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Ben Kuchera: If you ever questioned a Polygon review score, you were right. Management makes the scores.
- Thread starter BennyBlanco
- Start date
Banjo64
cumsessed
I definitely do; the people on the Xbox side are equally as bad as those on the PS side. In fact I THINK some of them are worse (that’s just my opinion though).See you get it
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Belthazar
Member
Never forget.
This quote is from a review for a psx game and from a completely different site. Stop spreading fake bullcrap.
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/alien-resurrection-review/1900-2637344/
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Don't forget major studios like Sony, Bethesda etc all also blacklist outlets if they preemptively expect negative PR.
mitch1971
Member
The Alien game on ps1, I think.
And also affiliated PR sites like Windows Central and characters like Jeff Grubb giving 10/10 to games like Halo Infinite
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Wildebeest
Member
Both are now owned by Reedpop along with some others. Eurogamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun were both very active communities in that time when readers were transitioning from magazines to web. I think that Polygon was built different because from the start they were big money and poached a lot of "recognizable names" from game blogs rather than being a startup made from people with experience in print media.
Topher
Gold Member
A person can form a singular opinion based on what he believes others think even if it is entirely speculative.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
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Ass of Can Whooping
Banned
Yeah but that's just like, your opinion brah
In your opinion brah
Forgot to say In your opinion
When you say "I don't think" do you mean in your opinion? You'll have to be more clear brah
This is all my opinion of course
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Context is review scores. The text of the high scoring reviews I read certainly didn’t paint that picture.
Sigh
Those reviews are for the campaign…
The vast majority of the content complaints are for the MP mode.
Topher
Gold Member
I believe that's his point. A lot of folks, myself included, think the campaign needed more content, especially for an open world game. The reviews didn't generally reflect that.
He’s probably screwed himself out of that option with his Twitter rant.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
There are few reviewers I have despised more than Ben Kuchera and Arthur Gies. I'm not shedding tears here.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It's all in the wrist
Member
Pox Media. That whole enterprise is rotten to the core.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Umbasaborne
Banned
Id be surprised if most of the big sites didnt have their review scores picked by upper management. They do after all need to sell ad space to publishers
Aguero9320
Member
Review aggregators are cancer but fixable - you know a site called XboxDickSuck (for example) is going to give an Xbox leaning title/exclusive a high score, while a site like PSexual will do the same for PlayStation, so don’t waste my time. Don’t include them if they are not independent of a platform.
If I was high up in Sony or Microsoft I would be paying to set those sites up myself, as their opinions count way more than they should. Pay some basement dwelling lifeform with a blog either directly or through advertising and supply them with product to review for credibility to get them on metacritic or whatever. Easy. Do it enough times and you’ve cheaply boosted your aggregate score by 10%.
Don’t know that’s happening, but I would be more amazed if it wasn’t than if I found out it was. Absolutely what I would do to manipulate the market.
Regardless, I have no respect for this clown. I’m sorry he’s going through some shit, but this kind of revenge rage posting needs to stop. If it’s bad when it happens take a stand then, as I said earlier, don’t wait until the money stops rolling in then suddenly find your voice. Sounds like he went to management and they decided not to take him seriously (ie managed the situation) - if he was employing similar tactics to them then as he is now on Twitter I’m not surprised - they probably thought he was nuts, and started doubting whether he should still be there…
Everyone’s opinion is too loud these days. For example if you got this far, you just placed way too much importance on my opinion, which should be completely fucking worthless
If I was high up in Sony or Microsoft I would be paying to set those sites up myself, as their opinions count way more than they should. Pay some basement dwelling lifeform with a blog either directly or through advertising and supply them with product to review for credibility to get them on metacritic or whatever. Easy. Do it enough times and you’ve cheaply boosted your aggregate score by 10%.
Don’t know that’s happening, but I would be more amazed if it wasn’t than if I found out it was. Absolutely what I would do to manipulate the market.
Regardless, I have no respect for this clown. I’m sorry he’s going through some shit, but this kind of revenge rage posting needs to stop. If it’s bad when it happens take a stand then, as I said earlier, don’t wait until the money stops rolling in then suddenly find your voice. Sounds like he went to management and they decided not to take him seriously (ie managed the situation) - if he was employing similar tactics to them then as he is now on Twitter I’m not surprised - they probably thought he was nuts, and started doubting whether he should still be there…
Everyone’s opinion is too loud these days. For example if you got this far, you just placed way too much importance on my opinion, which should be completely fucking worthless
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Fuz
Banned
Wow, how surprising. They're ALL like that. All of them.
P.S.
