by Ravi Sinha
If you’re an Xbox 360 fan, you must have been flummoxed to discover Gears of Wars 2 rated a measly 6.1 in reader scores on Metacritic. If you’re a PS3 fan, you may have been equally bamboozled to discover LittleBigPlanet rated a wimpy 6.2 in reader scores on the same site. If you’re a Wii gamer, you…may be totally bored out of your skull waiting for the next big opus. Anyway, as the recent shake-up in user reviews has taught us, the majority of reader reviews can’t be trusted.
Nowadays, many game journalists are coerced into giving average games high scores. They may also be instructed not to rap a game on the knuckles too much (if at all) with the proverbial wooden ruler of reason. This is where user reviewers excel: They can cut through the hoo-ha and tell it like it is, being under no corporate influence to do the opposite. Epic can you tell how awesome the Horde mode is in Gears 2, but it’s the players who can tell you why fighting for your life against endless waves of Locust is awesome.
Unfortunately, most reviewers are anonymous and inexperienced. They have no set of credentials to adhere to, and aren’t tied to any journalistic ethical objectivity. So, while nothing is stopping them from telling the truth, there is similarly nothing to keep them from stretching it. Or blasting it into oblivion completely.
The quality of a user review also depends on the reviewer’s competence. Did they pop Gears of War 2 into their 360 or feed it to the dog? Were they following instructions on playing LittleBigPlanet or were they reading a recipe for it? Are they fans of the game’s genre? Have they sufficiently reviewed the game, both online and offline? Do they even have network connections? Did they play the game at home, over a period of 50-60 hours or at their friend’s place for 20 minutes? The anonymity isn’t helping.
Looking across the Net, most user reviews often fall into three patterns:
(a) The positives are highlighted in ways disproportional to the negatives, and vice versa.
(b) The user states a personal grudge against the company and/or it’s game as the source of its credibility. e.g. On LBP, one Metacritic user review goes, “I can’t believe that Sony would pull this from the shelves due to a single religious reference in a song that was written by someone of that religion. I’m giving this a 0 vote to boycott Sony’s absurdly insensitive view of reality.”
(c) The fanboy review, where the user simply says the game and its system are useless and that you should buy [insert rival system + current hyped game] instead.
Most reviews subscribing to a single view-point may appear to be from users across different streams. Often, they consist of an individual conversing with himself on the Net when the fish stop talking to him at home.
You could argue that no one just creates five user accounts in a day, pans or praises a title they loathe or love with innumerable comments and escapes notice. And you’d be right. However, never ignore the fanboys whose love for one platform is only outweighed by their hatred for the other. Similarly, never ignore developers crafty enough to sneak in a few good words for their title, incognito (I’m looking at you, Agni).
Fake reviews are liable to real policing. If sites like Metacritic can’t properly filter out the biased reviews, they could take recourse in legal action. And this would land many a user in pretty hot water.
For now, the only thing one can do is remain vigilant of what’s fair. User reviews can’t be done away with completely, but you can at least avoid being tricked by them. Make sure to check at least four different sites, if you wish to go by what the people are saying. Consider the source: be wary of user reviews for a product on it’s company’s site, as some of the nicer ones are undoubtedly planted. Amazon and eBay require users to provide detailed information about themselves and also tracks their reviewing histories. Finding credible reviewers becomes much easier.
Finally, make sure you consult some reliable professional reviews as well to find out if the game suits you and how well. The day may come where juvenile fanboys and desperate developers get a clue, but until then, remain skeptical.
3 Responses to “Why you can’t trust User reviews”
This is one of the worst articles I’ve read on the net. Your article could have literally been this:
“Why you can’t trust user reviews - You can’t trust user reviews due to the fact that they are done by a user (not a journalist), and could be biased.” END ARTICLE FOREVER.
You fail. Please try again at something that doesn’t need to be discussed.
Can somebody tell me why Reviewers nowadays cannot rate a good game 10/10!??? They seem to be taking this generation gaming for granted.
I look at one of the best games that came out years ago and were rated 10/10: Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Soul Calibur etc. As you can tell why these games were rated 10/10 was because of the graphics ahead of time, gameplay and re playability.
Now in the 6th and 7th gen, nearly perfected good games only get a 9/10 or if you call it 9.5/10 (9.8). What is the point? why can’t they be rated a 10/10? I never played Ocarina of Time during the era it came out, I later played it on the Game Cube just 2/3 years ago. I never found it too interesting because I had seen better things. I played Ninja Gaiden Black, a near flawness game! Gamers who played Ninja Gaiden complained about the difficulty and camera, now with Black released, those issues were fixed and even adding extra contents. So why does it still get a 9.5/10!???
Recently played Gears of War 2, I never enjoyed GOW 1 online and storyline was too short. After playing this, GOW 2 fixed all the problematic issues, not only fixing it, but making it 10x better! Better graphics, better gameplay, better game types, better campaign and better multiplayer. So why does this get a 9/10???
It’s like these reviewers can’t get enough of something, judge a game too much or complain over little issues.
Don’t trust gaming site reviews, they are all biased and fanbased! If you want a site with gaming reviews, look for the ones that judge a game by its good (pros) and bad (cons). GameTrailers is one of them. IGN is out of the list!
Better yet, play a game yourself and judge it yourself.
To the above posted,
Your a douche, obviously its not that simple. The writer of this article clearly states why he believes that user generated reviews are problematic and why they should be taken with a grain of salt. Your comment on the otherhand simply elevates his point by showing that you are in fact the type of person he’s talking about.
You fail, Please try again at something that doesn’t require any form of intelligence.
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