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[Cube1701]

Regardless of who is right or wrong, Joe is an entertainer - something he has stated many times in his videos - and is representing nobody but himself. How he acts on Twitter is really up to himself. He didn't react to it particularly well, but it's only his own reputation at stake.

Dan, on the other hand, is a professional journalist representing a multinational company. His Twitter profile says "IGN's Reviews Editor", his profile links to ign.com and his profile on IGN links to his Twitter account. He really shouldn't be acting in this way on Twitter - not on that profile, at least (he would be free to create a profile not mentioning who he works for and do what he wants there).

This doesn't apply to just games journalists either. If someone has a prominent role at a company and their Twitter profile is linked to said company, they really need to take care about what they say.

 

[wildfire]

Its says almost rather than is... How does that not make sense? I swear, the IGN haters take everything and try to turn it into a horrible thing regardless of how legitimate it is.

Ok now you are just coming off as ridiculous nanny. Stop harping on this angle about review score. You were better off sticking it to Joe on his professionalism. Do you really want to Dan Stapleton yourself?

 

[figadapaura]

Is that.....Times New Roman?

The real crime here.

 

[GDJustin]

Why not just give the score a 6 and say its ok but not great, and here is why..... Then explain in the review why it's not a 7 or a 5 or whatever number. Your current system makes it more convoluted then it needs to be.

That's literally what the written review does

A score is shorthand.

 

[Chaos17]

For different departments. You do realize that they can have different standards, right?

Are you a real journalism ?
Which company do you work for ?
Sorry for being curious but it seems you know what you're talking about unless you're just a normal guy like us ? Then how could know you their standards?

Regardless of who is right or wrong, Joe is an entertainer - something he has stated many times in his videos - and is representing nobody but himself.

This

 

[unbias]

Its says almost rather than is... How does that not make sense? I swear, the IGN haters take everything and try to turn it into a horrible thing regardless of how legitimate it is.

Because it isnt quantifiable. An 8.9, if there is no math behind it you cant quantify that .1 person difference other then "it isnt as great". That .1 difference doesn't make snese in regards to the quality, because there is no objective perspective for the consumer to understand the difference. It isnt a legitimate scoring system, it isn't helpful to the reader. The difference between a 8.5 a 8.6 and a 8.4 isnt an indicator of one being better then the other, there is no way without a mathimatical qualification to achieve these differences. It literally is a emotional(gut check)number that serves no purpose, since it's relative to the reviewer. If the reviewer was literally IGN(the robot known as IGN) that scoring system would make some sense, because there would be a consistency across the board, problem is IGN doesn't write reviews, people do.

 

[GDJustin]

Please propose a new system, because while that makes sense in a vacuum, you are using subjective terms to place an objective value on it. What is the technical separation point between "great" and "amazing?" Can you explain that to me to the tenth degree?

All reviews are 100% subjective. Including scores.

 

[sonto340]

What's the point of being a ten point scale with decimals.
Its just a 100 point scale at that point.

 

[DocSeuss]

I really don't like defending IGN in this, considering their track record, and especially when Dan's response was so immature, but what Joe did is such a big problem, I have to talk about it. It's not like I want to call him out or anything.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, Joe is an entertainer - something he has stated many times in his videos - and is representing nobody but himself. How he acts on Twitter is really up to himself. He didn't react to it particularly well, but it's only his own reputation at stake.

This is not a valid defense.

If Joe is performing the duties of a journalist, which he is, he has the obligations of a journalist.

 

[wildfire]

I didn't work for IGN years ago. I can't speak for any decisions made then. I can only address how we think about things now. As for audience, IGN had its highest traffic period of all time last fall, during which we operated under a 100-point scale. Is it because of that? No.

But it does mean we have to balance criticism we receive on places like NeoGAF about our review structure against people's actual actions, which had them visiting us more now than any time in IGN's 15-year history.

