Metacritic is not a good source of information, particularly not from the users. I'll agree D3 is a mediocre game, but it deserves a 0 about as much as it deserves as 10. I can't think of any game that deserves a 0. And I've played Daikatana.
Professional reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. Every single "AAA" game that comes out gets high marks from them, because it's all about advertising. You want real reviews, you go to smaller game sites and blogs, the ones that aren't getting paid to give amazing scores. Much as I love some of the staff on this site, that goes for them, too. The scores given to SWTOR, DCUO, Diablo, etc. (and I think they did Amalur, too, I forget), pretty much guarantee I take none of their opinions seriously. You go to professional sites for news, not reviews.
But by the same token, players are prone to avid extremes that can rival those from paid sources. Remember ME3? The massive dive bomb it took on Metacritic all because of an ending? Yep. Those 3-6's you see, at the lower end of the spectrum, are generally the only negative reviews that should be at all considered. Likewise, the 7-9's for the positive reviews. No game is a perfect 10, but unless it's completely unplayable, anything less than a '3' is from someone being flat out unreasonable.
Personally, after playing someone else's game, I'd give D3 a 6.5 considering the entire package. It would be somewhere between a 7 and an 8 if it had more replayability, but the gear grind and tedious repeating of content that is otherwise very short make me feel it's $60 better spent on a new PS3 rpg. *kisses his copy of Dragon's Dogma*
ET for Atari .
Oh lordeh, you went way back to the Atari days. Alright, I can't think of anything that deserves a 0 post-8 bit :P
Hydelide 2 for Sega Genesis . You probably haven't heard of it, it was just as bad as ET but much less known.
Professional reviews are edited to be in line with the publications they post on (most of the time.) THis means that reviews are skewed along a certain perective. You find the persective that most matches your own to find the best review for you. They by and large use a public accepted grading scale. 7 is average. 8 is good. 9 is great. 10 is a must have. Anything less is terrible.
Users are extremely varied in experience, expression, and general troll-ness. You can't get a read on them. These reviewers all have there own idea of what rating is acceptable. Some think 5 is average, some think 8. Without a common frame of reference, your left with a pile of opinion you have to sift through to find out if they have a point.
People use metacritic to decide if they should play a game or not?
All this time I've been buying and playig games based on my own opinions, I had no idea there was a unified score I could look at to make my mind up for me.
And I'm sure metacritic is perfect, because everyone is always honest on the internet, and there isn't this large group of peopel that hates blizzard for no logical reason.
All reviewers try to further their own agendas. Professional reviewers want reviews that bring readers and ad money. Giving good scores is likely better than giving bad scores for that purpose, but they must also try to be objective and not go overboard or they'd lose their readers. User reviewers want the game to fail or to succeed, and they don't have to worry about whether their review has anything to do with reality or not, so the easiest way for them is just to give 10 or 0.
All reviewers try to further their own agendas. Professional reviewers want reviews that bring readers and ad money. Giving good scores is likely better than giving bad scores for that purpose, but they must also try to be objective and not go overboard or they'd lose their readers. User reviewers want the game to fail or to succeed, and they don't have to worry about whether their review has anything to do with reality or not, so the easiest way for them is just to give 10 or 0.
Pretty much.
I honestly think the game deserves an 8, and it's 8.9 now which is pretty high, so I definitely see your point about the professional reviews. I completely believe that at least some of them are influenced by the whole conflict of interest that goes on between reviewers and game devs.
And you're right about the users too...they vote based on what "team" they perceive themselves to be on. For some reason, many users feel like it's their personal mission to either make a game fail or ensure its success. That's why there are so many 10's and 0's.
So I guess both sides are compromised...but at least the professional ones try to seem legitimate .
Although it takes a lot more time, I've found that it's much more helpful to read what the reviews are saying about the game instead of giving weight to the number they assign. One person might give the game a 10 on graphics because they like blood while another gives it a 6 because it's not DX12. There's no consistency... but when someone says, "I love the blood!" and someone else says, "OMG it's not DX12!" you'll be able to decide if the game is right for you.
It's pretty easy to differentiate the fluff reviews that gush about generalities and offer few specifics from the reviews that talk about why the game play is either good or bad.
Metacritic is not a good source of information, particularly not from the users. I'll agree D3 is a mediocre game, but it deserves a 0 about as much as it deserves as 10. I can't think of any game that deserves a 0. And I've played Daikatana.