Those models are lowpaid but not exploited.
MasterCornholio
Member
You're right fam, the game really is rigged.
Yes, the text is from the infamous Alien Resurrection (PS1) review.
Someone's being cheeky.
You know you can do that with almost any exclusive. I mean look at the Nintendo ones and many of those sites that give it a high rating are Nintendo focused ones. It’s not like it’s a problem that’s exclusive to Sony and Microsoft. Although I wouldn’t say that many of those games don’t deserve those scores.
Lady Jane
Banned
The way Polygon launched already made it shady. It went from not existing to this "big deal" over night. I've always seen that site as a big business plant and it is nice for that take to go from tinfoil hat theory to confirmed.
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Punished Miku
Gold Member
DaleinCalgary
Member
Don't doubt it, they have been inconsistent and have been sponsored before.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Videogames are a multiple billion dollar market, and first impressions or first wave of reviews directly impact the sales of a game.
Without any sort of neutral oversight, it was always going to end up with publishers mingling with reviewers.
Not only that, but with the click and ad revenue business model, there's a feedback loop between review sites and publishers, where reviewers don't want to risk 'offending' publishers and risk not getting scoops, interviews, etc.
See anything wrong with this picture?
The game is rigged folks.
I have no proof of my claim. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm imagining things. But I find when games release and MC scores start piling up on their site, most of the early scores uploaded are high.You're right fam, the game really is rigged.
Yes, the text is from the infamous Alien Resurrection (PS1) review.
Someone's being cheeky.
Then as more scores get uploaded, you then get ore so-so and some negative reviews. So what happens is the MC score starts high, but then trickles down till it levels off.
It never seems to start low with early reviews being the bad ones and then the score rockets up when better scores come later.
And it sure seems lots of high end 90/100+ scores come from no-name sites, like they are sucking up with scores to keep getting free shit from studios.
MasterCornholio
Member
I can imagine that getting a review copy does influence things. People who have to buy it at launch might view the game differently since they had to pay for it. Then there’s a possibility they were black listed and give low scores because they are bitter.
P.S Im just speaking in general here and not just targeting a specific publisher.
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That’s a meme.
In 2016 there was a video of Arthur Gies playing Doom and the dude couldn’t aim to save his live, it looked like a toddler playing a FPS.
People then made this meme, it’s not misinformation, it’s a joke.
What’s worrying is that you don’t need the full context to identify this as a joke, the outrage is ridiculous.
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CatLady
Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Videogames are a multiple billion dollar market, and first impressions or first wave of reviews directly impact the sales of a game.
Without any sort of neutral oversight, it was always going to end up with publishers mingling with reviewers.
Not only that, but with the click and ad revenue business model, there's a feedback loop between review sites and publishers, where reviewers don't want to risk 'offending' publishers and risk not getting scoops, interviews, etc.
See anything wrong with this picture?
The game is rigged folks.
Nice cherry picking there. Good thing you're not biased.
FrankCaron
Member
I can't speak for Polygon, but what I can say with confidence: I worked with Ben for a long time at Ars, and he was my editor on my reviews at the time. I'm inclined to believe him.
He never changed a verdict, and in fact, there were a few instances where he vehemently disagreed with me and let me run the review as is anyway. Everything I ever wrote went up as a I wrote it, and it was a big part of Ars' culture — which he helped define. He was the primary driver of eliminating scores altogether, in fact.
(Sidebar: Ars Technica had, has, and will always have its integrity on that front, and that's why it's still one of the only tech news sites I read and trust.)
He never changed a verdict, and in fact, there were a few instances where he vehemently disagreed with me and let me run the review as is anyway. Everything I ever wrote went up as a I wrote it, and it was a big part of Ars' culture — which he helped define. He was the primary driver of eliminating scores altogether, in fact.
(Sidebar: Ars Technica had, has, and will always have its integrity on that front, and that's why it's still one of the only tech news sites I read and trust.)
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I wont be able to respond if you reply to my post as I'm heading out for lunch and errands, but when it comes to video game or tech reviews, in your experience what youve seen or heard from other people at other sites, how rampant is free product/ad revenue influencing scores, Jeff Gertsmann pressure cooker UBI issues, senior editors overwriting scores or content?
SF Kosmo on page one has experience in game reporting and doesnt think big sites really get influenced.
FrankCaron
Member
I can only speak for my own experience.
I worked in games media during what I would consider to be the hey-day.
In-person E3 was still the mainstay of the industry and a huge event, PAX had become huge, GDC was only really just gaining momentum, and even CES was still relevant. Apple was irrelevant to gaming. Mobile was still nascent as a whole. F2P was a distant concept. DLC was *just* starting. Magazines and print were still the bigger focus vs. online pubs. Private press events and junkets happened a ton.
