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[TheSpoiler]

A lot of people are getting cute and naming big league games, but dozens of smaller get patches all the time. Imagine having to go back to each review and revamping it, or even adding a little addendum at the bottom for a change. That's not feasible for any website.

It wouldn't even be fair to focus on bigger titles in the first place, before someone suggests that.

Logistically speaking, no website is gonna do that work, nor should it. The consumer can search around, or the website can post a separate article if the changes are massive enough to warrant it.

 

[Protome]

Critiquing a $60 software based on what it offers is nonsense?

If you release bad content, it deserves to be reflected in your scores. If a dev wants to follow up with patches to fix things and earn goodwill than fine.

Reversing scores after people purchase something will encourage bad industry practices and a lot of games will become more early access products masked as fully finished products. Justified consumer outrage is important for future consumer satisfaction.

You may disagree, but calling it nonsense is ridiculous. I'm amazed people want to give businesses so much leniency and excuses.

Game reviews don't exist to punish companies, they exist to inform consumers. Nobody is saying anything about reversing scores, keeping old scores/reviews for archival purposes isn't mutually exclusive with keeping current customers informed.

A lot of people are getting cute and naming big league games, but dozens of smaller get patches all the time. Imagine having to go back to each review and revamping it, or even adding a little addendum at the bottom for a change. That's not feasible for any website.

It wouldn't even be fair to focus on bigger titles in the first place, before someone suggests that.

Logistically speaking, no website is gonna do that work, nor should it. The consumer can search around, or the website can post a separate article if the changes are massive enough to warrant it.

This is pretty accurate. There's very little money in game reviews as is, nevermind updates.

 

[Iksenpets]

I think updating a score to reflect the game's current state is useful to people looking to buy right now, but there should be a clear record of any changes, to avoid completely whitewashing the state it launched in.

And yeah, no one should really bother unless there are very significant changes. Patching an 8 game to a state where it would have gotten an 8.5 doesn't really matter.

 

[Enduin]

I see no problem with it. Add an addendum to the bottom of the review with any info on changes to the game since release and a revised score based on that.

People fearing this will lead to lazy developers pushing out even more unfinished games is silly as the vast majority of game sales occur in the first few weeks and maybe months of release, usually long before any substantive patches and updates can occur to really alter or improve the game.

 

[ironmang]

Reviews should coincide with what the public buys on Day 1 imo.

Agreed. Also I don't see why reviewers should need to revisit games that they already played and reviewed.

 

[MrS]

Not a fan of changing review scores because of patches. The least a publisher/dev can do is get their shit together for their game launch IMO. Games like Mass Effect: Andromeda that don't have good launches don't get a second chance from me. That may sound harsh or like I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face, but there are plenty of good games out there more deserving of my time and money.

 

[Kart94]

How this dumb idea will work and how it will eventually go.

SF20

Gamewhatreviewer 3/10 "This game is completely utterly broken."

*devs make patches that should have been made in the first place*

Gamereviwer 9/10 "game works like a charm"


SF20 is a success because of this and it encourages Devs to be lazier than they already are just because now everyone knows that they can make sludge and they can get good sales because after alll *they patched or will patch the game* We shouldn't encourage patches and laziness. Alot of games arrive day one broken and in need of patches.. Such an idea will surely encourge others to be just as lazy.

 

[LordKasual]

How this dumb idea will work and how it will eventually go.

SF20

Gamewhatreviewer 3/10 "This game is completely utterly broken."

*devs make patches that should have been made in the first place*

Gamereviwer 9/10 "game works like a charm"


SF20 is a success because of this and it encourages Devs to be lazier than they already are just because now everyone knows that they can make sludge and they can get good sales because after alll *they patched or will patch the game* We shouldn't encourage patches and laziness. Alot of games arrive day one broken and in need of patches.. Such an idea will surely encourge others to be just as lazy.

.

Every bad review score isn't the result of the game being "unfinished" or an attempt to screw early buyers.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I think a good balance is maintaining the original score and adding an amended score.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I'm not a fan of giving companies leeway for releasing an incomplete product. Anything that might pressure them into waiting until their product is actually finished before releasing it is a good thing IMO.

This just seemed somewhat spiteful. Reviews are suppose to inform consumers, not be used to grade devs on their games, like they seem to have been now. If a game has had significant patches and that isn't reflected in reviews they become effectively useless for a potential buyer.

