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[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Yea, these 0/10 scores are hyperbolic, perhaps metacritic can correct this by setting the user scale from 5-10. This game was divisive, and to shutdown opposing views or remove means to push back, is simply reactionary, counterproductive, and dangerous.

It seems Neil Druckmann agrees with you: he wants that passionate reaction from gamers, whether it's love or hate!

 

[Kumomeme]

by removing user rating/review not gonna solve the problem...its more to running from problem and pretending everything nice and good.

 

[Caio]

It goes both ways, take Volcano High for instance. Most people have derided that already and another subset of fans have decided it's awesome. It's likely that the user score will be skewed upwards for that. It will likely land higher than something like LiS just because of brigading for the cause. Basically just give three categories graphics, story, gameplay and let them score each component seperately and publicly. At the moment there are just vague, inconsistently defined scales with no accountability.

Well, if you ask me, I would still rate any single department, then to make the rating more personal and subjective, one could give more importance to a specific quality, but with a specific criterion, otherwise it is possible to distort the final score.

In this way it would be very hard to give a 4/10 to games like Halo4, or Uncharted4, etc. So, once the ""Troll or Clickbait"" Review is forced to give a 9 or 10 to a stellar Graphics department, 9 or 10 to the Audio Department, a 8 to the "controls" department, and a 7 to longevity, even if they try their best to downplay the Story and Gameplay with a 4 or 5, still these biased people must do an average among 9 or 10(Graphics), 9 or 10(Sound), 8 (controls), 7(Longevity), their biased 5 on Story and Gameplay.
The Average would still be 7,33, and they could round to 7,5 or 7 according to what they consider more or less important. That would work very well against Trolls or Clickbait who gave Halo4 or Uncharted4 a 4/10. No way a game with great graphics, sound, good controls, can get a 4/10 because the biased review try its best to downplay the Story and gameplay. They must do the average among all the Game department anyway, and if these fools, for example, give 4/10 to the Graphics Department of Uncharted 4, everybody would know even more that those people are a joke and should be banned from Meta or any other Critic Review system.

Thoughts ?

 

[cormack12]

Well, if you ask me, I would still rate any single department, then to make the rating more personal and subjective, one could give more importance to a specific quality, but with a specific criterion, otherwise it is possible to distort the final score.

In this way it would be very hard to give a 4/10 to games like Halo4, or Uncharted4, etc. So, once the ""Troll or Clickbait"" Review is forced to give a 9 or 10 to a stellar Graphics department, 9 or 10 to the Audio Department, a 8 to the "controls" department, and a 7 to longevity, even if they try their best to downplay the Story and Gameplay with a 4 or 5, still these biased people must do an average among 9 or 10(Graphics), 9 or 10(Sound), 8 (controls), 7(Longevity), their biased 5 on Story and Gameplay.
The Average would still be 7,33, and they could round to 7,5 or 7 according to what they consider more or less important. That would work very well against Trolls or Clickbait who gave Halo4 or Uncharted4 a 4/10. No way a game with great graphics, sound, good controls, can get a 4/10 because the biased review try its best to downplay the Story and gameplay. They must do the average among all the Game department anyway, and if these fools, for example, give 4/10 to the Graphics Department of Uncharted 4, everybody would know even more that those people are a joke and should be banned from Meta or any other Critic Review system.

Thoughts ?

Maybe. You could create a budget system. Where a person has a minimum 'spend' on allocation across different categories?

 

[Caio]

Maybe. You could create a budget system. Where a person has a minimum 'spend' on allocation across different categories?

For the Critic, as I said. For the users, I would use the same method, with scores from 3 to 10 for each Game Department, and have "supervisors/moderators" deleting all the "inconsistent, contradictory, rambling, Trash Reviews".

 

[Honjo]

Gaming "journalists" are just users who get paid for their opinion. Most of them are just political activists with only a passing interest in the medium. TLOU 2 wouldn't be getting such low user scores if the gaming media were less biased in their own appraisal. How is scoring a game so low any different from scoring it unjustly high? The game's politics have ensured high review scores across the board. There isn't a journalist alive that would dare defy the mainstream press by giving a fair review. Just look at the plethora of shit indie titles that garner fantastic reviews because they feature a lesbian or some plot about childhood abuse. We've reached the point where it is possible to reliably predict a game's metacritic score with the inclusion of SJW content.

 

[Clear]

Gaming "journalists" are just users who get paid for their opinion. Most of them are just political activists with only a passing interest in the medium.

You suggesting that a lot of "gamers" or at least people with a purported passion for gaming aren't equally political these days? I can think of a certain gaming forum beginning with R that is dominated by activist types!

 

[Nemesis Prime]

I find I agree more with the user scores than the critic scores, also I doubt most of the review bombs are because of homophobic reasons. This isn’t the first game with lesbian characters...

 

[zcaa0g]

I'm enjoying the game but it is very heterophobic.

 

[martino]

As we all know by now, The Last of Us Part II is being user review bombed on Metacritic for mainly homophobic reasons and nothing to do with the game per say.

As someone who advocated for the value of critics aggregate websites like Metacritic for many years, I believe their decision to keep the user ratings have done more harm than good, not necessarily to the developer but to the ever increasing toxicity that plagues the gaming community.

It's become the equivalent of Twitter's toxic "Cancel Culture" and it needs to stop. I'm pretty sure Metacritic will never remove it because it brings Ad revenue and whatnot, but I wish they can keep the user ratings toggled off automatically so that readers can have a chance to read the critics reviews first.

Now, I understand it's important not to shut down gamer's reviews themselves, but lets be honest: they're usually uninformed and filled to the brim with bias.