You shouldn't assume your audience following you because of your decimal system. It is entirely possible they are following you in spite of it. Without polling you can't know for sure.

With polling you can find out what things (if any) that even annoy your customers can be done away with to make them happy and at the same time attract new people.

 

[SegaShack]

Angry Joe comes across as someone who feels like who was wronged as a child and that the world owes him. The other guy shouldn't have continued the argument though and just ended things early on. They both come across as idiots to me. I definitely would have no need to constantly defend myself against someone who is going crazy over nothing.

 

[Billen]

lol. The review scale is so fucked.

The original point of the discussion set aside, this is easily one of the most absurd things I have ever read related to gaming news/reviews.

 

[Chaos17]

If Joe is performing the duties of a journalist, which he is, he has the obligations of a journalist.

Wait what ?
You need a license to be called journalism.
At least France, lol.

 

[VibratingDonkey]

Joe is right to call out IGN on that ridiculous preview, but in the context of the video it does look like the "believe the hype" quote is pulled from the review. Dan being the Reviews Editor, I suppose he took offense to the implication that he'd let through such silly pullquote-bait?

Considering IGN is on screen as Joe starts laying out the "overlooking glaring omissions" critique, I can see how it could be interpreted as being levied against IGN's review. Which would be wrongful as the review does criticize the campaign and particularly the lack of private matches.

The score stuff is just petty semantics.

I definitely think Dan could've handled his grievances in a more professional manner. A petulant twitter feud is rarely the way to go.
Joe could've handled himself better as well for that matter.

their 9.8/10 review score

Ha!

 

[meanspartan]

I learned, quite some time ago, to never trust myself with impressions or previews. Turns out, my initial impressions of a game are almost always super positive, and the nuance comes out a few weeks after I've played the game.

So yeah, taking a quote from a preview vs a review is bad practice, even if the two happen to line up. If you want to criticize something, post the thing you're criticizing, not a picture of something completely unrelated. It lets people draw bad conclusions.

If I write an article explaining that Ford Mustangs are coming to life and murdering kittens, and then post a picture of a Dodge Charger, most people are going to come away with a negative impression of a Dodge Charger, even though the Charger isn't to blame.

I just think it is an incredible cop out to spend weeks (or maybe months) hyping a game, including a hyperbolic preview that makes such over the top statements, and then have the "out" of saying "ya but we gave it an 8.9! A good score but hardly something bought and paid for!"

Fuck off with that bullshit. They'd have a little more ground to argue if it were at least different people writing the preview and review in question, but if I remember right, Ryan McCaffrey wrote both.

 

[unbias]

That's literally what the written review does

A score is shorthand.

But that short hand isnt helpful unless you place numbers at certain spots in the written review showing where the points start and where they end, to achieve the number. Otherwise the minuscule differences between a .4 and a .6 are completely lost.

 

[hengyu]

I watch all of Joe's reviews thank you very much. Normally he does a good job of using relevant information, but this time he's called his own credibility into question. So please don't make assumptions if you don't have facts.

Please tell me you're trolling. Please.

 

[Rickenslacker]

For different departments. You do realize that they can have different standards, right? I know if I were running a review department, it'd be pretty different from the way I ran my features department.

The same person wrote them both for the same outlet. If they have different standards for different departments that's irrelevant to the end reader and if hairs need to be split in order to waive any accountability between that much crossover then something's clearly not working here.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

...okay? Care to elaborate?