At the least, they should allow addendums/updates to reflect any new content but still make the original score visible. That way reviews still serve their purpose of informing consumers, but devs aren't absolved of the issues in their original release

 

[Chris Ticehurst]

This thread isn't really about review scores, not sure what you meant by this post?

Your own judgement based on what exactly?

One of the best ways of informing yourself about the quality of something is to hear other people's opinions of said thing. Which is what a review is.



Games don't always get improved by updates. What then?

Demos and Trailers gives people a better picture of what games are going to be about. The best "reviewers" are likely to your friends who know the type of games you like.

With reviews, you gotta figure out which reviewers are the better ones, than people get worked up over the final scores. It's gone to the point when scores are more important than what the content of the review is. Those blocks of text people skip when they want the score number out of ten.

 

[CamHostage]

Devs aren't owed review scores. A site reviews a game that comes out when it comes out. Why should they bother to re-review a game every time it gets updated long after people stop caring about it?

Is that what a review is, a punishment/reward mechanism for developers to be judged in front of an audience?

Or is a review not an assessment for readers to understand whether or not they should purchase a product? And if the product they go to the store today and buy is not the product reflected in the review, is that still doing the job of the review?

I get it, there are concerns of abuse of the system or erased history (it's also a promethean task for reviewers to keep up with ever-changing games,,) but the bottom line is that all that matters to your pocketbook is that you get good purchasing advice.

Reviews should coincide with what the public buys on Day 1 imo.

That works great for the public that buys it Day 1. For those who buy it later, though, what good is that for them?

...changing scores can give developers the idea they can release incomplete products...

Oh, don't get antsy about keeping that secret, they already have that idea...

 

[RecRoulette]

If you want to amend the score then just re-review the game.

 

[Gestault]

Continuously revising a backlog of game reviews that may or may not have substantive changes in their post-release patching would be too expensive, if you're paying staff for their time. I think games (usually) deserve the reviews they get when originally written, assuming they try to take into account the style of game and the likelihood of impending content updates during that window. Like if a game has a soft release with a specific calendar of new maps/champions, and the review leverages that stuff not being there for their conclusion, that review will quickly be useless to new potential players.

Half the time, I do think the push to revise review scores comes from enthusiasts of that game more than a broader public, which isn't all that important after-the-fact. I say this even as someone who thinks the launch reviews for something like Killer Instinct are almost unintelligible compared to the current game.

Higher profile games might benefit from footnotes if the writers are active enough to observe changes organically, if it would make a difference to their original reaction. Overall though, I think reviews can be useful because they're a snapshot of a game's starting point. Very rarely have I seen fundementals shifted due to patching.

 

[Bluth54]

I don't think games deserve second reviews but there's nothing wrong with doing one, or updating the original review. My favorite game of all time is Team Fortress 2 and over the past 9 years it's gotten over 600 patches including dozens of major updates.
A review from 2007 would be very inaccurate compared to the modern version of the game and miss stuff like the half dozen new modes including a coop hoard mode, dozens of new maps, 100+ new weapons - some of which create entire new subclasses, the move to F2P, the in game economy and of course all the glorious hats.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Is that what a review is, a punishment/reward mechanism for developers to be judged in front of an audience?

Or is a review not an assessment for readers to understand whether or not they should purchase a product? And if the product they go to the store today and buy is not the product reflected in the review, is that still doing the job of the review?

They're vehicles for getting ads to your eyeballs. An update after the fact isn't going to do much of that.

 

[Protome]

How this dumb idea will work and how it will eventually go.

SF20

Gamewhatreviewer 3/10 "This game is completely utterly broken."

*devs make patches that should have been made in the first place*

Gamereviwer 9/10 "game works like a charm"


SF20 is a success because of this and it encourages Devs to be lazier than they already are just because now everyone knows that they can make sludge and they can get good sales because after alll *they patched or will patch the game* We shouldn't encourage patches and laziness. Alot of games arrive day one broken and in need of patches.. Such an idea will surely encourge others to be just as lazy.

How your nonsensical scenario continues:
Consumers stop buying games at launch because they're all magically broken now. Publishers start delaying games to make sure they're better to get their pre order numbers back up.

Demos and Trailers gives people a better picture of what games are going to be about. The best "reviewers" are likely to your friends who know the type of games you like.

