make nearly as much money on subscriptions as they do on the full page adds.
Buy a magazine subscription from a kid for their school fund raising project, and even when you don't re-up on the subscription they keep sending you the magazine. Because of the add dollars, based on "views".
See, the frameless cabinets used less wood (at the cost of structural soundness), so it cost less to make, so the companies made more money.
So these magazines were simply cooperating with the hand that feeds them, just as these "review" sites do. Otherwise, that hand can be pulled back. Can't blame them, things cost money to run, money has to be made to pay for it. We just need to be smart about what we believe. We need to be able to pick out what things really mean to a game and not fall for the hype. Most gamers can't really do that, because it's hard to know what alternatives are like when you've never seen them in practice. Or even know there are alternatives.
The funny thing is, today the cabinet industry is still trying without much success. Their efforts to switch people to sell and to buy frameless is still ongoing, some 20 years later. Marketing only works to a point, and people are not nearly as susceptive as they think we are. We aren't, generally speaking, a flock of sheep. Arrogant execs only see the sheep, though, and themselves aren't able to see past their own hype.
I won't argue with the part in red, but, the money or global influence simply didn't exist back then in the industry to control mass opinion like it does now.
The landscape HAS changed, it has not always been like it is now.
You cannot compare I think the balance of opinion in buying two magaizines in the 80's and reading two 'independent' gaming sites now regarding the launch of a major title from EA (or whoever).
The fact is that is HAS gotten a lot worse over the last decade, and this is in no small part due to the internet and how easy it is to control mass opinion now.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Since we both don't have exactly proof except merely speculations, it's kind of futile to debate this anyway...
Was we debating? I thought we were discussing...
Not every conversation on the internet has to be 'PvP', y'know?
? Maybe it's a language translation thing, but 'debating' and 'discussing' means the same to me, interchangeable words. Has nothing to do with PvP.
If that doesn't work for you or you have trouble filtering the available information to the stuff that's useful for you...
lol and an attempt to slide in a little insult... nice. This isn't about me 'having trouble filtering', but I think you know that and just want to have a dig to troll me a bit.
But, no, as I have said, it dosen't work for me. I can't be bothered with wading through the poisonous crap and nonsense 'opinions' so I choose to disregard it all and rely on friends views and personal experience.
As I get older my tolerance for BS and obvious manipulating gets less and less. I personally have not bought a game based on a review in over five years and can't see that changing any time soon.
I get that you do it another way, and that's fine. Whatever works for you.
I meant no offense, if my words came off as insulting then I apologise, I wrote it in a hurry. Written words are prone to misunderstanding without the faces and expressions of the persons to go with it.
What I was merely saying, for me, I don't see the issue you're having with it. I can work it out fine and deal with the sea of info contained in the reviews in a way that works for me; usually the info that I automatically sift out a pile of diverse reviews is good enough for the estimations of the games I'm interested in to a degree that I haven't been unpleasantly surprised when I started playing those games. It isn't meant derogatory if it doesn't work for you like that. Everyone's different and has different coping mechanisms that work best for them, nothing more to it than that.
IGN, Gamespot, etc are not review sites, they are advertising outlets.
They earn money by advertising games.
They do NOT review them. Their job is to provide media outlets for publishers to advertise their upcoming games and tech.
The scoring systems they use is simply a measure of how much a company paid them to advertise their game. They should not even really call them reviews, since they are not reviews at all.
True reviews these days come from forums, and actual players.
Comments
Ehm, I think that all the smart people have already figured out that a review is also nothing but the opinion of a review guy.
People that complain now about the unfairness of reviews and regard it as some Greater Truth, will also complain if they were renamed, only then they'd complain about the unfairness of opinions
Reviews have always been nothing more but opinions, since the early '80s when the first game reviews appeared
Don't see why they should be called any different when that truth hasn't changed at all.
Because a directed paid advertisement dressed up as a review is not an opinion.
I am not saying that ALL articles etc are paid or influenced but it's obvious the landscape with regards to game reviewing has changed a lot over the last few years.