Professional reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. Every single "AAA" game that comes out gets high marks from them, because it's all about advertising. You want real reviews, you go to smaller game sites and blogs, the ones that aren't getting paid to give amazing scores. Much as I love some of the staff on this site, that goes for them, too. The scores given to SWTOR, DCUO, Diablo, etc. (and I think they did Amalur, too, I forget), pretty much guarantee I take none of their opinions seriously. You go to professional sites for news, not reviews.
But by the same token, players are prone to avid extremes that can rival those from paid sources. Remember ME3? The massive dive bomb it took on Metacritic all because of an ending? Yep. Those 3-6's you see, at the lower end of the spectrum, are generally the only negative reviews that should be at all considered. Likewise, the 7-9's for the positive reviews. No game is a perfect 10, but unless it's completely unplayable, anything less than a '3' is from someone being flat out unreasonable.
Personally, after playing someone else's game, I'd give D3 a 6.5 considering the entire package. It would be somewhere between a 7 and an 8 if it had more replayability, but the gear grind and tedious repeating of content that is otherwise very short make me feel it's $60 better spent on a new PS3 rpg. *kisses his copy of Dragon's Dogma*
Though I don't agree that D3 is a mediocre game I completely agree with your assessment.
Too many players create reviews that have just as many issues as paid reviews. Ok great, some reviews for professional publications come in too optimistic for a variety of reasons but what is the difference between that and some nerd rager or die hard "fan boy" who reviews a game negatively or positively based on some small thing?
When reading any review I look for what they are reviewing and then compare it to what I like. for instance, the whole ending of Mass Effect 3 would not have garnered a good or bad review from me. It's a non factor.
In the end i find I have to make my own decisions about these things.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I wonder how many players that scored the game a ZERO are still playing. Really? You gave it a Zero and have how many hours of gameplay, how many posts about the game?
Seems to me if one of thes "honest" player reviews were rating it a zero they'd have uninstalled long ago and not ever looked back.
Bottom line, those low scores are full of crap and can't be taken seriously. Especially when problems like the bad launch are resolved. Does that mean all the nerd-rage Zero scores are removed?
By now 7+ million people have bought the game. If even 100,000 hated it (I'm sure the number is higher than this but it goes to show you how small of a percentage of people is necessary) and 10% of that number raged by giving diablo a zero on metacritic it kills the user score.
As others have said, angry people give bad scores and happy people are in game.
The truth is the vast majority of gamers love it.
Show me some proof.
The majority of people on the official forums and other big D3 fansite forums are disgruntled for one reason or another. The shiny veneer of the game has worn off for almost everybody I know who bought the game.
The common complaint I have heard almost always begins with, "It's fun to play, but...."
And it is. It's fun to play...up to a point. Up to a point it's good ol' hack and slash action that has a good element of challenege - just enough to keep you going. However, once you hit Act 2 of Inferno and you start getting massacred by completely cheap (Note: Cheap =/= difficult) champ combos. Couple that with lag and bugs that shouldn't exist and you have a game that has almost zero end-game potential.
The real difference is that players pay for their copy and professional reviewers don't.
It is a lot easier to be forgiving when you didn't just blow your own $60 for a "meh" game...
Here's the problem with that line of thinking...it's bias.
You are essentially saying that a game should be rated based on the impact that it has on the reviewer's bank account. So basically, if you're rich and $60 is nothing to you, then you will be much more forgiving. On the other hand, if you're poor and a $60 game is a twice a year affair, then you will be extremely harsh.
This is not fair to the game being reviewed. The game should be reviewed on its merits and in comparison to its peers. It should NOT be reviewed based on how much you feel it has impacted your pocket book.
Honestly, I don't think it's arrogant at all to think that a user who gives D3 a very low score has no perspective. And I really think your post here demonstrates this lack of perspective I am talking about.
Look at the games you use to compare D3 to. Skyrim and the Witcher 2. Both excellent games at the pinnacle of their respective sub-genres. You're comparing D3 (a decent game) to games that are generally considered to be amazing. You're also comparing it to games that are completely different in sub-genre.
Witcher is a fairly non-linear story-based RPG, like Dragon Age or BG2. Skyrim is a sandbox RPG like the other ES games and Two Worlds 2. D3 on the other hand, is a hack-and-slash in the vein of Gauntlet, XMen Legends, Torchlight, and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.