With reviews, you gotta figure out which reviewers are the better ones, than people get worked up over the final scores. It's gone to the point when scores are more important than what the content of the review is. Those blocks of text people skip when they want the score number out of ten.

While I agree with your second paragraph (and its unfortunate, because I hate review scores the first I disagree with. Demos and trailers are cut to make a game look as good as possible and are not really a good indication as to the quality of a game.

 

[Somnid]

Nobody gives a shit what released on launch day except launch day buyers.

Reviews that don't update are failing the reader, period. If the game isn't the same as it was 6 months ago and the review is stale it's not useful. The reason reviewers don't do it is because it's a ton of work and they have a million other reviews to write, but that's a business problem. Stop trying to peddle this as some sort of integrity thing.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I think a good balance is maintaining the original score and adding an amended score.

For which games? Just the bigger ones? Then that kills some journalistic credibility by playing favoritism.

For all? Good luck finding someone to test and update all those reviews. Hundreds of games get dropped every month.

 

[CamHostage]

They're vehicles for getting ads to your eyeballs. An update after the fact isn't going to do much of that.

Not true, necessarily. You can re-promote a high-profile re-review (and get arguments like this one in comments about whether re-reviews are justified, which gets you anger-traffic at the very least) and you can also modify your Google visibility potentially by having a new Publish Date on your article.

But you're right, one major hurdle to this is on the inside, that reviewers themselves cannot afford the time and investment to keep all their reviews up to date (and that it's likely weak traffic to bother to do so,) and there's not even a good method to get user reviews to do the job.

 

[John Harker]

No one at scale who buys a game 6 months after launch does so because of its reviews.

Review traffic after the first month is practically nil anyway

 

[ironmang]

Is that what a review is, a punishment/reward mechanism for developers to be judged in front of an audience?

Or is a review not an assessment for readers to understand whether or not they should purchase a product? And if the product they go to the store today and buy is not the product reflected in the review, is that still doing the job of the review?

I get it, there are concerns of abuse of the system or erased history (it's also a promethean task for reviewers to keep up with ever-changing games,,) but the bottom line is that all that matters to your pocketbook is that you get good purchasing advice.



That works great for the public that buys it Day 1. For those who buy it later, though, what good is that for them?



Oh, don't get antsy about keeping that secret, they already have that idea...

Reviews are just what a critic thinks about the game when they played it. If devs want the reviews to be more accurate they shouldn't release games that require a patch to function properly.

 

[Lister]

Of what possible use is an outdated review to someone looking to purchase a game?

You absolutely want impressions that are up to the latest/current version of the game. Otherwise you're not getitng the full picture.

Who the hell cares what the game wa slike 6 months ago, I want to know what it's like TODAY, when I'm looking to buy.

Traditional media outlets, however, are usually NOT the place to find this information. It's not feasable for their staff to update reviews for every game they cover (which is already a tiny subset of games that are released - usually heavily weighted to big AAA releases), every time a big patch lands. They MIGHT do this for one or two, super popualr titles, and even then only once or twice.

So basically, I'm indifferent to it. I'm not going to Polygon or Gamespot, or PC Gamer for an updated review on Total War. I'm going to Total War specific channels on Youtube, to the official forums, to reddit, to the OT threads here on GAF, to find the relevant information.

Also Steam reviews are actually handy here as well, as they aggregate score based on recent scores as well as overall, and I can read recent reviews based on new content like expansions or big patches.

So, yes, it would be fantastic if you could go to IGN/Polygon/PC Gamer/ etc, etc of the world and get up to the latest version impressions fo a game. But the reality si that isn't possible. That means more casual gamers will be "stuck" with an older review that won't reflect both good and bad thigns about the current release. C'est la vie. It's not fair, but that's how it is.

People more attuned to the gaming sphere will know to look at other sources for more up to date impressions.

 

[CamHostage]

Reviews are just what a critic thinks about the game when they played it. If devs want the reviews to be more accurate they shouldn't release games that require a patch to function properly.

But if a reviewer plays it today, they might think differently of it if the product has been modified. And if their new thoughts are interesting to their audience, it may be worth publishing those new thoughts.

Just real quick, BTW, devs don't WANT shitty game releases. They do care, believe it or not. The modern game market and the complication of consoles these days, though, makes it really, really, really, really, really hard to avoid the situation.

For which games? Just the bigger ones? Then that kills some journalistic credibility by playing favoritism.