Plenty of other people have summed up what my disagreements are in this thread, but a quick summary:

• The .1 argument Dan made was bizarre. Yes, there's a difference, but it's so inconsequential that bringing it up, let alone continuously using it as a major pillar in your argument, was ridiculous. Also, Joe's review actually displayed the 8.9 score.
• The preview Joe quotes was written by the same person, who praised the game in both the preview and review. The quote was used to promote the game. Yes, he probably should have quoted the review and not the preview, but the effect would have been the same, as there plenty of lines in the review that could have been captured to create the same effect.
• Joe did not specifically say that IGN didn't mention the poor single player campaign (which is debatable whether they did or not, looking at the wording they used); he essentially said that many outlets chose to overlook the poor campaign in their coverage.
• About reading other people's reviews, what does it matter? It's your fault as a reviewer if you let those other people's opinions replace your own. Also, there are times when someone else's opinion can shed new light on game that you, as the reviewer, might have been overlooking. This isn't inherently a bad thing.
• Joe comes off as a petulant child, you say, yet Dan's the one publically taunting Joe for IGN's superior following, which is hilarious considering all the resources and connections IGN has compared to Joe.

So, there you go. Not really a "quick" summary, as it turns out.

 

[GDJustin]

You shouldn't assume your audience following you because of your decimal system. It is entirely possible they are following you in spite of it. Without polling you can't know for sure.

With polling you can find out what things (if any) that even annoy your customers can be done away with to make them happy and at the same time attract new people.

We did poll the public and staff before switching back to the 100-point scale

 

[Doombacon]

Hey all -

Not really interested in wading into all of this in any kind of heavy way, but I would like to take a moment to provide a little bit of context around IGN's review scores, since a lot of people seem to have some misconceptions about this being an argument over "1%".

Our philosophy is that review scores aren't math. We rate games according to their number label, not to the number itself. So the first question is "Is this game good? Is it great? Is it amazing? Or maybe just Okay?"

That determines whether a game will be in the 6s, 7s, 8s, etc. From there the decimal places let us refine this opinion. "Is it VERY good?" "Is it a great game that is almost an amazing one?"

If a game is good but not great it'll probably receive around a 7 flat. If it's almost but not quite great it might be a 7.8.

I don't speak for any other critics (or for Dan), but I can tell you that the guideline is not to think about a review in a numerical sense. Instead the number is meant to communicate whether a game is bad/good/great, and the decimal place gives people (who want it) a little more fine-grain detail.

This is why the actual review word is in huge letters at the bottom of the review, right next to the score, by the way. I believe the word used to be smaller, underneath the number. And we got that revised, to give the word more prominence.

This system seems heavily flawed from the outside.

As a laymen who doesn't frequent the site what indication is there other than the intuitive mathematical difference between 8.8, 8.9 and 9 for me? You can say the informed might already be aware of this information but then you are jumping into a minority of a minority. The idea that the scale doesn't progress linearly does not fall in line with other art forms review scores or even the review scores of other gaming outlets.

 

[DocSeuss]

The original point of the discussion set aside, this is easily one of the most absurd things I have ever read related to gaming news/reviews.

How is a site's specific take on a review system absurd?

If I set up a 43-67 review scale, I get to define it. It's not as if IGN has to adhere to anyone else. So there's a category of 8s, and you can have a low 8 or a high 8. Or there's a category of 9s, and you can have a low 9 or a high 9. But the 8s are 8s and the 9s are 9s. It's a weird system, if you go in expecting a linear mathematical progression, sure, but it's not absurd.

Wait what ?
You need a license to be called journalism.
At least France, lol.

Nope. There are some legal discussions going on about this, but it's generally become accepted, as technology has changed, that bloggers and vloggers are journalists. If you get paid for it, as Joe does, then you're definitely a journalist.

 

[unbias]

I really don't like defending IGN in this, considering their track record, and especially when Dan's response was so immature, but what Joe did is such a big problem, I have to talk about it. It's not like I want to call him out or anything.



This is not a valid defense.

If Joe is performing the duties of a journalist, which he is, he has the obligations of a journalist.

That isnt how it works in the world. He is in demand, what he is in demand for is what his obligations should be. What he did didnt hurt the consumers or his fans, at worst what he did is start shit with IGN. The "misrepresentation" was minor at best.