And when you compare D3 to the other games in its sub-genre...I honestly think it's decent. It's not spectacular, but decent.
And as to you "5 is average" point...I don't think that the rest of the world sees things that way. The vast majority of reviewers seem to rate games on the "American school system" scale. Where an "8" is above average, a "7" is average, and anything 6 or below is terrible. You may not like this, but well...that seems to be the standard that has been decided upon. Trying to adopt a different scale does nothing but confuse things when you take aggregate review sites like Metacritic into account.
I think your post lacks perspective entirely. I base this, like you, on absolutely nothing.
Skyrim and the Withcer 2 are amazing, yet their ratings were well within a small neighborhood of Diablo 3, implying that D3 should be equally amazing and deliver an experience nearly equal to theirs.
Not spectacular, but decent is not an 8, or even an 8.9, since those have been given to groundbreaking titles. Not spectacular, but decent is not even a 7 in many cases. A 7 is considered good, above average and more than worth the price of admission.
If 5 were a bad score, then it would imply that all ratings < 3 would be redundant.
The American school system scale is not universal, nor does it contain numbers, but letters and a C, which is conisdered average, ,passing etc. is the median.
C is passing, D and F are not, while B implies above average and A excellent.
So are you contradicting yourself, or do you simply not know the American school system at all?
I'd say the problem of user-reviews versus professional ones are that amateur users have no real framework through which they can judge the scoring. It's instead just abstract numbers that loosely relates to how much they like they game. For that reason the professional reviews shouldn't really be compared to user ones.
As a general rule:
A 10 from a user means "I liked this game, so I want to increase its average Metacritic score."
A 0 from a user means "This game disappointed me, so I want to decrease its average Metacritic score."
Then in the middle of these Tens and Zeros there will be a few people that try to emulate professional reviews and give fair scores, but they will be swept away by the sheer number of people using the 10s and 0s for a "Like" or "Dislike" button.
Ultimately all the User-Ratings really show on Metacritic is the portion of users were satisfied or happy with a product versus those that were disappointed. Yet, even then its misleading, because its always those that dislike things that are most eager to rate it. Those that like it, play it.
I'd say the problem of user-reviews versus professional ones are that amateur users have no real framework through which they can judge the scoring. It's instead just abstract numbers that loosely relates to how much they like they game. For that reason the professional reviews shouldn't really be compared to user ones.
As a general rule:
A 10 from a user means "I liked this game, so I want to increase its average metacritic score."
A 0 from a user means "This game dissapointed me, so I want to decrease its average metacritic score."
Then in the middle of these Tens and Zeros there will be a few people that try to emulate professional reviews and give fair scores, but they will be swept away by the sheer number of people using the 10s and 0s for a "Like" or "Dislike" button.
Though interestingly enough you can still statistically test whether or not the general impression was favorable or not due tot the binary nature of the scores by testing:
H0: Sa >= 5
Ha: Sa < 5
or the other way around
Generally, for this particular game, it was unfavorable, though it is probably due to the DRM and other policies..
I'd say the problem of user-reviews versus professional ones are that amateur users have no real framework through which they can judge the scoring. It's instead just abstract numbers that loosely relates to how much they like they game. For that reason the professional reviews shouldn't really be compared to user ones.
As a general rule:
A 10 from a user means "I liked this game, so I want to increase its average metacritic score."
A 0 from a user means "This game dissapointed me, so I want to decrease its average metacritic score."
Then in the middle of these Tens and Zeros there will be a few people that try to emulate professional reviews and give fair scores, but they will be swept away by the sheer number of people using the 10s and 0s for a "Like" or "Dislike" button.
Though interestingly enough you can still statistically test whether or not the general impression was favorable or not due tot the binary nature of the scores by testing:
H0: Sa >= 5
Ha: Sa < 5
or the other way around
Generally, for this particular game, it was unfavorable, though it is probably due to the DRM and other policies..
That's of course if one assumes that the average user considers a score of 5 to be average. Since the "Average" remains subjective, varying from reviewer to reviewer even among professionals, I think one should probably take the ratings with a gain of salt and instead read what different reviewers are actually saying.
