The average game review score on Metacritic is currently 72.3. Of all the games listed on the site, the current average score for all of them is just slightly better than 7 out of 10. That’s a solid three and a half stars out of five.
Take a visit to any gaming forum and you’ll likely find a thread moaning about this fact. Some forums have entire threads dedicated to complaints about the terrible state of gaming journalism and the positive bias that makes reviews difficult to take seriously. That hasn’t been helped by the recent furor brought on by the article written by Rab Florence and published by Eurogamer criticizing the state of gaming journalism, which then turned into news when one of the subjects mentioned by name, gaming writer Lauren Wainwright, threatened to sue for defamation after Florence quoted her tweets verbatim. Eurogamer relented due to the UK’s bewildering libel laws, but the story shed a light on the ethics of the gaming industry.
Florence’s article argued that the industry and those covering it were too tightly entwined, which led to a natural, if not deliberate bias in both publications and game publishers alike. Publications have little choice but to strike ad deals with the companies they’re meant to criticize. Game publishers try to win over journalists by flying them to exciting events or, if that fails, subtly giving trouble-makers the cold shoulder by refusing to send out early press copies and slapping a lock on previews.
Both practices are worthy of a raised eyebrow, but are they the root of the problem? Or do gamers only have themselves to blame?
Is there an industry conspiracy?
The relationship between publications and publishers is a problem, but it’s not limited to the gaming industry. Almost every form of media that’s frequently reviewed, from movies to music, faces the same issues. Metacritic’s average score for movies is currently a 61.4, the average for TV is a 61.3 and the average for music is 71.6. Positive bias abound – granted, not as much as that found in game reviews, but it is still there.
Another problem with blaming the industry is the review score average of the most popular and influential sites. These sites work most closely with game publishers and rely heavily on their ads, so if industry incest was the problem, we’d expect them to post exceptionally high scores. They don’t. The ten most active game review sites score about 4.5 points lower than the industry-wide average (on a 1-100 scale).
Both of these points make it hard to believe that positive bias in game reviews is the result of an industry conspiracy. So what’s the problem?
It’s the gamers.
Gamers don’t want criticism
This is a thought that has bounced around my head over the past year, and Tom Chick’s review of Halo 4 crystallized it.
Mr. Chick’s blog, Quarter To Three, has a reputation for being critical. This is reflected in its Metacritic average of 62, which is the 9th lowest average score among all publications the site has ever listed. No one was surprised to see him give Halo 4 one star (out of five), which translates to a Metacritic score of 20. In his review he slams the latest entry in Microsoft’s headline franchise for being “ponderous, familiar, and disappointing.”
Gamer response was quick and vicious. Over 1000 comments, the vast majority of them critical, were posted within 24 hours of the review being listed on Metacritic. The flames range from the dramatic, “Your cynicism is only rivaled by your ignorance” to morally outraged, “You are having a very negative impact on the years of effort that went into this game” to dismissive, “Oh look, a meaningless website is giving a meaningless score, trying to be special.”
The punchline? Most of these comments were published late on November 4th or on November 5th. while Halo 4 was not released until November 6th. Mr. Chick was the only person in the conversation who’d actually played the game, not counting the handful of gamers that got a hold of leaked copies.
Quarter To Three did not catch flak from rabid fanboys alone. BigPond GameArena and EGM, which posted respective scores of 55 and 70, also were overrun with gamers bashing their less-than-stellar reviews. The scores on both of these sites are far from the average score of 87. Again, many of the comments were posted before the release of Halo 4. DT’s own freelancer Adam Rosenberg gave the game a very respectable 4.5 out of 5 for G4, which immediately drew the ire of fans, and fairly vicious complaints like “a 4.5? no wonder x-play is going under just give it the dam [sic] 5 out of 5.” Our own review, which scored Halo 4 well at 8.5 out of 10, fared little better.
This is not a trend confined to Halo fans. Mr. Chick received the same hate (at lower volume) over his negative reviews of The Secret World, Max Payne 3, and Journey. Nor is this trend an artifact of Mr. Chick’s writing. Take a look at the comments left on any review that posts a score more than 20 points under the Metacritic average. Vitriol is almost guaranteed.
Confirmation bias
After reading critical reviews – and the response to them – I can’t help but feel that what most gamers really want in a review is confirmation. They want to know that Big Name Title X, the game they’ve looked forwarded to or have already invested hours in, is really all that.
