164 réponses à ce sujet

[Apollo Starflare]

Anarya wrote...

I really think games reviews would benefit tremendously from ditching the at-a-glance numerical or star ratings and just making people read the actual review. .

Agreed, not using a numerical or star rating for reviews has worked really well for Rock Paper Shotgun.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Vandicus wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...



But isn't there other review sites just as successful as ign that would happily take the advertisement money. Also we are taking about EA hare not ubi the loss of EA's revenue would be substantial.

Developer A does not like IGN's review and pulls advertising, which would normally have resulted in a payment of $50,000.

Developer B, who was unwilling to pay $50,000 but is willing to pay $49,000, as the runner up in bidding for advertising space instead gets advertising there.

Therefore IGN gets $1,000 less than previously.

Yes people, that's how free market competition works. Losing one customer for a commodity when there are hundreds of customers offering comparable though slightly lower sums(Developer A does not want to overpay, in the bidding war there's will only be slightly over the runner up's point where they give up) does not create a large loss in revenue.

Furthermore, look at my post above. I've provided several links where EA games got mediocre to horrible reviews. If the review companies are being bribed, gaming companies are obviously doing a horrible job at bribing them.

No one said anything about bribes, we were saying it is advertisement revenue, that pays reviewers wages, so it is in there best interest to give devs games a positive review so they will keep getting that revenue, DA2 is a perfect example of the difference between people who review for fun as to people paid to review, the game was voted worst game of the year on many sites yet on IGN and PC gamer it got near perfect scores. Explain that to me.

[Conduit0]

DinoSteve wrote...

Conduit0 wrote...


Game companies rely heavily on the publicity that game publications bring to their games. If say Ubisoft boycotted IGN, it would hurt their sales far worse than it would effect IGN's advertising income. There are hundreds of publishers and developers that would continue to shell out advertising dollars and would be all to happy to have their game take the place of the next AC game smeared across the front pages of the site.
You added 1 + 1 and got pie.

But isn't there other review sites just as successful as ign that would happily take the advertisement money. Also we are taking about EA here not ubi the loss of EA's revenue would be substantial.

Yes, however IGN is going to get roughly the same amount of traffic to their site regardless of what games are being advertised, and for every EA game that IGN didn't get money for advertising, theres a competitor willing to take their place. In other words, it really wouldn't effect them.

[Vandicus]

BrotherWarth wrote...

Conduit0 wrote...

A single incident does not prove a pattern. So unless you can point to other credible sources showing the same thing happening to other gaming journalists, or some how prove that Gerstmann is the only honest professional journalist in all of gaming journalism, the only thing that the Gerstmann incident proves, is that you should always hire marketing teams that are well versed in the industry.

You apparently missed my earlier post about multiple reviews of DA2 on console mentioning the auto-attack feature, which Bioware claimed was in the game but in fact was not. That means the reviewers lied. Then think about all of the perfect reviews of ME3 that fail to mention the ending entirely and it's hardly a leap to think that game reviewers who are sustained financially by the game companies may be less than impartial.

DA2's autoattack was ommitted in manufacture. It is very well possible that the reviewers did receive copies with auto attack in it. 

"From Chris Preistly OK: Here is the story.

Auto-attack option for consoles was added in to the games late in the development cycle after the initial certification build was sent. The auto-attack functionality was sent to be added to the game for testing and approval. This was why staff said it was in game.

Due to an error during mastering, the auto-attack file was omitted during manufacture.

We apologize for this. It was meant to be in game, but it is not currently in the console versions. We are working on how best to distribute this to console users. When we have information, we will let everyone know."

ME3 is a stellar game. A five minute flaw in a 30 hour+ game does not warrant mention and may in fact not even have been accessible to reviewers. Moreover I imagine that most attention upon reviewing ME3 would be devoted to the rather controversial additon of multiplayer.

[Plaintiff]

DinoSteve wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...



But isn't there other review sites just as successful as ign that would happily take the advertisement money. Also we are taking about EA hare not ubi the loss of EA's revenue would be substantial.

Developer A does not like IGN's review and pulls advertising, which would normally have resulted in a payment of $50,000.

Developer B, who was unwilling to pay $50,000 but is willing to pay $49,000, as the runner up in bidding for advertising space instead gets advertising there.

Therefore IGN gets $1,000 less than previously.

Yes people, that's how free market competition works. Losing one customer for a commodity when there are hundreds of customers offering comparable though slightly lower sums(Developer A does not want to overpay, in the bidding war there's will only be slightly over the runner up's point where they give up) does not create a large loss in revenue.

