metascore still not updated...
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Join Date: 2007-10-13 Member: 62622Members
Join Date: 2007-10-13 Member: 62622Members
As you can see <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/natural-selection-2" target="_blank">here</a>, the metascore is still on 79. (could be 81)
As most of you know, GameSpot gave the game at first a score of 60, but than pulled at back <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/natural-selection-2-review-pulled-6399748" target="_blank">http://www.gamespot.com/news/natural-selec...-pulled-6399748</a>
But metacritic has still the score of 60 online, which hurts the sales, so what can we do?
As most of you know, GameSpot gave the game at first a score of 60, but than pulled at back <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/natural-selection-2-review-pulled-6399748" target="_blank">http://www.gamespot.com/news/natural-selec...-pulled-6399748</a>
But metacritic has still the score of 60 online, which hurts the sales, so what can we do?
Comments
And,in all honestly,i think it's good for them to have that kind of policy (even if it's totally unfair in this case)
At least NS got a bit more advertising from all the story being reported around the web
But this is a papercut to their reputation. That sort of damage would take a dismemberment.
Lets be honest, without Steam, metacritic is a minor annoyance, rather than a thing we actually care about.
Gamespot has some fault, but it's unfair for a review aggregator that's so highly regarded to basically arm lock the entire review industry demanding they never make a mistake, and never publish a review they have to recall for any reason.
Lets be honest, without Steam, metacritic is a minor annoyance, rather than a thing we actually care about.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. There has been so much outrage about metacritic for years now, I don't see why its on steam. Its got a mystery averaging system thats not actually an average, bad policies and excessive power.
We don't like the score, so let's remove it xD .
And they won't change it because of policy and as a protection against pressure on reviewers to increase or re-release "bad" scores. I see their side, and even though it sucks, they do have a point.
They've done all they will ever do.
What Metacritic SHOULD do is not remove the old score, but also add the new score. It's a different review by a different person.
We don't like the score, so let's remove it xD .
And they won't change it because of policy and as a protection against pressure on reviewers to increase or re-release "bad" scores. I see their side, and even though it sucks, they do have a point.
They've done all they will ever do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's one thing to not like a score. It's another thing entirely to knowingly publish a rescinded an inaccurate review. They claim they are "protecting critics" but Eric Neigher has been utterly effed in the eh over this whole situation. It's entirely likely he's been fired forever from GameSpot, and it's all Metacritic's fault. Good job protecting the critic there!
IDK though, it isn't a perfect system by far. Reducing a game to a number is always a little stupid, and... what about if the game gets patched and the patch addresses most of the review's complaints? Should games get re-reviewed...?
If they don't include them after requesting that they do, then there's a big problem and the issue can be brought to light even more. At the moment they're cherry-picking what reviews they want in the mix. And one of those reviews is the disputed one with factual errors, which they have also chosen to be weighed more heavily (although I assume this applies to all games with a gamespot review). If their reason not to exclude the disputed review is based on "fairness", then surely it would be fair to have the unincluded reviews as part of the metascore.
Deliberately choosing not to after making the request would send the message that they aren't interested in a fair review/score system at all, going as far as refusing to include factual reviews and weighing more heavily & refusing to exclude non-factual reviews with a score that even the reviewer admitted was too low and apologized for.
If we pressure for more reviews to be included, either they accept and UWE gets more reviews to average out the reviews better and hopefully get over 80, or they don't accept and get more negative press regarding this.
Since when is that a bad score?
I've never used reviews or review aggregators for my game purchases as I find what my friends play, gameplay videos, and steam sales much better indicators of games I'll actually enjoy playing.
<!--quoteo(post=2033769:date=Nov 24 2012, 01:49 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Nov 24 2012, 01:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033769"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'd suggest an email campaign to valve requesting the metacritic score be removed from from the NS2 steam entry, and asking valve to use a more reliable aggregator as their numerical ratings system displayed to users.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I'll second this. The less influence metacritic or any other review aggregator has on the gaming industry the better it will be.
Since when is that a bad score?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2034194:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:51 AM:name=Babaganoush)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Babaganoush @ Nov 25 2012, 06:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034194"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->While the refusal to replace the GS score sucks, 79 is a pretty good score for a game at this state.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2034350:date=Nov 25 2012, 01:11 PM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Nov 25 2012, 01:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034350"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Does anyone with a brain give a damn about metacritic?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nobody with a brain cares about the metacritic score, really. I.e. it doesn't give the players or devs any sense of validation or satisfaction that it acheived a good score. 79 isn't necessarily a bad score either.