What you are reading now, especially on the internet, simply is not guarenteed to be the opinion of the writer.
We can't take that for granted any more, sadly.
Whatever the actual percentage of paid reviews and shill posts out there, the practise has damaged the integrity of everything I read. It's a shame.
Self-opinionated?
Having been a gamer for 20 years I can agree with some of the points the OP has raised. If you like a particular genre or style of game or you have respect for a game studio/publisher you will undoubtedly rush out and buy the game you have been waiting months/years for.
The following does not apply solely to MMO's but games in general.
I am harshly criticised by friends for diligently reading video games reviews before buying anything. In these hard times we cannot in good conscience blow £30-£40 on a game to get it home and discover it is S****.
"Gametrailers" are the worst offenders for overhyping a game in my experience. They gave "L A Noire" a rave review at launch and then a couple of weeks later they were talking about it in a podcast and were bemoaning the fact it was boring and repetitive after a few days playing it.
I enjoy reading reviews on Metacritic and was astounded at the negative user reviews for "Mass Effect 3"
The disparity between user reviews and "expert reviewers" is shocking.
After further reading elsewhere it turns out reviewers are sometimes given copies of the new releases early in return for a positive review score. Gamespot was detailing the reason why "Mass Effect 3" , for example, got terrible user review scores whilst the critics loved it.
In short the review system is broken or corrupt.
The "Diablo 3" launch was a farce and a great disappointment to a former Blizzard fanboy.
In the end I think the user is generally the most reliable source of feedback if you are looking for assurance that the game is really as good as its cracked up to be.
Anyway, just my thoughts on the whole "Review" thing. I would suggest you continue to read reviews and watch gameplay segments on "Youtube" before buying anything.
People would rather believe in conspiracy theories than mundane reality, reality is boring, conspiracy theories are just more spicy.
Which is why the "reviews are paid for" badwagon (intentional mis-spelling of bandwagon) persists.Game companies of course have special funds set aside for giving reviewers backhanders - except they don't, go ask them if they pay for reviews & you'll get laughed at for the idiot you are.
Even the old Sinclair magazine had reviews of games you actually had to type the code in yourself
"outraged" is something for death real life, for injustice in the world, you know things that actually matter.
Games will always and have always been overhyped, its that space between your ears that is suposed to filter and realise the truth.
I think of games reviews as slightly more moderate versions of TV adverts with personal opinion thrown in, we all filter and realise that if you buy a toilet duck cleaner a duck in a biplane does not actually come along and blast those germs.
This is the kind of filtering you need, some reviewers are better than others but it is YOU who needs to filter the content.
Or you can just continue to be "e-outraged"
You obviously know nothing of how the industry works, the leverage applied, and the resource allocated for 'creative marketing' and the forming of extremely tight relationships between individual 'opinion formers' and corperations
Of course they will laugh at you to your face and dismiss the suggestion that reviews are in any way controlled or directed ... what else would they do? What would the sites involved do? Admit it and blow the whole illusion? You are suggesting the fact that they don't as evidence that the practise does not occur?
I guess some people would rather believe in just their own version of 'reality' because it's the lazy option and it takes too much effort to think and care about what is happening outside of plain sight.
Seriously why you even bothered writing all that wall of text when all you wanted to say was that you think Tera was better than SWTOR. Personally I disagree.
Let me tell you a simple truth: this has always been the case. Game magazines couldn't afford to alienate game companies by completely annihilating their games in the '80s and '90s just as little as they can't or won't to these days. And this also isn't limited to games, but any area where there's something of a relationship between companies that has benefits to both. For example, you think that newspapers and broadcasting companies participated in or owned by media molochs that have certain conservationist beliefs are any different?
It has always been like that, because that's how things work in business since perhaps the dawn of time, only people have become more aware of it, becoming more sceptical in some areas (while at the same time having become more naive in some others).
As for filtering the info you need from reviews, sorry, but that's really a skill everyone should've learnt by now, especially after years and years of experience with the gaming market but even more, with advertisements, commercials, and the way how things work in music, media, television and corporations in general. It's not as if we've all grown up in an illiterate or media depraved society, we all should be somewhat media savvy and aware to a degree by now.