Furthermore, look at my post above. I've provided several links where EA games got mediocre to horrible reviews. If the review companies are being bribed, gaming companies are obviously doing a horrible job at bribing them.

No one said anything about bribes, we were saying it is advertisement revenue, that pays reviewers wages, so it is in there best interest to give devs games a positive review so they will keep getting that revenue, DA2 is a perfect example of the difference between people who review for fun as to people paid to review, the game was voted worst game of the year on many sites yet on IGN and PC gamer it got near perfect scores. Explain that to me.

Different opinions.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Thats some drastically different opinions right there, and why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Modifié par DinoSteve, 21 septembre 2012 - 01:49 .

[Vandicus]

BrotherWarth wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Your entire case was invalidated.

Argument A: Reviewers have inherently suspect opinions becaue their funding comes from the source of the people they're reviewing.

Rebuttal: Lots of games with large advertising budgets and with huge vested interests(such as EA) are either not bribing/threatening the reviewers or doing a damn horrible job at bribing/threatening them. As a result it can easily be seen that cases such as your singular instance are in the minority.

*the threat being pulling of advertising


Misrepresenting your opponent's argument with hyperbole does not render the argument moot.

Your argument relies on information that you have not gathered. My argument relies on documented evidence. Once you get advertising and review information on every game from every major gaming site then you can make those claims. Until then, your argument is childish.

You don't really get the concept of burden of proof do you?

YOU are the one claiming industry wide corruption. I have provided you with examples where the alleged corruption should have been by your theory, but wasn't. Every negative or mediocre review for a game produced by EA, LucasArts, Activision, and Ubisoft is evidence that the reviewers are not being paid off to make positive reviews.

You have yet to address this in your arguments. 

Again with the attempt to trivialize the opponent's arguments by calling them childish. Hmmmm.

[Vandicus]

DinoSteve wrote...

Then why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Were these statements by the same people? Then you may have a case of attempting to pander to the masses. It is not uncommon for people to try to voice an opinion that they think will be the majority one, especially for critics. 

Again, in light of IGN and Gamespot regularly giving EA games really bad reviews, the belief that reviewers are adjusting them to pander to the gaming companies seems incorrect. The possibility of them attempting to pander to their audience is much more likely.

*EDIT

Furthermore if these reviewers were required to write positive reviews to keep funding, why would that stop now? Does the company suddenly not want the funding or any future funding because the developers know the reviewers may just turn around and badmouth the game later?

Modifié par Vandicus, 21 septembre 2012 - 01:54 .

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Vandicus wrote...

BrotherWarth wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Your entire case was invalidated.

Argument A: Reviewers have inherently suspect opinions becaue their funding comes from the source of the people they're reviewing.

Rebuttal: Lots of games with large advertising budgets and with huge vested interests(such as EA) are either not bribing/threatening the reviewers or doing a damn horrible job at bribing/threatening them. As a result it can easily be seen that cases such as your singular instance are in the minority.

*the threat being pulling of advertising


Misrepresenting your opponent's argument with hyperbole does not render the argument moot.

Your argument relies on information that you have not gathered. My argument relies on documented evidence. Once you get advertising and review information on every game from every major gaming site then you can make those claims. Until then, your argument is childish.

You don't really get the concept of burden of proof do you?

YOU are the one claiming industry wide corruption. I have provided you with examples where the alleged corruption should have been by your theory, but wasn't. Every negative or mediocre review for a game produced by EA, LucasArts, Activision, and Ubisoft is evidence that the reviewers are not being paid off to make positive reviews.

You have yet to address this in your arguments. 

Again with the attempt to trivialize the opponent's arguments by calling them childish. Hmmmm.

You do realise that those games you listed were not worldwide triple AAA titles also Duke Nukem was so bad they could not review it another way.

[Vandicus]

DinoSteve wrote...



You do realise that those games you listed were not worldwide triple AAA titles also Duke Nukem was so bad they could not review it another way.

Madden NFL isn't major to EA. OK, that's a fairly original argument. Please elaborate. 

http://en.wikipedia....en_NFL_12#Sales 

3 million sales seem pretty significant to me. And they release this game series every stinking year. 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Madden_NFL 

Top line of overview section. Over 85 million copies of the series sold by 2010, and over 3 billion in revenue.

What in your mind is a major item worth bribing reviewers for?

At least this tells us most reviews are not due to financial influence, since very few games enjoy this kind of success.

[Plaintiff]

DinoSteve wrote...