However, metacritic score does effect UWE business deals, and future employment prospects for UWE devs. There's stories floating round of devs not getting bonuses from publishers for not recieving a high enough metacritic score (part of requirements in contract), and game development positions at companies being advertised with the requirement that the person has worked on a game that has recieved a metacritic score of x or higher. I'm sure there are other things that it can effect as well. Getting past 80 isn't some arbitrary number where we can all feel good NS2 got a good score, but a threshhold to get past that has significant effects on UWE's business, aswell as the devs futures in the game development industry.
And the irony was lost on all of you.
The score should stay. Why is that score 'bad', but it's okay to troll the User Reviews with 10/10 scores like everyone on these forums did? Usually it's nice because there's idiots making 0/10 reviews which counteract the fanboy 10/10 reviews and that generally leaves all the real reviews to present an accurate picture of the game, but NS2 isn't popular enough to attract those scores.
So if you can argue that the 6/10 is "unfair", then I would say the same thing for that laughably inflated and completely disingenuous user review score, which is currently sitting at an... 'optimistic' 9.3. <i>Half-Life 2 commands a user score of 9.<u>2</u></i>.Even better, look at the 'did you find this review helpful' scores. You all circle-jerked each others 10/10s and dumped on anything lower, even if it was a valid review. Do you realize how pathetic that makes this community look?
If anything that 6/10 score is perfect because it balances out the reviews that praised the game unfairly - because 7.9/10 is about what this game deserves. I enjoy that you're all more concerned that UWE might be hurt by the low score, rather than about why the game got that score in the first place.
Let's look at this:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
So one guy smashes the 10/10 fanboy button and then says <b>absolutely nothing useful</b>. The other guy gave NOT a 10/10 (which gives him much more credibility) and explains why he gave it that score. And look at what you people chose as 'more helpful review'. The useless 10/10 one gets 100% of support, the review that actually explains the low marks for the game got 90% of you angry enough to say 'no' to it.
Seriously. El Oh El.
And the irony was lost on all of you.
The score should stay. Why is that score 'bad', but it's okay to troll the User Reviews with 10/10 scores like everyone on these forums did? Usually it's nice because there's idiots making 0/10 reviews which counteract the fanboy 10/10 reviews and that generally leaves all the real reviews to present an accurate picture of the game, but NS2 isn't popular enough to attract those scores.
So if you can argue that the 6/10 is "unfair", then I would say the same thing for that laughably inflated and completely disingenuous user review score, which is currently sitting at an... 'optimistic' 9.3.
If anything that 6/10 score is perfect because it balances out the reviews that praised the game unfairly - because 7.9/10 is about what this game deserves. I enjoy that you're all more concerned that UWE might be hurt by the low score, rather than about why the game got that score in the first place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A 6/10 score in a well-written review that that shows that the reviewers played and seriously considered the pros and cons of the game is fine
A 6/10 score in a factually-incorrect and poorly-written review that calls into question whether the reviewers played more than a few minutes of the game is not.
The last reason is why the review got pulled by Gamespot and the reviewer apologized. The fact that Metacritic doesn't do the same shows how poor their process really is.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A 6/10 score in a well-written review that that shows that the reviewers played and seriously considered the pros and cons of the game is fine<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then explain this, please:
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png</a>
Pay special attention to the content of the reviews, and the "did you find this review helpful" ratings. The first guy plays for 3 hours, then writes a bunch of garbage that has nothing to do with the game. The community decides that's a fair, useful review. The second guy slams the game and gives many good reasons why. The community slams him.
Most of the user reviews on there can be directly traced to forum accounts here, so it's quite obvious you people actually don't care at all about a fair review, you're just upset to hear people say that the game you've somehow decided was the most flawless masterpiece in the world actually isn't.
Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. Do you honestly think that the high review scores were given after playing the game for a few days? If that were true, I honestly doubt they'd have given the game as high a score that they did, because the flaws the game become painfully obvious the longer you play.
I buy games from what "people" say about them. This isn't to say it isn't important, cause I'm sure people do. Just asking who actually goes off them.
I mean they gave call of duty WAW a 83 for pc. That was probably the worst game I ever played...tried to play.
NS2 isn't big enough to have attracted the troll 0/10s, so the user review score is full of forum members who tried to artificially boost the apparent quality of the game by spamming 10/10 scores, without actually ever writing a proper review.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I mean they gave call of duty WAW a 83 for pc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
83 is an abysmal average based on 36 reviews. That means there's a lot of reviews that tore the game apart.
The user score is 7.1, which probably matches more with what you got out of the game, does it not? Which is why I usually go by the user score.
Then I watch gameplay vids to see if it's decent. In the case of NS2 I just thought it was long awaited for so I ordered it during alpha. I rarely do preorders since I'm so skeptical about current games. Only ones I've done recently are Dark Souls and Star Citizen.