I must admit that I’ve occasionally read reviews of a game after I played it. Why? Because I wanted to read the stories of others who enjoyed the same experience. Or because I wanted to see if anyone else had been critical of a game I hated. In essence, I wanted to see if people agreed with me. And while I rarely leave comments on reviews, I admit that a negative review of a game I love does stoke the flame of fanboy rage inside me.
These reactions are likely a part of human nature, but that doesn’t mean knee-jerk anger should be unleashed the moment it’s felt. Serious conversation requires serious restraint. That’s a trait many gamers seem to lack.
The bias gamers have towards confirmation sends a clear message. Publish a consensus review or shut up. Journalistic integrity is great in theory, but why should publications be expected to pursue it if their readers are consistently, vocally against any review that does not fall in line? It’s easy to talk about honesty and integrity when you’re not the journalist whose reputation is being attacked. It’s harder to believe in these ideals when gamers attack you for practicing them.
Like many of gaming’s large problems – including sexism, racism, and sequel-itus – the blame for positive bias can be aimed at the community just as easily as the industry. Gamers have no reward for honest critics. So why are we surprised that they’re so few?
If I buy a game after reading a review that hypes the game to the skies, and it is not great – I am pissed off. I like the little blurb on the Gamespot reviews that notes up top “The good” and “The Bad”. I feel that is honest. But if you pay $60 or more for a games these days it should be great, honed and not buggy. I have bought several games this year and all have fallen way short of games from previous years like the industry has gotten together and agreed that giving people bang for their buck was giving too much. The games this year are unimaginative, repetitive and most are buggy as hell. Yet the critics raved . . .
I don’t really care about reviews. As it is just a persons opinion. Most of the time, they are wrong. And they are wrong because their expectation level is too high. But as Robert said below me, COD:BO was a horrible game that got overwhelming positive reviews. It really was one of my top 5 worst fps’s of all time. Yet critics loved it, for some reason. Branching from the gaming industry, critics usually give great movies poor reviews. A movie that the public finds as 4-5 stars would get a 2-3 star review. So I don’t even bother. I just watch video’s and play demos.
JOURNEY has a video game again!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!!??!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!??!?!?!
I think one of the key problems with reviews is that they are not often done by people with the same taste as you. Sure there can be some overlap, but in reality, a review is just an opinion, someone else’s.
If you want to read reviews, you should find a reviewer you like, and follow them. If they tend to like the same kind of games you like, there is a good chance you may agree with them.
If you just want to read a review for a game, before passing judgement, read the same reviewers other reviews of games you have played yourself. See how they match up, you may find a new reviewer you can follow, or you can see that their expectations for one aspect or another are either too high or too low.
There are so many people reviewing games now, and if you are that worried about a game you want to buy, but are on the fence about, read more than one review. Everyone is going to focus on something different, but certain issues tend to pop up in every review.
I have an issue with the overly positive review. Call of Duty: Black Ops was a well-reviewed game and yet after playing it for only a couple of hours, I quit. It was dull, tedious, and overly tough at times. I finally lost the motivation to click the Play button in Steam.
The Old Republic is another example. It was mostly well-reviewed, but I don’t think anyone address my problems with the game. Being an MMO, it has to use a sort of “carrot on a stick” concept, always giving you something to work towards.
Sadly, the game gives you way too much far too soon. I did not like how before I had reached level 10 I already had a lightsaber and was flinging lightning. I had really hoped the game would make you wait, at least until level 40, before making you a full Jedi (or whatever class you picked). Make us work for the good stuff, make us be patient, so it feels special when it happens. Also, that would have been a good way to keep subscribers playing for many months, maybe even years.
I wanted parts of that game to be like Star Wars Galaxies, where you would have to spend months working on one quest. I wanted accomplishments to feel like something that was earned, and not just handed to me. I wanted to feel like I was living in that world with other people instead of just flying through story areas.
After two months of fairly casual playing, I had hit max level and was basically done with the game. And I saw it coming the moment I got my first lightsaber. But why didn’t reviewers address that?
I am always amazed at the support or lack thereof for things people have not experienced. It is amusing , but at the same time they really do big disservice to those of us who are trying to figure out if some product has value enough for us to invest in. I don’t care if Fanboys comment , but they should at least preface it with a disclaimer. Here they can steal this one ” I am commenting from a position of ignorance “
The dbags who want confirmation rather than honesty can go screw off, because REAL gamers want the raw deal.
Unless you’re deliberately misusing “Confirmation bias”, you might want to take a look at what it really means.