The main revenue for game reviewing websites are the incomes from games advertisement, with EA and Blizzard being the biggest and most precocious customers. Same goes for shelf space in video-game stores and malls by the way, small publishers have pay more for worst placing than the big fishes for top shelves, and are not treated with the same regard. One simply cannot afford to trash a game that was made (or is being published ) by a hand that feeds you... The publishers could write the reviews of their games by themselves actually, there wouldn’t be much difference between thise reviews and those called "professional" (if you can make money on something, it is your profession, therefore those are called "professional". This has nothing to do with objectivity or high level of competence).
Users are not paid by anyone to write about the game, just the opposite, they usual paid for the product they are reviewing. I find metacritic to be a great source of true info about games, you just have to now how to read it right – simply skip all those 0 and 10 one sentence reviews, it is just the regular fanboys/haters war not worth a damn second of attentiion. Find these walls of text that were written by people who revived more than one game. Thise IMO are the most objective reviews you can find out there actually.
That's of course if one assumes that the average user considers a score of 5 to be average. Since the "Average" remains subjective, varying from reviewer to reviewer even among professionals, I think one should probably take the ratings with a gain of salt and instead read what different reviewers are actually saying.
Nope. The beauty is that you only need to know if there are more 0s than 10s, or vice versa.
There is nothing subjective about there being more 10s than 0s, since somebody who gave the game a 10 liked it and somebody who gave it a 0 didn't.
The people actually only going to one extreme, or the other are actually making the aggregate more accurate than they'd like it to be.
I can only say I entirely disagree that critics are suited to rate a game of any length (which is any mmo, and other quality games).
A professional critic has a set amount of hours to spend on a game, and that amount is barely enough to scratch the surface - The result is the review is superficial and often based on the first 20 hours of gameplay, add to that all marketing bombardment on them and alot are mimicking other reviewers. These guys have a tendency to use their ears too much (marketing on all levels), and their OWN eyes, sense and analysing skills too little.
Well, for alot of players professional reviews can be the thruth because they are also only ever scrathing the surface, but for more dedicated gamers those reviews are .. inaccurate and lacking important (for them) details.
A gamer ^can^ be a much better reviewer for the exact opposite reasons. A gamer has time to test the game for replayability and all kind of corners in a game, but the downside is it will always be done from that gamer's perspective regarding taste and previous experiences. Loads are offcourse just people with broken expectations, blind faith and so on, but still ..
Find the right players review and you find much more truth than most professional reviews.
Rating by number is somewhat meaningless - Read the text, thats where you get some information. professional or user review.
The real difference is that players pay for their copy and professional reviewers don't.
It is a lot easier to be forgiving when you didn't just blow your own $60 for a "meh" game...
Here's the problem with that line of thinking...it's bias.
You are essentially saying that a game should be rated based on the impact that it has on the reviewer's bank account. So basically, if you're rich and $60 is nothing to you, then you will be much more forgiving. On the other hand, if you're poor and a $60 game is a twice a year affair, then you will be extremely harsh.
This is not fair to the game being reviewed. The game should be reviewed on its merits and in comparison to its peers. It should NOT be reviewed based on how much you feel it has impacted your pocket book.
Yeah, and I say the other side of the coin is just fine...
Value is a legitimate consideration. So it is part of the equation, both how a game is itself and in relation to similar titles.
"Professional" reviewers, by and large, do not pay for their copies. On top of that, they work for or are paid by sites that advertise these same games (like this site).
So, there is even a bigger bias in that direction, to put their interest over that of the consumer.
This is why I do not trust "professional reviewers" worth a damn anymore, at least normal players/forum posters are "like me" and it is not in their financial interest to promote a game, any game, for reasons other than it was enjoyable to them.
A paid opinion, is more biased on its face, than any other.
5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.
Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....
Why pay full price for a bad title?
That is rewarding a developer for doing a bad job, and a primary reason the entire MMO genre (of which D3 is not part) is in the shitter right now.
That fact that people will pay for any crap title only encourges the devs/pubs to continue to put out the same, uninspired, half finshed, crap game that everyone has played 5 times before.
5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.
Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....
Why pay full price for a bad title?
That is rewarding a developer for doing a bad job, and a primary reason the entire MMO genre (of which D3 is not part) is in the shitter right now.
That fact that people will pay for any crap title only encourges the devs/pubs to continue to put out the same, uninspired, half finshed, crap game that everyone has played 5 times before.