 

[LX_Theo]

Because it isnt quantifiable. An 8.9, if there is no math behind it you cant quantify that .1 person difference other then "it isnt as great". That .1 difference doesn't make snese in regards to the quality, because there is no objective perspective for the consumer to understand the difference. It isnt a legitimate scoring system, it isn't helpful to the reader. The difference between a 8.5 a 8.6 and a 8.4 isnt an indicator of one being better then the other, there is no way without a mathimatical qualification to achieve these differences. It literally is a emotional(gut check)number that serves no purpose, since it's relative to the reviewer. If the reviewer was literally IGN(the robot known as IGN) that scoring system would make some sense, because there would be a consistency across the board, problem is IGN doesn't write reviews, people do.

Oh, goodness. Its literally just a range of numbers that a reviewer picks to represent these opinions. Great, but not quite amazing. Good, but not quite mediocre. They aren't really quantifying it, they are putting it in a range of numbers that the rating system describes where they feel it falls. Where it falls into those 3 or 4 different ranges in each set of 10 numbers (like 80-89) is up to the reviewer, sure. But the point of having the 0.1 scale is to have those various ranges rather than one or two options to choose for representing their opinion. You could probably do the same thing with a 0.25 scale, but its probably just simpler for them to do the 0.1 scale.

So yes, it makes sense. Is it some hard science? No. Does it have its flaws? Yeah. So does every rating system.

Ok now you are just coming off as ridiculous nanny. Stop harping on this angle about review score. You were better off sticking it to Joe on his professionalism. Do you really want to Dan Stapleton yourself?

The internet, where idiots decide that defending someone who few people are defending means way more than that.

I've already stated this is a matter of both sides being childish idiots. So shove off if you're going to be one of the stereotypical internet dwellers.

 

[DyslexicAlucard]

Are you a real journalism ?
Which company do you work for ?
Sorry for being curious but it seems you know what you're talking about unless you're just a normal guy like us ? Then how could know you their standards?


This

He attended school for Journalism, at least; he's mentioned it in his posts.

I am an editor for my local newspaper, though we obviously focus more on community news than video games.

 

[atr0cious]

Um...

First, "hyperbolic" makes the assumption that "believe the hype" is not an accurate statement. The hype at the time was "it's an awesome game worth buying an Xbox One for." Guess what! It was. Titanfall's an utterly amazing game that many believe completely deserves it got.

So you're off to a rocky start there, because you're calling an opinion--that a game lives up to its hype--hyperbolic. Because of this, your entire argument, that Joe is somehow fighting for the uninformed, doesn't hold weight. It's an opinion. An impression of a game. It gets to say things like that. Telling people you disagree isn't an opinion.

The IGN preview and review of Titanfall were written by the same person.

These are hyperbolic claims, especially for a preview and a review, the latter which "crticizes" the main complaint against the game, no single player, by handwaving away it's multiplayer "substitute" in the full game.

And y'know what? Those people he's supposedly protecting? How many of them do you think actually watch his show? I'ma guess none. His target audience isn't those people, it's largely teens and college students who are disgruntled with the way the industry handles game reviews. Always has been.

He's talking to them--the counterculture guys who couldn't possibly accept that Titanfall might actually live up to its height.

This isn't consumer advocacy, this is playing to the crowd.

Who are you talking about? Joe loved Xbox until they fucked up and lied to his face personally, and he still mainly uses their system, but now he's being counter culture? Titanfall is a game that I am still getting emails about in regards to their E3 awards.

For different departments. You do realize that they can have different standards, right? I know if I were running a review department, it'd be pretty different from the way I ran my features department.

Why would anyone have lower standards? Why would you allow that to be a thing in a corporate company? I don't know of any other company does.

I learned, quite some time ago, to never trust myself with impressions or previews. Turns out, my initial impressions of a game are almost always super positive, and the nuance comes out a few weeks after I've played the game.

And once again you are back to talking about yourself which Joe is not worried about. He is directly challenging publishers for the uninformed and those without the power to do it.