By audience demand, I would say is the best method. If you get enough feedback that your review is off-base, or if you're getting enough long-tail traffic on a review for an available game, there would be enough indicator that a re-review would be a good investment. It's not much knock on credibility if you're just going by the numbers.

 

[Cleve]

Games should be reviewed as they are when they are played by the reviewer. If a site wants to revisit the game a year later (as some do with MMOs) that's cool, but it should stand apart from the original review.

Expecting continually amended reviews as a game is patched is unreasonable. There's too much content for anyone but specialist sites and channels to keep up on every version of games.

 

[mclem]

UH how about no. Games should be working good when they are released. Shouldn't be given better scores just cause they fixed something that shouldn't be broken at launch.

Should they be given better scores because they added something onto an already packed game for free? I'm thinking Trackmania Star Edition, but also CDProjekt's various Enhanced Editions would fit the bill.

A lot of people are getting cute and naming big league games, but dozens of smaller get patches all the time. Imagine having to go back to each review and revamping it, or even adding a little addendum at the bottom for a change. That's not feasible for any website.

It wouldn't even be fair to focus on bigger titles in the first place, before someone suggests that.

Logistically speaking, no website is gonna do that work, nor should it. The consumer can search around, or the website can post a separate article if the changes are massive enough to warrant it.

This is also true (I think I've had a bigger discussion elsewhere on this point) - I think the OP was asking from an ideological POV, rather than a feasability one.

 

[Protome]

For which games? Just the bigger ones? Then that kills some journalistic credibility by playing favoritism.

For all? Good luck finding someone to test and update all those reviews. Hundreds of games get dropped every month.

Yeah this is definitely just all hypothetical.

Reviews are just what a critic thinks about the game when they played it. If devs want the reviews to be more accurate they shouldn't release games that require a patch to function properly.

Why shouldn't consumers be informed?

 

[Kwame120]

It makes sense. For better or for worse, the industry nowadays has key issues within games that are frequently resolved with patches, and reviews are should be a tool for the consumer - not a hype score or badge of honour - so should be tailored to how a player will experience the game, when they buy it.

A possible approach is to revisit games one month (or some other arbitrary timeframe) after they've been released, with a particular focus on the changes made. So if we're talking about BOTW, it would be a short revisiting seeing if the recent patch has improved the frame rate so as to warrant a change in the review. Ideally reviews would review every patch, but that's logistically impossible. If we were talking about Splatoon, then it may make sense to start with a barebones review and do the full review after all the content has been released, due to its particular rollout of content. There isn't a one size approach, and important changes in a game should be acknowledged. This isn't like books or films, where they're not frequently tweaked and adjusted out in the wild.

 

[ironmang]

But if a review plays it today, they will think differently of it.

Sounds like a good reason to release a complete game the first time.

Why shouldn't consumers be informed?

Who should pay for it? Doubtful review sites want to revisit months-old games to maybe change the score. Obviously there's a problem if the devs pay for it lol.

 

[Protome]

Sounds like a good reason to release a complete game the first time.

Sounds like people shouldn't buy games at launch.
The bigger issue than people in this thread's obsessions with punishing devs for "releasing games unfinished."

Reviews don't do that. Not buying games at launch do that.

 

[TheSpoiler]

By audience demand, I would say is the best method. If you get enough feedback that your review is off-base, or if you're getting enough long-tail traffic on a review for an available game, there would be enough indicator that a re-review would be a good investment. It's not much knock on credibility if you're just going by the numbers.

Audience demand? The people with a vested interest in a game because someone said something mean about it? How would they even obtain such data? And what would make that audience important enough to change the review since they probably already read it?

In terms of traffic, you'd have to break it down, because there could be a million reasons as to why someone's returning for a review. Grabbing a photo/gif/video, picking up a paragraph or two in order to see what modes are in the game, etc. Tons of reasons that don't simply devolve into "wanting to know if a game is good or not". Most reviews don't generally get that many hits after release, which is why people write new feature stories talking about patch notes and changes. The search engine wants new content, not your stale 6 month old review, and the former is going to show up more.

There's a bigger return on investment in making new content over "fixing" old pieces unless something was offbase on the reviewer's side.

This is also true (I think I've had a bigger discussion elsewhere on this point) - I think the OP was asking from an ideological POV, rather than a feasability one.

I mean, yeah, wouldn't the answer be yes then?