Because it's NOT A BAD TITLE!!!
I don't get some of you people. It's obviously a great title to sell how it has. I played the beta and KNOW it's one of the great title of the year.
I would like to point out that while there are a lot of articulate posts that are negative the entire metacritic score is heavily skewed by the first day when THOUSANDS of people coulden't play in the first twelve hours after the midnight release and rated the game Zero.
And honestly the randomly generated maps and the fact that you get different events and minibosses each time seems to never get mentioned by the negative reviews.........
If a game doesnt score higher than 7.5 metacritic user score, I simply won't buy or play the game. I trust the opinion of fellow gamers over professional opinions. That being said, diablo 3 is not on my list of games to play due to being a 4.1. You can argue against it however you want, however, many players are dissatisfied with their experiences playing this game. You can dismiss the vocal minority for whatever reason, but it exists to criticize. Sometimes the majority is wrong, such as support for the nazi party the led to WWII. Now this is an exteme example, but dismissing the minority is never healthy just becasue they don't share your beliefs.
I love these types of threads. First I feel vindicated that I'm not alone. Then, I get the entertainment from fanbois saying that gamers don't have perspective, and can't tell if a game is good or not. They come up with all sorts of excuses. From blaming gamers lack of intelligence to "the people who like are playing" to whatever else they can conjure up in their fanboi heads.
Its the same thing over and over. Why don't we have these types discussions with games like Skyrim, or ME or Dragon Age? Where it seems the overwhelming majority are in agreement that those are some amazing games. Answer: because those are actually good games.
Comments
Hydelide 2 for Sega Genesis
. You probably haven't heard of it, it was just as bad as ET but much less known.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Professional reviews are edited to be in line with the publications they post on (most of the time.) THis means that reviews are skewed along a certain perective. You find the persective that most matches your own to find the best review for you. They by and large use a public accepted grading scale. 7 is average. 8 is good. 9 is great. 10 is a must have. Anything less is terrible.
Users are extremely varied in experience, expression, and general troll-ness. You can't get a read on them. These reviewers all have there own idea of what rating is acceptable. Some think 5 is average, some think 8. Without a common frame of reference, your left with a pile of opinion you have to sift through to find out if they have a point.
People use metacritic to decide if they should play a game or not?
All this time I've been buying and playig games based on my own opinions, I had no idea there was a unified score I could look at to make my mind up for me.
And I'm sure metacritic is perfect, because everyone is always honest on the internet, and there isn't this large group of peopel that hates blizzard for no logical reason.
All reviewers try to further their own agendas. Professional reviewers want reviews that bring readers and ad money. Giving good scores is likely better than giving bad scores for that purpose, but they must also try to be objective and not go overboard or they'd lose their readers. User reviewers want the game to fail or to succeed, and they don't have to worry about whether their review has anything to do with reality or not, so the easiest way for them is just to give 10 or 0.
Pretty much.
I honestly think the game deserves an 8, and it's 8.9 now which is pretty high, so I definitely see your point about the professional reviews. I completely believe that at least some of them are influenced by the whole conflict of interest that goes on between reviewers and game devs.
And you're right about the users too...they vote based on what "team" they perceive themselves to be on. For some reason, many users feel like it's their personal mission to either make a game fail or ensure its success. That's why there are so many 10's and 0's.
So I guess both sides are compromised...but at least the professional ones try to seem legitimate
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Although it takes a lot more time, I've found that it's much more helpful to read what the reviews are saying about the game instead of giving weight to the number they assign. One person might give the game a 10 on graphics because they like blood while another gives it a 6 because it's not DX12. There's no consistency... but when someone says, "I love the blood!" and someone else says, "OMG it's not DX12!" you'll be able to decide if the game is right for you.
It's pretty easy to differentiate the fluff reviews that gush about generalities and offer few specifics from the reviews that talk about why the game play is either good or bad.
Though I don't agree that D3 is a mediocre game I completely agree with your assessment.
Too many players create reviews that have just as many issues as paid reviews. Ok great, some reviews for professional publications come in too optimistic for a variety of reasons but what is the difference between that and some nerd rager or die hard "fan boy" who reviews a game negatively or positively based on some small thing?
When reading any review I look for what they are reviewing and then compare it to what I like. for instance, the whole ending of Mass Effect 3 would not have garnered a good or bad review from me. It's a non factor.