So yeah, taking a quote from a preview vs a review is bad practice, even if the two happen to line up. If you want to criticize something, post the thing you're criticizing, not a picture of something completely unrelated. It lets people draw bad conclusions.

If I write an article explaining that Ford Mustangs are coming to life and murdering kittens, and then post a picture of a Dodge Charger, most people are going to come away with a negative impression of a Dodge Charger, even though the Charger isn't to blame.

You and Dan are hinging on a small technicality to conflate and confuse the larger issue. The fact that Dan pulled youtube stats to try to belittle Joe shows his actual mentality behind the whole attack.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Plenty of other people have summed up what my disagreements are in this thread, but a quick summary:

• The .1 argument Dan made was bizarre. Yes, there's a difference, but it's so inconsequential that bringing it up, let alone continuously using it as a major pillar in your argument, was ridiculous. Also, Joe's review actually displayed the 8.9 score.
• The preview Joe quotes was written by the same person, who praised the game in both the preview and review. The quote was used to promote the game. Yes, he probably should have quoted the review and not the preview, but the effect would have been the same, as there plenty of lines in the review that could have been captured to create the same effect.
• Joe did not specifically say that IGN didn't mention the poor single player campaign (which is debatable whether they did or not, looking at the wording they used); he essentially said that many outlets chose to overlook the poor campaign in their coverage.
• About reading other people's reviews, what does it matter? It's your fault as a reviewer if you let those other people's opinions replace your own. Also, there are times when someone else's opinion can shed new light on game that you, as the reviewer, might have been overlooking. This isn't inherently a bad thing.
• Joe comes off as a petulant child, you say, yet Dan's the one publically taunting Joe for IGN's superior following, which is hilarious considering all the resources and connections IGN has compared to Joe.

So, there you go. Not really a "quick" summary, as it turns out.

Basically how I feel. Well said.

 

[GDJustin]

But that short hand isnt helpful unless you place numbers at certain spots in the written review showing where the points start and where they end, to achieve the number. Otherwise the minuscule differences between a .4 and a .6 are completely lost.

Again, review scores aren't math.

Games don't start at a 10 and decimal lose points for things they do wrong. Every game starts neutral and its final score is the reviewer's overall, holistic opinion of that product, considering all of its good and bad and how they combine into a finished product.

The decimals are there if people feel like they want additional context. If that level of detail isn't important to you, you can pay attention to the gigantic verdict: "AWESOME"

 

[Demon Ice]

These are grown adults.


Just let that sink in.

 

[Not]

Why did I read all that

 

[Cube1701]

This is not a valid defense.

If Joe is performing the duties of a journalist, which he is, he has the obligations of a journalist.

I'm not saying it's a valid defence, just that Joe's tweets make Joe look bad, while Dan's make IGN look bad.

Joe made a mistake, but Dan should have contacted Joe directly (and not publicly) clearly explaining the mistake (about the preview/review clarification, not the score part).

 

[E92 M3]

so you would go on twitter and call out your teacher? ok o_0

Oh no, I am just saying that for folks saying how close the two are. In terms of the argument, as I said earlier, Joe was wrong for name calling. The mature one always wins in these types of things.

 

[unbias]

We did poll the public and staff before switching back to the 100-point scale

You guys should really read the book Blink. Never forget New Coke.

 

[Fnord]

IGN earned this reputation.

Arguing over 0.1 is insane.

Having tenths of a point in review scores is insane.

 

[Just_myles]

IGN way off base on this one. Yes, I understand the difference between an 8 and 9 but, an 8.9, to me is a 9.

I wonder why he was being so aggressive towards Joe on this. If I were Joe I would fire back and ask Dan why does IGN score in this manner? I would question that. Using that kind of point system is silly.

 

[LX_Theo]

• Joe comes off as a petulant child, you say, yet Dan's the one publically taunting Joe for IGN's superior following, which is hilarious considering all the resources and connections IGN has compared to Joe.