Yeah this is definitely just all hypothetical.

It just breaks down when you start applying logistics ya know. It's just not feasible for anyone.

 

[Lagamorph]

I'd rather a game is re-reviewed entirely if it's been significantly changed by patches.
A review score shouldn't really ever be amended.

 

[firelogic]

I'm not a fan of giving companies leeway for releasing an incomplete product. Anything that might pressure them into waiting until their product is actually finished before releasing it is a good thing IMO.

What about situations where the game is almost completely different from when it launched? For example, Diablo 3? If someone were to think, "hmm, maybe I'll buy Diablo 3" and they go and read reviews, it's not representative of what the game is today. In fact, the original reviews are completely useless.

Or what if a company did release a 100% complete game that people were satisfied with but they add a bunch more unexpected content that increases the value of the game significantly?

It doesn't always have to be a situation of fixing a broken game or ripping out content to add later.

 

[ironmang]

Sounds like people shouldn't buy games at launch.
The bigger issue than people in this thread's obsessions with punishing devs for "releasing games unfinished."

Reviews don't do that. Not buying games at launch do that.

Just as many people are obsessed with punishing reviewers by suggesting they revisit games they already played and gave an opinion on.

 

[Harmen]

At the end of the day, to me a reviewers purpose is to inform and/or advice the consumer. In that sense, I think it makes sense to inform the consumers when a product has been significantly improved. Be it by altering grading or a new article.

In the time where more and more service driven games are there and a good amount of (prominent) developers have started to add significant amounts of new content (also when the base product itself reviewed well) and make signficicant QoL changes, I think the idea of stagnant review scores maybe is a bit old-fashioned.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

In a utopian world, reviews should be altered to be up-to-date. As a consumer, I want to know whether something is worth playing or not. Whether it was worth playing years ago is completely irrelevant to me.

In practice, someone has to actually perform that re-review. That takes time and money. Money you probably won't earn back through ad-revenue because few people are going to care about your re-review long after the game has released.

 

[MiketheBSG]

Seeing some of the responses regarding the time-consuming nature, would it be out of the question to hire someone solely to amend reviews after review with the original writer?

 

[CamHostage]

Who should pay for it? Doubtful review sites want to revisit months-old games to maybe change the score.

But they do, if the readers express interest in clicking on re-reviews. And thus, they do and have done re-reviews, and thus, we're talking about it here.

Obviously there's a problem if the devs pay for it lol.

They don't.

Audience demand? The people with a vested interest in a game because someone said something mean about it? How would they even obtain such data? And what would make that audience important enough to change the review since they probably already read it?

Audience demand as in, "Hey, I just read this review, and it has wrong info in it. It says there's no multiplayer, there's lots of multiplayer now." "It says there's no 1080p support, it's there." Or "It says there are these amazing modes, but the developer dumbed down the game after it bomba'ed and now it sucks, it's not there." Also, audience demands as in a reviewer sees the Google referral traffic data, then looks at his article and realizes it doesn't serve the audience anymore.

 

[Harmen]

Reviews are just what a critic thinks about the game when they played it. If devs want the reviews to be more accurate they shouldn't release games that require a patch to function properly.

Plenty of modern games that have worked properly and reviewed accordingly that still have changed significantly since launch.

Furthermore, as a consumer I'd like to be informed. If it reviews bad at launch due to being broken, I can decide to spend my money elsewhere. At that point in time, the developers are punished with bad review scores. When it is fixed later on and I am informed that the value proposition has changed significantly, I can decide if I want to buy it.

 

[ClosingADoor]

No. Either bring it out as an early access game, or make sure the game is done. I even hate this trend of day one patches that are pretty much there to make a game somewhere near usable.

Also, good luck changing a few hundred reviews a year. It's not cost effective.

 

[Savitar]

Bad idea.

Why?

Easy, Polygon Simcity review.

That should remind people why.

 

[Spacejaws]

Im actually a fan of recognizing when patches and extra content (not DLC, that should be it's own review) changes the core game, for better or worse.

For example I loved Payday 2 but the core game has been altered so much I don't feel like I know whats going on anymore when I boot it up. I'd recognize it has degraded in quality by overcomplicating itself.

Left4dead 2 had a free update tht included all of the original maps. This pretty much doubled the value of the game and in my opinion makes it easily a 10/10 experience compared to the original product.