In the end i find I have to make my own decisions about these things.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The real difference is that players pay for their copy and professional reviewers don't.
It is a lot easier to be forgiving when you didn't just blow your own $60 for a "meh" game...
I wonder how many players that scored the game a ZERO are still playing. Really? You gave it a Zero and have how many hours of gameplay, how many posts about the game?
Seems to me if one of thes "honest" player reviews were rating it a zero they'd have uninstalled long ago and not ever looked back.
Bottom line, those low scores are full of crap and can't be taken seriously. Especially when problems like the bad launch are resolved. Does that mean all the nerd-rage Zero scores are removed?
Show me some proof.
The majority of people on the official forums and other big D3 fansite forums are disgruntled for one reason or another. The shiny veneer of the game has worn off for almost everybody I know who bought the game.
The common complaint I have heard almost always begins with, "It's fun to play, but...."
And it is. It's fun to play...up to a point. Up to a point it's good ol' hack and slash action that has a good element of challenege - just enough to keep you going. However, once you hit Act 2 of Inferno and you start getting massacred by completely cheap (Note: Cheap =/= difficult) champ combos. Couple that with lag and bugs that shouldn't exist and you have a game that has almost zero end-game potential.
Here's the problem with that line of thinking...it's bias.
You are essentially saying that a game should be rated based on the impact that it has on the reviewer's bank account. So basically, if you're rich and $60 is nothing to you, then you will be much more forgiving. On the other hand, if you're poor and a $60 game is a twice a year affair, then you will be extremely harsh.
This is not fair to the game being reviewed. The game should be reviewed on its merits and in comparison to its peers. It should NOT be reviewed based on how much you feel it has impacted your pocket book.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I think your post lacks perspective entirely. I base this, like you, on absolutely nothing.
Skyrim and the Withcer 2 are amazing, yet their ratings were well within a small neighborhood of Diablo 3, implying that D3 should be equally amazing and deliver an experience nearly equal to theirs.
Not spectacular, but decent is not an 8, or even an 8.9, since those have been given to groundbreaking titles. Not spectacular, but decent is not even a 7 in many cases. A 7 is considered good, above average and more than worth the price of admission.
If 5 were a bad score, then it would imply that all ratings < 3 would be redundant.
The American school system scale is not universal, nor does it contain numbers, but letters and a C, which is conisdered average, ,passing etc. is the median.
C is passing, D and F are not, while B implies above average and A excellent.
So are you contradicting yourself, or do you simply not know the American school system at all?
I'd say the problem of user-reviews versus professional ones are that amateur users have no real framework through which they can judge the scoring. It's instead just abstract numbers that loosely relates to how much they like they game. For that reason the professional reviews shouldn't really be compared to user ones.
As a general rule:
A 10 from a user means "I liked this game, so I want to increase its average Metacritic score."
A 0 from a user means "This game disappointed me, so I want to decrease its average Metacritic score."
Then in the middle of these Tens and Zeros there will be a few people that try to emulate professional reviews and give fair scores, but they will be swept away by the sheer number of people using the 10s and 0s for a "Like" or "Dislike" button.
Ultimately all the User-Ratings really show on Metacritic is the portion of users were satisfied or happy with a product versus those that were disappointed. Yet, even then its misleading, because its always those that dislike things that are most eager to rate it. Those that like it, play it.
Though interestingly enough you can still statistically test whether or not the general impression was favorable or not due tot the binary nature of the scores by testing:
H0: Sa >= 5
Ha: Sa < 5
or the other way around
Generally, for this particular game, it was unfavorable, though it is probably due to the DRM and other policies..
That's of course if one assumes that the average user considers a score of 5 to be average. Since the "Average" remains subjective, varying from reviewer to reviewer even among professionals, I think one should probably take the ratings with a gain of salt and instead read what different reviewers are actually saying.
The main revenue for game reviewing websites are the incomes from games advertisement, with EA and Blizzard being the biggest and most precocious customers. Same goes for shelf space in video-game stores and malls by the way, small publishers have pay more for worst placing than the big fishes for top shelves, and are not treated with the same regard. One simply cannot afford to trash a game that was made (or is being published ) by a hand that feeds you... The publishers could write the reviews of their games by themselves actually, there wouldn’t be much difference between thise reviews and those called "professional" (if you can make money on something, it is your profession, therefore those are called "professional". This has nothing to do with objectivity or high level of competence).
