How picky are or should Gaming Critics be?

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Verd1234

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Recently I found a very interesting blog post...

http://www.gamespot.com/users/GabuE...=convert&om_clk=soapbox&tag=soapbox;subject;2

Apparently, Critics are, generally, harsher to games that the general population. Now, whether this means that the General Gaming population may be too generous or that the critics are too harsh I do not know. But the fact remains true.

So, what's the deal with the gaming critics?

I mean, many of the games he listed were kinda obscure so perhaps the critics didn't connect with the game as the fans did but I'm not sure..

The question still remains, are critics being too picky and harsh?

Or perhaps the critics are being too lenient on the hyped up games and being more harsh on the lesser known game? Looking at the critical reception of Fallout 3, this may seen true but I do not think so. In the case of Fallout 3 both the critics as well as the general gaming public found the game awesome and worthy of $$$.

We know that hype alone does not make a game a critical success or else Enter the Matrix would not have failed so badly...

Hmmm....thought provoking...
 
Verd1234 said:
But the fact remains true.
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No it isn't. It's possibly true for niche games, it's obvious bullshit as a "catch-all statement". The study has an obvious selection bias, the author picking Gamespot user averages because Gamespot users are - in fact - slobbering unthinking morons.

Had he actually picked, say, Metacritic user scores (not much better, for actual scientific research you'd need a much broader selection) to compare to Metacritic reviewer averages, his "research" goes to the toilet.

Dragon Age 91, user score 85
Assassin's Creed II PS3 92, user score 84
Left 4 Dead 2 89, user score 74
Assassins Creed Xbox 360 91, user score 89
Fallout 3 93, user score 83
Batman Arkham Asylum 92, user score 84

Woops? Bullshit "research" debunked. Try again.

Thought provoking my ass. It shows exactly what's wrong with game journalism, opinions spouted by people who obviously have no training in doing actual research are taken seriously without second thought. Puh-lease.
 
I was gonna write something really smart and shit, but Brother None said all that needed to be said.
 
GameBanshee guys are the worst.
But on a serious note
Apparently, Critics are, generally, harsher to games that the general population.
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Short: lolno and it's being disproved every day.
 
i don't quite see where you could get the idea that critics are in any way 'harsh' to the game industry. i mean, for each potentially harsh review, there are THOUSANDS of asskissing ones?

even more damning: most harsh reviews even happen on RETROSPECT, not before or during release.
 
The question still remains, are critics being too picky and harsh?
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No.

Now, mostly all harsh reviews that i have witnessed and read, were usually written by biased authors who didn't provide any valid arguments and simply bashed the games because of reasons like not liking the genre etc.
 
To ensure that the overall score could not be influenced too much by one single person, I filtered out all of the games that did not have at least ten reviews both by critics and by users.
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Hahahah, oh god. Yes, 10 people is a totally valid sample size, especially for "users". If he wanted to even pretend that his "study" was at all relevant he needed to teir his results with <10 critic reviews, <20 critic reviews, <30 critic reviews, and then the same for users only something more like <20, <50, <100, <500. He also fails to take into account Metacritic's weighting of scores for critics and only used a single source for user scores (he needed to do a comparison across sites and then figure out how he planned to deal with the user scores).

That's not even getting into comparing game critics to other critics (like film, book, etc.) and finding that most game critics use the 6 point scale between 5-10, especially for AAA releases. Metacritic even has an adjusted scale for them and are more generous than I would be.

Brother None nailed it, the dude is presenting shit "research" as proof of an opinion that he clearly held going into it.
 
They should start using 6 point scale based on school degrees.
1 - unplayable
2 - playable
3 - playable with some good features
4 - playable with some great features
5 - very playable, very good with some great features.
6 - pure greatness

1-4 on 1-10 scale don't really make sense, as games are a luxury product and an entertainment, there's absolutely no place for bad games, so all bad games should get 1.
 
^ They already use that, except 1-6 is reserved on a 10-point scale for non-AAA games. AAA games are rated on a scale 7-10 as follows:

7: Pure shit
8: playable
9: playable with some good features
10: playable with some great features :roll:
 
if there is a problem with a game that is not in the "review" and i do not find out about it untill i play it, then the review failed.


if a game is fresh and entertaining for the first hour, and then gets repetitive and boring as shit, that needs to be in the review.

the whole point of a review is not to get me to buy it, but to tell me what the product is and what it offers. and what the problems of it is.
 
Damn, Brother None really pwned that guy...

hahah, I wonder why he chose the Gamespot user reviews instead of the metacritic ones...

ah well...

I guess all this says is that critics are more harsh than Gamespot users...but that isn't really saying much..
 
Verd1234 said:
hahah, I wonder why he chose the Gamespot user reviews instead of the metacritic ones...
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Hmm, that's a hard one... Why would a Gamespot employee use Gamespot user scores instead of Metacritic user scores... :silly:

Again, it's not about properly proving anything, it's about presenting the illusion of proof for a preconceived opinion that he holds.
 
PastaMasta said:
Game reviewers are fuck faces, Fallout 2 has an 8 or something on gamespot and Fallout 3 has a 9.

How does that work?
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Fallout 2 was a shitty, unplayable, bug-filled mess on release. I would've had a hard time even giving it an 8 if I'm reviewing the unpatched version.
 
Brother None said:
PastaMasta said:
Game reviewers are fuck faces, Fallout 2 has an 8 or something on gamespot and Fallout 3 has a 9.

How does that work?
Click to expand...

Fallout 2 was a shitty, unplayable, bug-filled mess on release. I would've had a hard time even giving it an 8 if I'm reviewing the unpatched version.
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You make a good point, I wasn't around when Fallout 2 was first released. I probably should have took that into consideration. :oops:
 
Peer reviews and recommendations are the only ones that matter anymore IMO. Any magazine or e-zine that registers as more than a tiny blip on the radar of video game journalism is going to be prone to things like reviewers that give positive reviews and ratings to games that do not merit a positive review and rating, for the sake of possibly receiving a pat on the head from the people whose work they are supposed to be critiquing. It's all a bunch of popularity contests.
 
I don't care how harsh or positive a reviewer is as long as his opinion is informed. Uninformed opinions are largely meaningless.
 
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