Do you *trust* mainstream video game journalists?

There's a couple of things I find broken about it. First and foremost is the grading system which is basically just a scale from 8-10.

But the bigger problem is that mainstream sites are just too biased. I don't mean that in a way that they they prefer crappy games and give them too good grades, which they kind of actually do, but the fact that a mainstream site is too dependent on a few things.

First of all, they need ads to make money. Ads that are, logically, gaming related. So if you're going to be too strict to certain games, unlike other sites, you're condemning yourself to losing ads and money. Such was the case where that Gamespot reviewer got fired for giving Kayne & Lynch a bad review right when Gamespot had basically a "buy K&L" skin.

The other problem is that the audience is generally dumb as hell. In other words, they don't want comprehensible, in depth reviews and a critical opinion, they just want their favorite games to score over 9/10 so when you don't do that, you're basically alienating a lot of your audience which leads to less traffic which in turn leads to less ads which in turn leads to less money. Again, same guy who did that K&L review received a lot of flack from fanboys for giving Zelda: Twilight Princess 8.8. Of course he gave good reasons and 8.8 is a really good score, but that wouldn't satisfy the stupid masses who spammed the comments with such great arguments like "GAMESPOT IS CRAP EVERY OTHER SITE GAVE THIS GAME 9.5 IMMA RAGEQUITTIN GAMESPOT FOREVER".

It's a broken and a crappy Oroboros system which makes gaming journalism so immature and untrustworthy it's downright embarrassing.

This is my story.

I used to be a gaming journalist, though I didn't write for any fancy mainstream site. This site I wrote for started as a hobby of us couple enthusiastic teenagers over half a decade ago. Of course we sucked, but as we grew older, our writing became better, and so did our traffic.

The man in charge and also our editor, saw a chance to earn some money so some things took a turn for the worse. Said boss used to tell me I should write articles with a lower reading comprehension level because 13 year olds won't understand everything and thus will feel alienated. We also couldn't give scores that differentiated a lot from Metacritic's average because, I quote, "that's professional". I wanted to give certain very popular mainstream game less than 9/10, which he wasn't happy with, so he edited the score for the sake of "professionalism".

I also wrote an article about a certain popular 2010 game being overrated and why. The editor liked the idea because "controversy" generates traffic, but as he didn't want to alienate his dear 13 year old demographic, he added a footnote at the end of the article saying how this whole article is entirely subjective unlike the objective review which gave the game 95% or something like that.

In other words, he shat on my credibility for the sake of his stupid audience. I understand this from a business perspective and I know he really thinks different, but still, I didn't like the way I was treated. I probably sound butthurt, which I probably am, but whatever.

Worth mentioning, though, is Jim Sterling. While I think he's A BAD reviewer with a (mostly) bad taste in games, I still respect him for writing his own opinion that makes him stand out in the ocean of generic reviews.

Only Edge Magazine.

inb4 but the bias! :roll:

No, I trust my own taste. You can always play the demo or watch the youtube gameplay footage and decide for yourself if you like a game or not.

watch the youtube gameplay footage and decide for yourself if you like a game or not.

nameless12345

Though I dislike the highly curved grading system that works from 7-10 and anything below 6 being almost pure crap, I trust the reviews themselves, not just the numbers.

Honestly, when put up against the developers and publishers (who would have an obvious bias), and people not paid to review games objectively for a living (anyone random Joe on the internet, like you guys), they are the most trustworthy people.

Plus I think they're starting to change. Gamespot is moving down from giving games 9.0's all the time, and some sites like Giant Bomb are less reluctant to dish out a 2 or 3 (out of 5) star score. I know that on metacritic its easy to see the standards and how games are seperated.

Leaning towards no.

Despite a few mishaps I only really only trust Eurogamer and PC gamer.

There a few. A "few" meaning you can count them all on one hand.

Nope, I generally just trust my own opinion.soulitane

How can you trust your opinion about a game you haven't played yet?

[QUOTE="soulitane"]Nope, I generally just trust my own opinion.GD1551

How can you trust your opinion about a game you haven't played yet?