Thats some drastically different opinions right there, and why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Yes opinions can differ drastically, funny that. My opinion of DA2 differs drastically from yours. The opinions of a KKK member differ drastically from the opinons of a member of the NAACP. The opinions of a conservative differ drastically from the opinions of a liberal.

Occam's Razor. People have different opinions.

[Vandicus]

BrotherWarth wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

You don't really get the concept of burden of proof do you?

YOU are the one claiming industry wide corruption. I have provided you with examples where the alleged corruption should have been by your theory, but wasn't. Every negative or mediocre review for a game produced by EA, LucasArts, Activision, and Ubisoft is evidence that the reviewers are not being paid off to make positive reviews.

You have yet to address this in your arguments. 

Again with the attempt to trivialize the opponent's arguments by calling them childish. Hmmmm.

I already met the burden of proof. The argument started over Chris Priestly saying that every professional review is honest. That's already been proven to be false. You're arguing over degrees but the argument is already over.

Waiiitt. So you argument is simply that, Chris's statement does not hold true in every specific case.

God I hope you never teach Physics. 

You're attacking Chris's statement, semantically

You're not actually trying to support the concept of industry wide corruption, you're just being pedantic? Why? I mean what's the point of that? You're just going to cause people to be more and more paranoid for no good reason.

[Firky]

Ha. I *wish* reviewers were given finished copies. Civ V had 5-6 builds during the preview/review period, all rebalanced economies etc.

Thank goodness, my plane is boarding. Find reviewers you identify with and stick with them, is my advice.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Plaintiff wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

Thats some drastically different opinions right there, and why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Yes opinions can differ drastically, funny that. My opinion of DA2 differs drastically from yours. The opinions of a KKK member differ drastically from the opinons of a member of the NAACP. The opinions of a conservative differ drastically from the opinions of a liberal.

Occam's Razor. People have different opinions.

You miss my point, I mean if IGN was correct and DA2 had a near perfect score, then you could except that the popular opinion would be that it was good or ok, not that it was an awful game which is the popular opinion. There is something wrong somewhere when there is such a difference between the reviews of reviewers and the reviews of fans.

[Plaintiff]

BrotherWarth wrote...
And what reviewer worth their salt would skip the end of the entire trilogy to talk about multiplayer? Unless you're suggesting that they never actually finished the game before reviewing it, which would mean their opinions are worthless.

This is such a bull****, hypocritical argument.

If a reviewer had given a poor review of DA2, only to have it revealed that they didn't complete the game, you'd be saying "Well that just proves how terrible it is! They couldn't stand to finish it!"

Who cares if a reviewer finishes Mass Effect 3 or not? The ending does not change what came before. If they enjoyed the entire game until that point, then that's still pretty damn enjoyable. The ending is irrelevent, reviewers shouldn't be including spoilers in their reviews anyway.

If a film reviewer is so disgusted by a movie that they walk out partway, then that's a valid criticism. If a book reviewer is so annoyed by a book that they throw it away after only a few chapters, then that's a valid criticism. If a game reviewer hates a game so much that they eject the disc and snap it in half before they even reach the halfway mark, then that's a valid criticism.

But if a game reviewer likes a game and simply didn't have time to finish it before going to press, oh no, suddenly their entire opinion is invalid.

[megamacka]

I am not saying that ALL reviewers are '' bought ''. But I don't trust IGN for shizzle for example. But there are some opinions that I do trust to be honest, for example Totalhalibut ( his not a reviewer though ) and Angryjoe. I believe them to be honest, that doesn't mean that I will think the same way.

  And quite honestly... Diana Allers.. What the hell Bioware? What the hell....

Modifié par megamacka, 21 septembre 2012 - 02:13 .

[Plaintiff]

DinoSteve wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

Thats some drastically different opinions right there, and why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Yes opinions can differ drastically, funny that. My opinion of DA2 differs drastically from yours. The opinions of a KKK member differ drastically from the opinons of a member of the NAACP. The opinions of a conservative differ drastically from the opinions of a liberal.

Occam's Razor. People have different opinions.

You miss my point, I mean if IGN was correct and DA2 had a near perfect score, then you could except that the popular opinion would be that it was good or ok, not that it was an awful game which is the popular opinion. There is something wrong somewhere when there is such a difference between the reviews of reviewers and the reviews of fans.

There is no "correct". If IGN's reviewer liked the game, then they liked the game.

The opinion being voiced the most isn't necessarily the most popular one. DA2 sold over a million copies. The people who actually care enough to go on the internet and **** about it make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the people who bought and played it.

[Vandicus]

BrotherWarth wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Waiiitt. So you argument is simply that, Chris's statement does not hold true in every specific case.

God I hope you never teach Physics. 