Then explain this, please:
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png</a>
Pay special attention to the content of the reviews, and the "did you find this review helpful" ratings. The first guy plays for 3 hours, then writes a bunch of garbage that has nothing to do with the game. The community decides that's a fair, useful review. The second guy slams the game and gives many good reasons why. The community slams him.
Most of the user reviews on there can be directly traced to forum accounts here, so it's quite obvious you people actually don't care at all about a fair review, you're just upset to hear people say that the game you've somehow decided was the most flawless masterpiece in the world actually isn't.
Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. Do you honestly think that the high review scores were given after playing the game for a few days? If that were true, I honestly doubt they'd have given the game as high a score that they did, because the flaws the game become painfully obvious the longer you play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are user reviews, not critic reviews...
It's unfortunate that that particular review got slammed, although that's the only fair review that did. 6/10 is a pretty low score, but the reviewer gave decent enough reasons and was relatively positive nonetheless. It's good to have a few reviews like that to balance it out.
There are 108 user reviews however, and only 13 critic reviews. They place more weighting on the gamespot review and less on the other reviews too. Unlike your example review, this review is full of factual inaccuracies (saying it was just the 'creep' thing is an understatement), and was obvious the reviewer didn't really give the game the time of day. Not only that, but the reviewer apologized and admitted the score was too low. This score has a higher weighting, with only 12 other reviews to balance it out. Whereas there may have been a few bum reviews, some unfair too (and one fair one), in the user reviews... but there's 108 of them. And it doesn't matter anyway because it's doubtful that the user score even has much an effect on UWE business, whereas the critic score certainly does.
The policy not to pull the review can't be changed. But they could at least include more reviews to balance out the more heavily weighted, inaccurate review. Other titles might suffer the same consequence of getting a bum review or two (or three or four or five), but for an indie game company, there are far less reviews so it has much more of an effect to get one bad one.
Then I watch gameplay vids to see if it's decent. In the case of NS2 I just thought it was long awaited for so I ordered it during alpha. I rarely do preorders since I'm so skeptical about current games. Only ones I've done recently are Dark Souls and Star Citizen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You might not do your purchasing based on a number, but publishers write (or don't) cheques to development companies based off a number. Game companies employ (or don't employ) developers based off a number.
Whether you or anybody else purchase games based off a number, in the cruel corporate world of video games, game companies think that you do. And this effects UWE's business dealings a lot, and I'm sure we'd all like to see it thrive.
Whether you or anybody else purchase games based off a number, in the cruel corporate world of video games, game companies think that you do. And this effects UWE's business dealings a lot, and I'm sure we'd all like to see it thrive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They don't deserve to thrive because of unfair reviews, and that goes for the positive ones. If they wanted better scores, they should've made a better game, rather than expect the community to dogpile and slam on everyone who says anything bad about the game, which is exactly what happens in this forum more often than not.
Also I don't know why you keep saying '108 user reviews' like that gives the score any credibility. You can find most of those user names as being the same as forum accounts here. It's quite obvious based on the scores and the content of the review that, because this forum put so much focus on the metacritic page, that the forum community decided to "fix" the review scores by giving it a user review score better than even Half-Life 2.
This isn't a new phenomenon. If a developer does something shady that the internet collective doesn't like, it's common for a site like Reddit to have its members review-bomb their latest game as vengeance. In this case, the opposite happened... doesn't change the fact that it's the community who trashed the game's scores by over-inflating the perceived quality of the game.
I simply pointed out the two front page reviews - one a 10/10 with garbage content and one a 6/10 with actual content and the associated 'does this help you' scores as proof that those user reviews are just this community being fanboys and giving the game scores it doesn't deserve.
The fact that that same community is upset about a LOW score that they feel it doesn't deserve <i>while at the same time giving it high scores it also doesn't deserve</i> is just... totally ironic. Which is why I find this whole thing quite funny.
There's a <i>The Content Patch</i> video discussing about it too: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF6YPgVwTyg&feature=plcp" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF6YPgVwTyg&feature=plcp</a>
Exactly what reason? A pretty solid argument could be made that the 6/10 review was exactly what was needed to put the NS2 composite score exactly where it should've been in the first place. Unless you seriously believe this game is 10/10 perfection, in which case you probably already made up your mind that the game was perfect before you even played it.
I just don't like taking other peoples word about something because they might give it more or less credit than it deserves. I'd rather see it for my self because i'm the one who is playing it and my opinion might differ from theirs. I don't think the score should be anything. If you think this game is 6/10 that's fine. If I think it's perfect (Which I do not) that's fine too. <u>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.</u>