A few, but rarely if ever do I even listen to them. I buy or rent to form my own opinion.

Only the entertaining ones like Destructoid that actually offer an opinion and not some "professional critique." *If* I read a review, I want to know what is in the game and how much the reviewer enjoyed it. Not how much they think it adds to the genre, or compares to other games. I also want to laugh and not have things spoiled (story synopses are entirely unnecessary).foxhound_fox

No. The nature of gaming "journalism" is at odds with integrity. They make their money off the ad revenue of the very games they cover. They are simply not in a position to maintain objectivity.

[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"]Only the entertaining ones like Destructoid that actually offer an opinion and not some "professional critique." *If* I read a review, I want to know what is in the game and how much the reviewer enjoyed it. Not how much they think it adds to the genre, or compares to other games. I also want to laugh and not have things spoiled (story synopses are entirely unnecessary).SW__Troll

Depends on how you define "trust". If you're talking about me trusting a game's review, being that it's a high scoring game, equating that if I play it I will automatically like it, then no. If you're talking about me trusting that a higher score must mean that its more of a possibility of me liking it, then yes. I find that most games that score under a 6 and/or a game that has bad reviews does generally equate a bad game, not all but most. I use reviews to determine if I would like to play the game then I judge the game myself.

the OP was a pretty good summary of why I don't read reviews either. The only thing that is left out is access. Large companies know that their is a lot of hype for a game like CoD so they basically use favorable review scores as payment for exclusive interviews, videos, screenshots etc. Pan MW3 if you will, but all of that exclusive Black Ops 2 info is going to some other gaming website along with all of the hits you would've generated. How do you think gaming mags like Famitsu that is widely believed to have fixed reviews for big game still has such a large readership? They get pretty much all the info from Japanese gaming first. How do they do this? By hyping the crap out of big games and pleasing the publishers.

[QUOTE="SW__Troll"][QUOTE="foxhound_fox"]Only the entertaining ones like Destructoid that actually offer an opinion and not some "professional critique." *If* I read a review, I want to know what is in the game and how much the reviewer enjoyed it. Not how much they think it adds to the genre, or compares to other games. I also want to laugh and not have things spoiled (story synopses are entirely unnecessary).vashkey

Yes and no. I trust them to a degree and it all depends on the media outlet. In the case of Gamespot...I usually trust their judgement on anything that scores an 8.0 or higher but began to dig deeper with games they rate lower than that. They have a history of rating some really great games with really low scores for very dumb and petty reasons (Dante's Inferno and Chaos Legion automatically come to mind). I usually pay more attention to the User scores in these cases since they tend to be more fourth coming.

I also pay closer attention to user scores when it comes to high review scores for major franchises (Final Fantasy, Super Mario, etc) as there may tend to be an automatic bias of associating the household name with a quality product. Final Fantasy XIII, MGS 4, and GTA IV were entirely overrated by Gamespot imo.

Singularly, I almost never trust a reviewer I will take them all with a grain of salt. When it's coming from groups of reviews I tend to believe it more. Metacritic is a good example, since it conglomerates all reviews and lets you see the overall score of a game, usually it's not a bad gauge but it's still not even close to perfect.

IMO, it's time for a revamp of reviewing scores, the core gamers prefers things that are exactly opposite from what the hardcore gamers wants.
However the 'core group' is far bigger then the 'hardcore group'. It's only logical that reviews and games look from the perspective of the most profitable market, which is the 'core group'

( btw Core/casual/noob/newgen, hardcore/experienced/pro/oldgen it's all the same to me)

So more ontopic, No I don't trust them because I know I'm a experienced gamer and I know that the mainstream reviewers have a completely diffirent perception on the qualities that a game should have.

Depends. I don't If it's a game I know I'll like regardless of review - IE: Gears 3, Uncharted 3, Skyrim, Halo

But for games im not sure about buying, but im interested in, I read multiple reviews to try to get a general concensus on the game. Reviews help when you aren't sure about a product. For example, I was thinkng about buying Duke Nukem Forever. If it weren't for reviews I either wouldn't have bought it and wished I would, or I would and would have hated that piece of garbage.