Users are not paid by anyone to write about the game, just the opposite, they usual paid for the product they are reviewing. I find metacritic to be a great source of true info about games, you just have to now how to read it right – simply skip all those 0 and 10 one sentence reviews, it is just the regular fanboys/haters war not worth a damn second of attentiion. Find these walls of text that were written by people who revived more than one game. Thise IMO are the most objective reviews you can find out there actually.
Nope. The beauty is that you only need to know if there are more 0s than 10s, or vice versa.
There is nothing subjective about there being more 10s than 0s, since somebody who gave the game a 10 liked it and somebody who gave it a 0 didn't.
The people actually only going to one extreme, or the other are actually making the aggregate more accurate than they'd like it to be.
I can only say I entirely disagree that critics are suited to rate a game of any length (which is any mmo, and other quality games).
A professional critic has a set amount of hours to spend on a game, and that amount is barely enough to scratch the surface - The result is the review is superficial and often based on the first 20 hours of gameplay, add to that all marketing bombardment on them and alot are mimicking other reviewers. These guys have a tendency to use their ears too much (marketing on all levels), and their OWN eyes, sense and analysing skills too little.
Well, for alot of players professional reviews can be the thruth because they are also only ever scrathing the surface, but for more dedicated gamers those reviews are .. inaccurate and lacking important (for them) details.
A gamer ^can^ be a much better reviewer for the exact opposite reasons. A gamer has time to test the game for replayability and all kind of corners in a game, but the downside is it will always be done from that gamer's perspective regarding taste and previous experiences. Loads are offcourse just people with broken expectations, blind faith and so on, but still ..
Find the right players review and you find much more truth than most professional reviews.
Rating by number is somewhat meaningless - Read the text, thats where you get some information. professional or user review.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Yeah, and I say the other side of the coin is just fine...
Value is a legitimate consideration. So it is part of the equation, both how a game is itself and in relation to similar titles.
"Professional" reviewers, by and large, do not pay for their copies. On top of that, they work for or are paid by sites that advertise these same games (like this site).
So, there is even a bigger bias in that direction, to put their interest over that of the consumer.
This is why I do not trust "professional reviewers" worth a damn anymore, at least normal players/forum posters are "like me" and it is not in their financial interest to promote a game, any game, for reasons other than it was enjoyable to them.
A paid opinion, is more biased on its face, than any other.
5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.
Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....
Why pay full price for a bad title?
That is rewarding a developer for doing a bad job, and a primary reason the entire MMO genre (of which D3 is not part) is in the shitter right now.
That fact that people will pay for any crap title only encourges the devs/pubs to continue to put out the same, uninspired, half finshed, crap game that everyone has played 5 times before.
Because it's NOT A BAD TITLE!!!
I don't get some of you people. It's obviously a great title to sell how it has. I played the beta and KNOW it's one of the great title of the year.
I would like to point out that while there are a lot of articulate posts that are negative the entire metacritic score is heavily skewed by the first day when THOUSANDS of people coulden't play in the first twelve hours after the midnight release and rated the game Zero.
And honestly the randomly generated maps and the fact that you get different events and minibosses each time seems to never get mentioned by the negative reviews.........
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
If a game doesnt score higher than 7.5 metacritic user score, I simply won't buy or play the game. I trust the opinion of fellow gamers over professional opinions. That being said, diablo 3 is not on my list of games to play due to being a 4.1. You can argue against it however you want, however, many players are dissatisfied with their experiences playing this game. You can dismiss the vocal minority for whatever reason, but it exists to criticize. Sometimes the majority is wrong, such as support for the nazi party the led to WWII. Now this is an exteme example, but dismissing the minority is never healthy just becasue they don't share your beliefs.
I love these types of threads. First I feel vindicated that I'm not alone. Then, I get the entertainment from fanbois saying that gamers don't have perspective, and can't tell if a game is good or not. They come up with all sorts of excuses. From blaming gamers lack of intelligence to "the people who like are playing" to whatever else they can conjure up in their fanboi heads.
Its the same thing over and over. Why don't we have these types discussions with games like Skyrim, or ME or Dragon Age? Where it seems the overwhelming majority are in agreement that those are some amazing games. Answer: because those are actually good games.