With the price of games these days and the number of utter duds being released, I truly DO want unbiased reviews of games, as I tend to read reviews BEFORE I purchase a game.
If I read several bad reviews of a game, no matter how much I was looking forward to that game, I’ll give it a pass and wait for something better.
Richard…c’mon. I mean not only did you read this, but you responded.
I’m afraid you’ll have to make a better argument as far as “having a life” sir.
A big part of the problem with when reviewers already establish that they dislike the particular genre of the game, yet still review it.
They then point out all the things they hate about the game – gameplay elements and mechanics which are common to all the games within that genre. It’s a disservice to the game to even have the review in existence at all.
The rage comes from how all too many reviews sound all the same. The cliches, the well-worn sameness of “doesn’t add anything new to the genre”, “good, but not great”, “solid, worth a look” which are not useful nor meaningful to the reader.
I like to know HOW a game plays but info on story or graphics aren’t a big issue. If I want to kill zombies, I’ll play that type of game, story related or a dungeon crawler, I’ll play those on any given evening. But, if the controls are crap or it’s a bad PC push from a console, that I want to know about.
Speaking of that very thing, I read a review of Assassin’s Creed 3 on Kotaku that basically said it was a wonky mess in many respects. the criticisms of AC3 reflected EXACTLY my feeling about the first game. I haven’t wanted to play an Assassin’s Creed game since. That review confirmed my bias. That bias can go both ways, I guess. but, by & large gamers want glowing reviews of every game. They forget the most important aspect of being a games “critic”.
You should really give it a chance. I’ve only played 1,2 and 3. 3 is by far the best one yet.
Yeah? I was so frustrated by the wonkyness of the first one, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. I downloaded AC1 & 2 over the summer to give myself a chance to get caught up by the time AC3 came out. In the article ALL of the issues I have with AC1 this guy has with AC3. After reading that I just don’t think I can put myself through that frustration again. It’s one thing if a game is hard because of strategy etc. but another if it’s hard because the controls are laggy, inaccurate, or when certain aspects of game play don’t always work.
i tend to be very critical ease of play relative graphics, if it is nothing but a boriing hack and slay i say so, i like problem solving. Things i like though i admit are not main stream and what i like is not a sales point so my options are very very limited. These companies only care how much they can sell off a pretty look. Everything else is secondary and is reflected by very high staff turnovers of all the game makers. Not a single one of those showing is in the least appealing or worth a second look for minds like mine. Companies have proved that they are only interested in profits and odd non mainstream people are out of luck so best we can do is just this. We give them grief and they hide from us while counting their money profits. Admittedly, being aspie, i live for raw facts, not others opinions
I like to play critically acclaimed games, but if I enjoy a game with a 3/5 review, I’m not going to express outrage at the review. I will just feel like I have a different taste in games than the critic.
I DO CARE, I PLAY GAMES, I HAVE A LIFE!!!
Almost everyone simply wants their beliefs to be confirmed by others.
Fanfolk are always going to defend their turf like they’re engaged in some super-nerdy gang war. The real problem with that is when stupidity gets processed into the mix as well. I don’t think this is true of even a majority of the audience, but the vocal minority of asshole commenters tend to be pretty dumb and close-minded in my experience. I hate to talk down about anyone in the audience that I write for, but I also don’t write for the sort of person who would make snap judgments and say awful things to people out of some misplaced desire to “protect” a geeky interest.
Ryan Fleming showed me your Halo 4 review on G4. I couldn’t believe the comments some of the readers were posting on there.
It’s shameful behavior, but it’s really nothing new. I’ve been writing professionally about games since 2006, and no matter where I go, the universal truth remains: haters gonna hate.
Matt, I think the problem you are describing is most apparent in gaming, but I have definitely seen this a lot across other product categories, most specifically cell phones. Write a bad review about an Apple product and you don’t know what you are talking about, write a good review on an Apple product and you are a fanboy. Rinse and repeat for other cell phones out there.
People will always defend their purchasing decision, after all they spent hard earned money on it. What’s unique to video games is that people will defend a game BEFORE they have purchased it. And I think this is relatively new too. I don’t remember people being so vocal like this 3-5 years ago. Not sure if it’s a trend or not.
Personally I love reviews that are harsh and not so neutral from a respected journalist. User reviews are just as important though too.
I agree, the same trend is found in a lot of products, but I think it’s particularly pronounced in the game industry. I’ve received negative comments on lackluster reviews, sure. But the volume is lower and the comment quality is usually higher.
Yup, totally agree.