Which does nothing in stoping Joe from acting like a child himself (them proceeding to make a post on here whining about how unprofessional the guy was in hypocritical fashion).

 

[Sephzilla]

I wonder if whats-his-face from IGN would have given two shits had Joe said 8.8 instead of 9.0

 

[Chaos17]

Which does nothing in stoping Joe from acting like a child himself (them proceeding to make a post on here whining about how unprofessional the guy was in hypocritical fashion).

Oh, so Joe doesn't have to post here on Gaf otherwise he would look whiny guy ? Ok Oo

 

[SegaShack]

These are grown adults.


Just let that sink in.

In all honesty with all the negativity in the gaming community I am not surprised by things like this any more.

 

[blastprocessor]

I just watched Joe's review (which l enjoyed as l love the video effects in his reviews) and yeah he says 9 instead of 8.9. I do think Joe misrepresented in this case (sorry Joe l do like your reviews) so maybe should be more careful in future given how critical he is of the games he reviews...Not a big deal though.

 

[KMS]

All I could thing about reading that was someone needs to create a first world problems post about it some where on the internet.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

These are grown adults.


Just let that sink in.

NeoGAF is also heavily comprised of grown adults.

Now let that sink in.

 

[Billen]

How is a site's specific take on a review system absurd?

If I set up a 43-67 review scale, I get to define it. It's not as if IGN has to adhere to anyone else. So there's a category of 8s, and you can have a low 8 or a high 8. Or there's a category of 9s, and you can have a low 9 or a high 9. But the 8s are 8s and the 9s are 9s. It's a weird system, if you go in expecting a linear mathematical progression, sure, but it's not absurd.



Nope. There are some legal discussions going on about this, but it's generally become accepted, as technology has changed, that bloggers and vloggers are journalists. If you get paid for it, as Joe does, then you're definitely a journalist.

Since numbers are being used their inherent value, and thereby the length one has travel from one value to the next, are being perceived as the basis for difference.

In this case the difference between 8.9 and 9 is being perceived as abysmal by many reading the values. Of course they get to define their scale, but they should be prepared that it is the consumer that assigns the weight to each number.

 

[Art1mus]

IGN just butthurt that they got exposed in falsely hyping this game and overlooking its issues. The Angry Joe review is BY FAR the best review of TF that I have seen.
I think IGN trying to bully Joe is fing pathetic.

 

[Kintaro]

Thinking about it, Joe's final score makes this whole thing even sillier. Why? Both sides call Titanfall a "great game." The only difference is the scoring of what qualifies as a "great game." A 7/10 vs. a 8.9. Kind of makes Joe's scale for a "great game" a bit more leniant than IGNs in a way... lol

 

[d0c_zaius]

Oh no, I am just saying that for folks saying how close the two are. In terms of the argument, as I said earlier, Joe was wrong for name calling. The mature one always wins in these types of things.

yup and that means they both lose, since IGN guy was so intent on throwing the size and clout of their site in his face. odd considering the large following joe has already.

 

[Imbarkus]

This deserves a quote because it is all up in the subtext of this Twitter fight.

 

[LX_Theo]

Oh, so Joe doesn't have to post here on Gaf otherwise he would look whiny guy ? Ok Oo

What did you even try to say there?

Simply put, Joe was just as much as a child as the other guy, and his hypocritical actions didn't help.

 

[Valnen]

i wish they would just both go away such shitty content from both of them.

That's not a cool thing to say about a fellow member of Neogaf.

 

[wildfire]

We did poll the public and staff before switching back to the 100-point scale

That's cool. You should do what serves the interests of your followers even if we are distrustful or perceive it as too subjective.

The internet, where idiots decide that defending someone who few people are defending means way more than that.

I've already stated this is a matter of both sides being childish idiots. So shove off if you're going to be one of the stereotypical internet dwellers.

*golf claps* It's amazing how people who want Joe to act mature resort to name calling when they think they can get away with it. I hate hypocrites.