1.) Is that you in that pic?

2.) I have noticed that professional reviews are becoming less and less consistant. So much so that makes me glad I know the market well enough to know what gamesI will like and dislike.

1.) Is that you in that pic?

slimjimbadboy

This is something that I would like to know too

You don't have to "trust" them, but you can learn how to extract valuable information from them in order to make good decisions, and in that sense the mainstream journalists have been great for me.

But since I discovered youtube playthroughs meanwhile many respectable reviewers have left, I barely depend on them anymore. The industry being very predictable lately helps, you know how MW3 and Uncharted 3 will play and that they will be great for those who like them, no need to check out any review to know whether you will enjoy them or not.

No, and you basically explained why. Major video game sites and magazines depend on publishers for a supply of review copies of games, as well as ad revenue for upcoming products. It is blatantly undeniable that there is a conflict of interests here: reviewers are judging products by a party that is also responsible for a considerable part of their cash flow. As such, it is impossible to claim that the mainstream video game media have independence.

This and some other factors have lead to inflation of the grades games get. Anything below 7 is considered not to be worth anyone's time, so publishers put the pressure on the reviewers to give out even higher grades, leading to more inflation. This is a vicious circle that won't end soon, as proven by the fact that, recently, even an 8.5 is considered disappointing for major releases.

What you say about target audience is also true: most game sites and magazines seem to focus on male teenagers as they represent the most dedicated part of the gaming community. This leads to a lot of reviews and articles being awfully shallow, with no attention whatsoever being paid to how the title in question contributes to the series, the genre, gaming as a whole, etc., with the focus being on eye candy and cinematic effects instead.

So no, I don't think that mainstream video game journalism as a whole has any merit. I even hesitate to call it 'journalism' at all.

Absolutely not. Never have and never will. We know nothing about them personally. Everything is set up for commercialism and business on game sites these days and we have no way of knowing if they received gifts for giving favorable reviews.

No, and you basically explained why. Major video game sites and magazines depend on publishers for a supply of review copies of games, as well as ad revenue for upcoming products. It is blatantly undeniable that there is a conflict of interests here: reviewers are judging products by a party that is also responsible for a considerable part of their cash flow. As such, it is impossible to claim that the mainstream video game media have independence.

This and some other factors have lead to inflation of the grades games get. Anything below 7 is considered not to be worth anyone's time, so publishers put the pressure on the reviewers to give out even higher grades, leading to more inflation. This is a vicious circle that won't end soon, as proven by the fact that, recently, even an 8.5 is considered disappointing for major releases.

What you say about target audience is also true: most game sites and magazines seem to focus on male teenagers as they represent the most dedicated part of the gaming community. This leads to a lot of reviews and articles being awfully shallow, with no attention whatsoever being paid to how the title in question contributes to the series, the genre, gaming as a whole, etc., with the focus being on eye candy and cinematic effects instead.

So no, I don't think that mainstream video game journalism as a whole has any merit. I even hesitate to call it 'journalism' at all.

DraugenCP

nah most video journalist are full of bs right now, they are either biased or bought. even in gs, i watch the reviews for the footage, nothing more.

I trusted Gamespots old reviews in which the reviewer would review on the spot. I dont like written (scripted) reviews. Most of the time they are very vague.

No. Opinions are way too skewed in favoritism towards specific platforms, especially when multiplatforming is so prevalent and the experience is in return so similar across different systems. Yes, there is plenty of features to compare and contrast, but in the end, the console exclusive games, are too few to really weight in a significant factor on comparing systems, at least with the PS3 and 360. At this point it's just annoying.

Aw TC you shouldn't have put up with it.
Integrity is most important! How did your boss think to keep things going without integrity? I don't see what value a review(er) has if the reviews are inconsistent? People like reading what they want to read, but reviews are not a form of pure entertainment. They also have to be functional or the viewers will leave in the long run (and how will you feel sleeping at night?).
Sorry but your boss is a sellout.

I've learned not to trust reviews and to go on instincts based on things I've seen or read about it. Sometimes I mess up (Far Cry 2) but the vast majority of the time I get great games that I love.