I won't argue with the part in red, but, the money or global influence simply didn't exist back then in the industry to control mass opinion like it does now.
The landscape HAS changed, it has not always been like it is now.
You cannot compare I think the balance of opinion in buying two magaizines in the 80's and reading two 'independent' gaming sites now regarding the launch of a major title from EA (or whoever).
Corruption in the industry has always existed but the scale of it now is huge. It has moved from the exception to the rule.
Back then, buying or influencing a good review from Crash magazine (for example) had limited impact... The games industry was in general a lot more regional and so throwing money at individual reviewers had a lot smaller return and so was simply not anywhere near as worthwhile or prevalent.
Word of mouth from friends was far more important then the directed 'opinion' of some reviewer as well, and this usually came from personal experience rarther then the buyers comments section of Amazon or wherever.
I also believe (from first hand experience) that the wash of money that has come from the cash rich dev corperations has changed how games 'journalists' (and the reviewers in the 80s saw themselves as just that) see their role. I think most 'journalists' in the modern sense are now very comforatble in their roles of corperate mouthpieces. Their is little pride or integrity in the industry any more.
The fact is that is HAS gotten a lot worse over the last decade, and this is in no small part due to the internet and how easy it is to control mass opinion now.
It is a case of a signal to noise ratio... the industry simply has reached a point where the noise is louder then the signal and has therefore become worthless to me.
Anyone who allows their mind to be made up for someone else deserves what they get.
I personally beta'd TOR, I /still/ bought it, even though I don't currently play it because I know that in a little time it'll get back around to where it should be and I want to give them that opportunity.
TOR isn't a horrible game by any stretch, it's fun, entertaining, has some replayability due to storylines and leveling via pvp. It however is a totally different style game than TERA. It's sort of like comparing Mario Kart to Gran Tourismo. Both are racing games but they're very different beasts.
When dealing with a review it is a review from that person and there is no such thing as a complete 100% zeitgeist. No opinion will ever be fully shared.
There are people who think that ME3's ending wasn't NerdRage worthy, where as for me that ending killed my enjoyment of the entire series. Haven't replayed it ever since beating ME3 once. Which is a shame as ME3 was an awesome game till that last 15 minutes.
Essentially you should take any review with a grain of salt as opinions do vary and often wildly and make your own opinion. TSW has been getting some rave reviews, but, they're taking the game in a direction I am disappointed in so I won't be getting it. My choice.
Everyone needs to make their own decisions. They need to man up and own that decision as their own or admit they're a frikken Lemming that needs to run off a cliff.
Factor in customer brand loyalty to major review sites, and you definitely end up with a lot more 'noise.' Even those who call out these sites as frauds and corrupt are simply outliers part of a bigger system, and their participation only adds site traffic, video views, and draws attention to said major review site. It's hard to dissuade others from going to these review sites when the only means to do so attracts more attention to them.
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This was my first gaming system (Coleco Telstar in 1978). People reviewed it.
Disagreeing with a review is not a reason to deny the value of them.
Since we both don't have exactly proof except merely speculations, it's kind of futile to debate this anyway. People are people, corruption or let's say business/profit before truth and integrity has always been around, only the array of tools available has been expanded.
You say that internet has made it easier to influence mass opinion. Well, in the same way it has also allowed in all kinds of ways to have a far vaster sea of information to be available than it ever was, to the amount that even kids know more about the world and stuff than their same-age counterparts ever did 30-40 years ago. I'd say the current generations know more and are less naive than in the decades before 2000, due to internet and all kinds of social media.
I and I assume others as well have no trouble at all navigating the vast info landscape of today, and there's far more to learn and to investigate these days than there ever was, with a far greater ease.
If that doesn't work for you or you have trouble filtering the available information to the stuff that's useful for you, well, I don't know what to say. I can't really help you with that. Sure, there's more chaos in the ocean of information, but also more in useful information to dig up and vastly quicker too, if you know how to surf that information see to your convenience. To translate that to game reviews: regardless who wrote it or what agenda they might have had (just like irl happens), so far I've had no trouble learning the information I wanted about the games I wanted to play. In fact, for me it has become vastly easier than 10+ years ago, with little unpleasant surprises so far in the games I wanted to play. So for me, it works.
