Although I agree with you very much upon the "stupidization" of culture and knowledge, i still beleive we are talking about videogames. I never said anything about iraq or anything outside the scope of videogames, so while it did strengthen your arguement, do not hold it against me that i related any information of the sort. I can tell you know your stuff, so to speak, so i am not going to argue senslessly.
But I do have one question for you, and as I ask i am not advocating any sort of aggregated oppinion, but asking a simple, albeit loaded, question.
Assuming that the score measures Enjoyment out of a game along with technical proficieny, do YOU not agree with the "final" scores alloted to these games, not considering the process in which they were conceived?
I usually agree with the scores despite their "faulty" means of acquisition. i dont take them as an end-all-be-all, but certainly i find they usually have an idea within my ballpark, after playing and carefully contemplating each game myself. I declared before that the public generally agrees with the scores, no matter how apathetic they may be. Thus, if you do not agree with these scores, you go against public oppinion, which is not a bad thing, it just means that it is obvious these scores were meant to please the public, not intellectuals such as yourself.
So that takes us back to the origional point. We are still dealing with entertainment. I do not have the time or resources to carefully research every single one of my products of entertainment, so someimes if i just want a game to play over the weekend and dont want to go through that process, i can just check gamerankings and see what people liked this week. So i have a game that I assume is probably a safe bet, not 100%, but ost likely, and the world continues to turn. Sure wiki-zation is probably not good for everything, but that doesnt mean it isnt good for anything. People can wiki games and still be culturally literate, questioning and healthy. I understand your frustration, and besides me and maybe a few others, you are not really making a lot of sense to most forum-goers.
GabeRamos
Just glad you get why I'm frustrated... but to answer your question. I don't think anyone here spends $60 on a game on a whim. They have a pretty good idea going in whether or not a game interests them. So for someone to take the extra five minutes to read a review before dropping $60 to me just doesn't seem like that big of a time investment. If someone can't take five minutes to read a review from a reviewer or two that they trust before dropping $60, then they probably have a lot of disposable income and the quality of each game purchase will be less important to them.
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The problem I've had over the decades I've been a gamer has been that the review scores of many games I've absolutely loved have been mixed. Sure, they tend to be in the 7.0 ~ 10.0 range, but that's a pretty big range, and when we start talking about "love / hate" games like Eternal Darkness, Ikaruga, Fallout 2, Deus Ex, and even Starcraft - games that stood the test of time - their review scores at the time weren't particularly indicative.
We have, at the same time, all of these games that really didn't stand the test of time, and I felt were highly overrated even for the era, that have great review scores. When we pull up any old system, sort by review score, and start going through the list, it's amazing how many gems get buried in that "7.0" range for dumb reasons, and how many games get 9.0+ scores for equally dumb reasons.
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I've just felt for quite a long time that the numerical score has failed to do what it's supposed to do. It's not at time saver, because as soon as I see it I want to know why the reviewer gave it that score. And if that's the case, why not just leave the score out entirely? Why not just have the written part explaining the number, since that written part is telling me the information that I'll really be using to make my decision?
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As far as public opinion goes, there is a great deal of research on the part of publishers that indicates review scores boost sales, and that the numerical value given to a game by a reviwer changes public opinion. That is to say, I don't believe the public is agreeing with the reviews, because they play the game and then say "oh, that reviewer was dead on". I feel the general public's opinions are being created by the reviewes, and the reviews are creating the sales, and the consensus of a rather small number of sources tends to become the consensus of the public.
I'm not saying this as though there's any conspiracy here - the media aren't trying to "keep gamers down". Simply that the status quo gets enforced socially. The current reviewer set likes games that are X, Y, and Z - and so those games get the good review scores, thus the good sales, the publisher focus, the advertiser dollars, the high sales, and the public recognition. Meanwhile the games the reviewers are ignoring or critizing do not. Meanwhile, the next generation of reviewer is chosen for meeting the review sites "audience" - which is, interestingly enough, being created and groomed by the review site.
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It's hard to challenge the status quo, and aggregated review scores make it even harder. Not to go back to the Wiki debate, but that's been one of the big changes as it grows, that people are having a harder time making changes to established articles, it becomes slower, tougher, more argumentative, for a radical or new idea to enter the fray. And that seems to me to happen in game journalism.
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It's not a cure-all, but I think moving away from numerical reviews, and instead really putting the written / video review at the forefront would do games more justice. I mean, it's a $60 investment these days - I want something more than two characters seperated by a decimal point to tell me why it's worth (or not worth) my time and money.
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