But amending scores does allow for the mentality these are fluid numbers that publishers can work around. Recognizing the changes though and adding addendums mentionin them to original reviews is a not bad idea though.

 

[BLUElightCory]

I think updating a score to reflect the game's current state is useful to people looking to buy right now, but there should be a clear record of any changes, to avoid completely whitewashing the state it launched in.

Exactly my thought as well. If you think of reviews as a service to consumers and not a some kind of potential punitive action against the developers, there is an argument there for updating reviews if devs make substantial improvements after launch due to feedback or just having extra time to make tweaks.

I'm also not convinced that most developers would take a more casual attitude towards shipping an "unfinished" game considering that launch-window reviews, hype, and word-of-mouth are so important for a game to do well. There's plenty of incentive to ship a quality product and games that don't launch well rarely fare as well in the hearts and minds of gamers as they would have if the game shipped in a better state (see: No Man's Sky, the last two Mass Effects, Master Chief Collection, Arkham Knight PC, etc.).

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

To provide a different perspective, we got a 60% from Gamespot for our most recent game. Complained about some bugs that were in the game at launch. That would be fine and all except the review wasn't published until 2 weeks after launch when the bugs they complained about had already been patched out.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Seeing some of the responses regarding the time-consuming nature, would it be out of the question to hire someone solely to amend reviews after review with the original writer?

Yes.

Increasing headcount without generating the revenue to pay for it probably isn't high up on the to-do list for most media outlets, gaming or otherwise.

 

[ironmang]

But they do, if the readers express interest in clicking on re-reviews. And thus, they do and have done re-reviews, and thus, we're talking about it here.

You should read the post I quoted and my response together. Sure, it happens from time to time but it shouldn't be expected. When I see a review I see it as the reviewers opinion of the game at the time they played it which is shortly before the date on the review. I don't expect every review to be accurate to the experience I'll have if I buy the game today. Instead I ask someone on a forum or somebody I know irl who has played the game recently.

They don't.

??? I know that. Read that whole post together.

 

[TheSpoiler]

Audience demand as in, "Hey, I just read this review, and it has wrong info in it. It says there's no multiplayer, there's lots of multiplayer now." "It says there's no 1080p support, it's there." Or "It says there are these amazing modes, but the developer dumbed down the game after it bomba'ed and now it sucks, it's not there." Also, audience demands as in a reviewer sees the Google referral traffic data, then looks at his article and realizes it doesn't serve the audience anymore.

Problems where the reviewer was wrong about release date stuff should be amended. That's just being a good reviewer.

Things where they add in multiplayer later are better served in a new article if it's big enough.

And I'm sure most websites look at their referral traffic data to determine where the clicks are coming from, but that does little to show exactly what that correlates to. Again, months later, people could be dropping by for random reasons.

We should talk about SEO. What's going to bring in more clicks? A brand new article? Or a revamped review? The former, because Google likes it when you make new content, it's easier for the reader to skim a few paragraphs of a new article that focuses on the changes rather than diving in a whole review or scrolling all the way to the bottom, articles like that are going to show up over reviews because those typically have a huge drop off point after a couple of weeks, and it's just plain easier for the writer to do while still gaining an investment of views.

There's a reason people aren't doing this right now for big games, and it's because of the reasons I stated. It's not feasible, it's not doable, and it doesn't really help anyone as much as making a new article does.

 

[Smasher89]

Changing the scores post patches could be a thing, but those games that releases uncomplete, gets low scores and sell badly sometimes dont even get patches (hi mighty no 9), as a consumer I'd rather wait more for the complete product then get a unfinished one that might never be reaching it's potencial.

 

[family_guy]

Should work both ways though. Think about how games with online components are reviewed day one when the experience of a few journalists is not representative of the product when thousands to millions of people are online. Score should be dropped when things get worse.

 

[The Shadow]

A game should be released in a final, complete form. I don't believe in "Perfect" bug-free releases. They just don't happen, and they didn't happen even back in the 8-bit and 16-bit days either (or on Nintendo platforms. Seriously OP, lol!). But bottom line, a game should be reasonably complete on release, and bugs in the game should be there because they were missed in testing and unknown.

So no. A review should reflect a game on release and that's that. I remember WAY BACK int he day when Next Generation gave Ultima 9 a 4/5 rating and then said, "Add a star when the bugs are fixed". Seriously. Fuck that. That just enables publishers to release half-finished bullshit.