You're attacking Chris's statement, semantically

You're not actually trying to support the concept of industry wide corruption, you're just being pedantic? Why? I mean what's the point of that? You're just going to cause people to be more and more paranoid for no good reason.

If something happens more than once, it is illogical to think it will never happen again. God, I hope you never teach history. Or chemistry. Or geology. Or anything, really.
If I can point out multiple instances(the firing, the dishonest/negligent reviews) of impropriety, why would anyone assume that it won't ever happen again?

Just because something happened once, doesn't mean it will happen a lot, or even frequently. The evidence points to this being a rarity.(*Note this is the second time I use the word rarity, I never claimed the instance was singular)

Again you're attacking Chris's statement semantically. The point of his statement was that

A. no bribery or shenanigans happened with DA2 reviews (there is no conclusive evidence on yours on anyone's part that this occured)
B. Reviewers are typically not delivering reviews based on bribery or financial shenanigans.

Do you disagree with either of these?

If you don't you're just making an argument based on semantics while ignoring the meaning of the words.

If you disagree with A, provide proof in the specific instance of DA2 reviews.

If you disagree with B, attempt to counter my earlier statements that the lack of industry wide corruption is readily apparent.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Plaintiff wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

DinoSteve wrote...

Thats some drastically different opinions right there, and why after about a year reviewers from IGN started to state you know what DA2 was actually kinda ****?

Yes opinions can differ drastically, funny that. My opinion of DA2 differs drastically from yours. The opinions of a KKK member differ drastically from the opinons of a member of the NAACP. The opinions of a conservative differ drastically from the opinions of a liberal.

Occam's Razor. People have different opinions.

You miss my point, I mean if IGN was correct and DA2 had a near perfect score, then you could except that the popular opinion would be that it was good or ok, not that it was an awful game which is the popular opinion. There is something wrong somewhere when there is such a difference between the reviews of reviewers and the reviews of fans.

There is no "correct". If IGN's reviewer liked the game, then they liked the game.

The opinion being voiced the most isn't necessarily the most popular one. DA2 sold over a million copies. The people who actually care enough to go on the internet and **** about it make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the people who bought and played it.

And yet Origins is still out selling Dragon Age 2 and is more expensive. Surely that is not because of people giving out about it on the internet. Hell I'd put money on it that DA2 only sold so much because people thought it was going to be like Origins.

[Vandicus]

DinoSteve wrote...

And yet Origins is still out selling Dragon Age 2 and is more expensive. Surely that is not because of people giving out about it on the internet. Hell I'd put money on it that DA2 only sold so much because people thought it was going to be like Origins.

So people can't like DA2 because more people like DA:O? 

Yep, a lot of DA2 sales were from Origins fans expecting Origins 2, what of it?

High sales numbers doesn't mean a good game nor does it mean people will like the game.

Conversely, relatively lower sales numbers(they're not low, just lower, and it hasn't been out as long) do not mean that a game is bad nor does it mean people will dislike the game.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Vandicus wrote...

BrotherWarth wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Waiiitt. So you argument is simply that, Chris's statement does not hold true in every specific case.

God I hope you never teach Physics. 

You're attacking Chris's statement, semantically

You're not actually trying to support the concept of industry wide corruption, you're just being pedantic? Why? I mean what's the point of that? You're just going to cause people to be more and more paranoid for no good reason.

If something happens more than once, it is illogical to think it will never happen again. God, I hope you never teach history. Or chemistry. Or geology. Or anything, really.
If I can point out multiple instances(the firing, the dishonest/negligent reviews) of impropriety, why would anyone assume that it won't ever happen again?

Just because something happened once, doesn't mean it will happen a lot, or even frequently. The evidence points to this being a rarity.(*Note this is the second time I use the word rarity, I never claimed the instance was singular)

Again you're attacking Chris's statement semantically. The point of his statement was that

A. no bribery or shenanigans happened with DA2 reviews (there is no conclusive evidence on yours on anyone's part that this occured)
B. Reviewers are typically not delivering reviews based on bribery or financial shenanigans.

Do you disagree with either of these?

If you don't you're just making an argument based on semantics while ignoring the meaning of the words.

If you disagree with A, provide proof in the specific instance of DA2 reviews.

If you disagree with B, attempt to counter my earlier statements that the lack of industry wide corruption is readily apparent.

Chris Priestly wrote...

First - All reviews are honest. I know people don't believe this, but mainstream review sites don't get "bought off" to give good (or bad) reviews.

This statement does not only mean DA2, it means it doesn't happen at all, but as we were discussing, it does happen.