Every single professional reviewer is paid by add money.
Certainly filtering isn't a common user skill; else people would not be seeking a ratings-system Simple Answer or a reviewer to summarize and give me an easily-digested opinion to call my own.
But whose fault is it most users are too lazy to do research for themselves, exactly?
And whose fault is it that users are terrified that they might make a mistake and omg buy a bad game?
Way, way, way too much weight gets attached to those evil Marketing and Hype words, the kneejerk anti-corporate responses are delivered automatically.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Wrong. Even the very earliest computer games had reviews, and I know that for a fact because I have had a computer of one sort or another in my home for about 35 years and read the magazines of the time.
While it might be true that ad money influences game revies in some form, I think you give it way too much credit. It's more of a "let's not bad mouth the publisher and developers, and keep it about the game," whereas a review you might write coming from EA is probably going to slam EA as much as the actual game.
There are simply too many monied games that get bad reviews for your tin-hat theory to be true.
Games backed by a lot of money due tend to get higher reviews in general, but I think that's more due to the following reasons:
Back in the late '80s and '90s I worked for a family owned kitchen and bath company, meaning we made our own decisions and weren't subject to the orders of a larger corporate structure.
All the trade magazines were pushing frameless cabinets as the new thing that everyone wanted. From fron cover to back page, these trade magazines were full of that push. The adds from the industry giants were all about frameless cabinets, as wellas all the articles written by "staff". But our experience was that people wanted framed cabinets, and the same came from everyone we talked to at the national shows. All of our information told us the opposite from the industrial magazines, as well as the industry itself.
We knew the score. The industry wanted to sell frameless, and their advertising dollars were pushing the magazines to say what they wanted us to hear, their own marketing agenda. Because magazines don't make nearly as much money on subscriptions as they do on the full page adds.
Buy a magazine subscription from a kid for their school fund raising project, and even when you don't re-up on the subscription they keep sending you the magazine. Because of the add dollars, based on "views".
See, the frameless cabinets used less wood (at the cost of structural soundness), so it cost less to make, so the companies made more money.
So these magazines were simply cooperating with the hand that feeds them, just as these "review" sites do. Otherwise, that hand can be pulled back. Can't blame them, things cost money to run, money has to be made to pay for it. We just need to be smart about what we believe. We need to be able to pick out what things really mean to a game and not fall for the hype. Most gamers can't really do that, because it's hard to know what alternatives are like when you've never seen them in practice. Or even know there are alternatives.
The funny thing is, today the cabinet industry is still trying without much success. Their efforts to switch people to sell and to buy frameless is still ongoing, some 20 years later. Marketing only works to a point, and people are not nearly as susceptive as they think we are. We aren't, generally speaking, a flock of sheep. Arrogant execs only see the sheep, though, and themselves aren't able to see past their own hype.
Once upon a time....
I meant no offense, if my words came off as insulting then I apologise, I wrote it in a hurry. Written words are prone to misunderstanding without the faces and expressions of the persons to go with it.
What I was merely saying, for me, I don't see the issue you're having with it. I can work it out fine and deal with the sea of info contained in the reviews in a way that works for me; usually the info that I automatically sift out a pile of diverse reviews is good enough for the estimations of the games I'm interested in to a degree that I haven't been unpleasantly surprised when I started playing those games. It isn't meant derogatory if it doesn't work for you like that. Everyone's different and has different coping mechanisms that work best for them, nothing more to it than that.
Simple.
IGN, Gamespot, etc are not review sites, they are advertising outlets.
They earn money by advertising games.
They do NOT review them. Their job is to provide media outlets for publishers to advertise their upcoming games and tech.
The scoring systems they use is simply a measure of how much a company paid them to advertise their game. They should not even really call them reviews, since they are not reviews at all.
True reviews these days come from forums, and actual players.
ok, thanks for saying