Ars had incredible journalistic integrity that was well established, but at the time, we were still the young buck in the gaming space. Ben was doing it alone when I started, and it was a sub blog off the main page.
I worked for the company for a few years, and Opposable Thumbs — the gaming blog — grew substantially in both scope and contribution to the top line.
I never once faced any pressure from anyone on any of your described fronts.
My comp was based on a per article rate. I was paid a flat rate for blog posts and a premium for front-page long-form posts. I was also paid a bonus for each article that hit the front page of Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, or the popular content aggregators at the time.
That bonus had the potential to incent inflammatory content, but that's where editorial team became a huge part of the process. The editorial team was not incented to publish anything in particular, and the stable of writers were always competing not for the bonus but to get published at all.
That's because Ars had at the time a very intense editorial process for both fact-checking and also for grammar and style. Ars was very, very, very strict on quality of writing: it was essential to the livelihood of the site that the quality bar remain super high. But content control in all contexts largely remained with the writer (aside from scenarios involving specific law-related content because of the potential for libel suits).
The ad team was completely unrelated and not at all involved with the content team. I worked there for years, and I don't even know who was on that team. Never once knew anything about them nor was my work in any way related to them.
But Ars was an anomaly, from what I remember. When I talked to some of my peers at the time (e.g., Kotaku, Destructoid, etc.) during trips to conferences and on iRC and the like, it was abundantly clear that the following things were going on in a big way:
- Legit blacklisting by PR teams and agencies if too much truth came out or something was deemed too negative
- Legit favoritism of specific publications based on the potential to affect sales
- Legit quid pro quo with respect to the feedback loop of you gave the review, you got the early copy, we used your quote on the back of the box or the trailer, more subscribers to your magazine / site came, more ad spend
- Review copies and merch were 100% gifted to the favorites
- Who you worked for affected everything
So how did Ars dodge this? Gaming was only a very small portion of its traffic and its revenue — because Ars was way ahead of the game on the subscription model for premium content and because it ran a lean operation.
I love Ars to this day, and while I needed to move on for financial and career reasons, I hold it as my favourite job and probably always will — not because of gaming, which I obviously love as I'm still on here, but because I got the freedom to do deep research, to formulate a studied opinion, and to express it as creatively as I could for an audience of peers and superiors who were willing, able, and excited to discuss things in depth.
No gaming rag operates that way — not then, and not now. That's why, despite some of his bombast and celebrity, I would take Ben's side. He contributed to all of what made Ars great.
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Reallink
Member
Thread title is burying the lede, what the flying fuck even is this? Why is he telling his bosses about his children being abused, what does he expect them to do, and who exactly was doing the abusing? Was he the abuser with that being some sick cry for help? Was it Vox bigwigs who are above his bosses? The Vox daycare staff? Dude sounds like he's having paranoid schizophrenic delusions, makes no sense whatsoever. How am I the first person to point this out as a discussion on game reviews has gone on for 2 days over 3 pages?
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Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Companies start to rot from the top, so it makes sense.
AmuroChan
Member
We don't see those kinds of scores that often anymore because the types of garbage games that would get a 2/10 would never even get reviewed in this day and age. Back in the day, a gaming magazine would review just about every game that's released. So that includes both the good games and the terrible ones. If a game like Atari's E.T. came out in 2022, no major gaming outlet would spend the man hours to review that game.
Pretty sure you and I worked at the same magazine. I remember a heated discussion between our reviewer and editor-in-chief about whether we should give GTA V a 10/10 or 9/10. The former would give us more (and free) PR from Rockstar. The latter would make us look kiss-ass.
Giving a game a lower than average score could also result in your magazine not being invited to certain events, apparently.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
So he is admitting to being a cuck of a reviews editor.
Robbinhood
Banned
I’ve been calling them out since day 1, they basically exist thanks to MS so they’ve always been xbotty. Remember their cod ghost review?
CuNi
Member
That statement is a lie and you know it.
Infinite story is like a mental breakdown of a kid that finally got to play with the old toys of his brother who grew out of them.
They took all those established characters, removed half of those and ruined established lore of the other half.
Then they threw in a half-baked, boring and nothing-burger story and empty open world in hopes people won't see the glaring issues the game has on top of introducing things like health bar bosses to the game.
It's a mediocre sci-fi game, but compared to what Halo was, it's utterly terrible and no one that has played the series from the start would say otherwise.
Infinite is only a good game if it's the first Halo you played.