Online review aggregation website Metacritic has recently announced that it will delay user reviews for video games for 36 hours after the game’s release. Review bombing has become a major problem on the site particularly with video games. The company says that its decision was based on “data-driven research and with the input of critics and industry experts.”
“We recently implemented the 36 hour waiting period for all user reviews in our games section to ensure our gamers have time to play these games before writing their reviews,” a Metacritic spokesperson said. “This new waiting period for user reviews has been rolled out across Metacritic’s Games section and was based on data-driven research and with the input of critics and industry experts.”
It’s too costly to pay every user money to write positive reviews, so it’s better to stick to the professionals and then ensure that they’re the only ones whose reviews are visible to the public.
The average gamer plays video games only in their leisure time. They pay full amount for the games. They play for their own enjoyment.
Game reviewers play games for work. They don’t pay for review copies. Their goals is never an accurate report of the game but, instead, just their opinions and whatever else to get more clicks because THAT is their main goal.
There’s just no reason to trust game reviewers anymore. You’re better off just checking out the game for yourself or getting some info from fellow gamers who have played it.
These game reviewers play like 5 mins and judge the entire game based on those 5 mins. Take for instance Other M, they say in their review that Samus says “baby” a lot from beginning to end of the game when in reality she says it a lot until the middle of the game, towards the end she says it like once. I should know because I 100% the game. They also say the entire game sucks, it doesn’t, it’s a very flawed game but it’s still enjoyable.
Sometimes even “professionals” review-bomb a game (Jim Stirling and his 7/10 for BOTW because of the beef he had with Nintendo is a great example). And many games get reviewbombed weeks or months after release. This change has so obviously nothing to do with giving games fair scores as it doesn’t prevent review-bombing, but rather with sales at launch not being influenced by criticism. It’s so blatant that Metacritic got either threatened or bribed (or both) by big game companies. This is like most changes on popular websites absolutely anti-user/anti-consumer.
Onw person giving a game a lower than average score isn’t a review bomb. A review bomb is when hundreds of “gamer” go post bad reviews for a game they haven’t played in order to purposefully plower a games metacritic score due to some preconceived “slight” from the developers.
This is a smart move on metacritcs ends and If you got a problem with it blame “gamers” who review bomb games they haven’t played.
I don’t give a fuck what you think
To be fair, 36 hours is nothing. It’s always a bit silly when you can review a game 5 minutes after it has released.
It’s not nothing! If you wanna buy a game at launch and wanna hear some user experiences you don’t wanna wait 3 days to order your game. We are intelligent enough to make our own judgements and decide whether or not the “0/10 worst game ever” is a trustworthy score or not. I rather trust a well-written user review than a paid IGN review or a review from the Washington Post written by a 20 year old purple-haired female.
IGN doesn’t get paid for reviews.
The more these review sites give in to pressure from game companies who don’t want any negativity surrounding a new release the less relevant and trustworthy they become. Only hurting themselves in the long run. They may say that review bombing is a problem but there is no smoke without fire and there are usually legitimate complaints amongst all the 0/10 reviews that are being held back by this decision.
how bout also making official game reviewers actually beat the game and give honest reviews instead of default 90 for everyone who pays them while they’re at it. People will just check reddit if they ban early user reviews
Not sure it will help that much, but it signals that user reviews scores are often bogus.
The percentage of bogus user reviews is usually the same as the one of critics reviews. The difference is that where users give 0/10 critics give 4/10 and where users give 10/10 critics give 9.5/10. But the average is usually the same until a game gets reviewbombed, but then the review-bombed score is usually more true to your gaming expierence than the biased score by critics who don’t get affected by greedy business practices as they just move on to the next game after their review.
I have legitimately never played a 0/10 game, and I’ve played some of the historically worst titles made. Maybe my background as a film blogger gives me a different perspective than others, but just having verifiable issues does not a 0/10 make IMO.
This is bullshit. Sometimes even “professionals” review-bomb a game (Jim Stirling and his 7/10 for BOTW because of the beef he had with Nintendo is a great example). And many games get reviewbombed weeks or months after release. This change has so obviously nothing to do with giving games fair scores as it doesn’t prevent review-bombing, but rather with sales at launch not being influenced by criticism. It’s so blatant that Metacritic got either threatened or bribed (or both) by big game companies. This is like most changes on popular websites absolutely anti-user/anti-consumer.
If you wanna buy a game at launch and wanna hear some user experiences you don’t wanna wait 3 days to order your game. We are intelligent enough to make our own judgements and decide whether or not the “0/10 worst game ever” is a trustworthy score or not. I rather trust a well-written user review than a paid IGN review or a review from the Washington Post written by a 20 year old purple-haired female.
‘The percentage of bogus user reviews is usually the same as the one of critics reviews. ”
Do you have actual proof of this statement or are you just talking out if your ass?
Shut the fuck up you can go to Metacritic and check that yourself you lazy motherfucker
Almost every person on this thread is talking out of their ass. It is incredibly ignorant and immature to claim that every critic is paid, every critic only plays x minutes of a game, etc. You literally don’t know a damned thing about what they actually did (unless there is actual proof). You only judge based on if the score they give lines up with what you think it should be. Why doesn’t anyone call out critics for positive reviews on games like Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War? Because the majority of the audience likes those games, so they agree with critics. The internet only jumps on critics when they go against the narrative that the internet has set. Case in point The Last of Us 2. It does not matter whether a critic genuinely believed that game was amazing, they are a shill, paid, etc. because the internet has already given a verdict on this game. TLDR I despise the hypocrites all over the internet. And the guy saying Jim Sterling “review bombed” BoTW with a 7 (Lemme say that again, A SEVEN) is…. nvm
I assume this is due to the TLoU2 controversy. lmao
“Metacritic says it is now shilling for big companies to protect them from negative reviews”