@mogan:Would you make the same excuse for whoever moderated this post on GameFAQs? Feelings are now more important than facts.
Moderators are now banning accounts for posting facts. That's how farcical this whole situation has become. And now that Square-Enix has the gall to charge another 40 dollars for a RE-PORT of DQ XI, with worse graphics, you guys are STILL wondering why review bombing is so popular?
@mogan: See, your logic doesn't add up. You can't fall back on the "can't post without insulting, so it gets deleted" excuse when YOU'RE the ones who hold absolute control over the criteria pertaining to "toxic" posts. Like Twitter having to resort to their "algorithm" defense when they have to speak in front of Congress over their egregious bias against conservative users.
Side note: Journos gave never-ending 10/10 scores to TLoU 2, but GameSpot accused Ghost of Tsushima of being "too maudlin." LOL, the double standards are insane.
@Richardthe3rd: If you are in the entertainment industry, filled with award shows, flair, celebrity VAs, multi-million dollar marketing,lucrative e sports, and make more money than Hollywood...you will be, by your very nature, ALWAYS be exposed to anger and backlash or trolls. If you're in the business to please and entertain, you have to accept all the nonsense that comes with it, even if some criticism may not be legitimate.
Going by your standards, ANY AND ALL criticism should be removed. Developers need to be protected in their safe spaces. They should all win a gold star for releasing games, even if the games are crappy and filled with bugs. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE TROLLS in this line of business. What you're doing is cutting off the arm to save the hand.
@WarGreymon77: This stuff doesn't just happen to companies by some random chance. They have to do something crappy to begin with. Example, a bait and switch as was done with the PC version of Shenmue 3.
@blindbsnake: developers are not infallible. When they screw up development, they should rightly be called out on it. They are not entitled to endless heaps of praises or tons of money for simply putting a game out there. That is not how a business works in a capitalist economy.
@mogan: Guess why companies like Bioware and others outright removed their official forums from the face of existence? They moved to places like Twitter so as to avoid criticism, looking at criticism, or getting any sort of backlash that they can't outright delete, block, or control to the utmost. Many "professional" journos can't even review objectively, and most of them are corrupt demagogues first, journalists dead last. So what happens when most gamers realize that journos, developers, and publishers have an agenda, and most of them have moved into restricted places of discourse on the internet like Twitter?
They resort to review bombing, because voting with your wallet has already been proven to not work years upon years ago. The "whales" will always outbid the dissenters with a critical eye. Even IF that weren't the case, do you see any developers or launchers such as Steam batting a single eye when it comes to POSITIVE review bombing? Yes, there is such a thing.
Go on Steam right now, visit a review section for any AAA prolific game that's recently released, and look at all the ONE-WORD reviews that give the game a thumbs up. Somehow, this positive review bombing is supposed to be helpful to customers, but not when it's done for the opposite reason? Proponents of such draconian review policies can't even hold to their own fallacious standards.
"The problem with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."
-Norman Vincent Peale.
Games are a business. Developers and publishers are in the business industry. Imagine if ANY OTHER industry acted so vitriolic to its own consumers, who provide the paychecks to these publishers, who in turn provide paychecks to the developers. When you make a game, you are taking a risk. Same goes for making a film. Same goes for starting up a restaurant business.
If you are this averse to criticism or backlash when you purposefully sabotage your own games, make unfinished, half-assed games, or act like a volatile jerk to your own fans on Twitter, have entire swathes of reviews DELETED FROM METACRITIC (Death Stranding), then you shouldn't be making games. You shouldn't be making games for earnest fans who just want good, quality games that aren't infested with woke proselytizing or terrible mechanics. If you hate the community of fans, you hate video games. Period.
Make no mistake, this new implementation by Metacritic is just to safeguard the corporate masters. By utilizing these tactics, they can guarantee more money from ignorant consumers because they don't know any better. All they'll have to look at is the never ending litany of "10/10, it's the Citizen Kane of games" reviews. You and others like you are contributing to the downfall of free speech, and it is sickening.
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