It's bad enough that game critics are not as reliable and credible as they should be, but atleast there is some form of objectivity behind their reviews. User reviews tend to be significantly less refined, especially when reading them from Metacritic.

As someone who would advocate this for games that come from all platforms (Portal 2 suffered a similar fate on the PC Metacritic page), I hope gamers understand the reasons why Metacritic's user ratings are undeniably biased, unreliable, and uninformed reviews of a game.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

I don't think user reviews should go away, but I do think that they should lock them until people could have realistically finished the game. Obviously TLoU2 hasn't been out long enough for people to finish it.

Maybe 1 week lock for user reviews would suffice, but there are games where it would be harder to quantify.

a verified user system would be best, maybe show that by default for the user reviews.

So seeing so many negative reviews is kinda dumb because obviously they haven't finished it, if they have even played it at all.

Obviously, I'm a few hours in and I find amazing... Like I don't agree at all with Druckmann's political views (I.E. I find them disgusting. But so far I see no rational reason anyone would give the game anything below an 8, I mean if you don't like a game you should be able to see how others may appreciate it, as well as its general qualities as an entertainment product.

This is obviously not the case here.

Tbh, when you buy a game is should come with a code or serial number.

Or some electronic signature code to allow for reviews of verified owners of digital copies. Ideally automate it, by linking digital store--Steam, PSN, xbox, etc-- accounts to the aggregate review site, so it has a list of your games.

But how do you manage this for services like PSNow and GamePass?

As we all know by now, The Last of Us Part II is being user review bombed on Metacritic for mainly homophobic reasons and nothing to do with the game per say.

I do not think that making assumptions about people's motivations or things like this--people are genuinely disgusted by the SJW ideas about race and gender, especially the proposed solutions...

The discussion should center around preventing those that have a visceral reaction to an entertainment product (actual reviewers do it all the time, they get books/movies/etc. review bombed because they often review the thematic as opposed to the product itself, which is something you can make up pretty easily).

 

[JohnnyFootball]

There should be two user review categories: one for people who are verified purchasers of the game and one for users who probably dont have the game.

 

[Astral Dog]

Lol this is absurd. There is no more objectivity from a professional review. In fact their paid status immediately puts that claim into question.

If Metacritic has a problem then why can’t they take care of it? How many years has this issue been a thing? They can’t update the website to address this? It impacts the entire point of the site.

Honestly this wouldn’t even be an issue if you, like, didn’t care. Its ok if people don’t like something that you do. It’s ok if people abuse a website’s poorly made user review section. Really if you are blowing this up to be a big deal then it’s mainly because of you for caring in the first place. Just don’t read the website! Easy.

Honestly how big of a problem is this? Should we curb free speech so that a video game score goes from 95 to 96?

Like get a grip. Not everyone has to all agree that they like a thing. It’s human for people to disagree. This is true diversity, a diversity of opinion.

Try tolerance

I think it happens too frequently for petty reasons (Astral Chain,i think FE three houses too) its not about tolerance those losers simply haven't even played the game to review bomb on freaking day one.this is just simply trolling and nothing else.as far as i know this site doesn't support homophobia or trolling

No good reason to remove the user scores either,obviously MetaCritic will erase the more toxic day one reviews like always.

 

[Faithless83]

I beg to you that are saying "this is being review bombed" to finish the game.
Please do and give us your opinion.
I'm really dying to see the reviews of the "they are hating my exclusive" crowd.

 

[Yoda]

No, the games "journalism" is corrupt and rarely gives out honest scores anymore. This can be seen when comparing the overall average and median of scores given out today vs. gens where the internet wasn't as corporatized. It's astonishing how people voicing their opinions can trigger people so easily, especially when establishment media already gets preferential treatment in giving their opinion, normally weeks in advance, and their opinion counting as the "official" score.

 

[888]

Worst thread ever. Those critics are scams for the most part and lack honesty because it’s their affects their direct sources of income.

you disappoint me! Blocked and reported!

 

[turtlepowa]

Give it a few days/weeks and they will delete thousands of 0-3 ratings again, just like they did with Death Stranding.

 

[888]

If it happened to a game you didn’t care about so much, I’m sure you wouldn’t give two shits about user reviews.

Metro Exodus off the top of my head was review bombed simply because it initially released exclusively on the Epic Store. But you probably didn’t give a shit.

Im pretty sure that got review bombed because it was initially on Steam for preorder and then got yanked for Epic.

I played it on Xbox and I would have given it low scores for it’s awful movement, audio and narrative structure. It was much worse off than Last Light.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

But how do you manage this for services like PSNow and GamePass?

Link the services to MC or OC, like Steam does with it's own reviews. Maybe you can review the game on Xbox/PS and then you can link that review to MC/OC, gamertag and all.

The Steam system works really well, except for when you see X has played Y game for 350 hours and the review says "don't play this game, it's shit"

 

[ROMhack]

No need to remove them IMO but they are pretty worthless. In too many cases they exist as a backlash to the critic reviews, which makes them too political to take seriously.

It's a far cry from the likes of Steam or GoG where the user reviews are squarely aimed at other players, often providing some great detailed analysis.

That said, I would kinda love to see a RT-esque system where reviews are split between different mediums (e.g. video reviews, print reviews, website reviews). A lot of work but would be very useful.

 

[buizel]

I still dont understand the huge reliance of reviews in this day and age.

1. Make up your own mind.
2. You can just watch someone play it and make a judgement whether you'll like it or not.
3. Someone elses opinion =/= Your own opinion

 

[thismeinteil]

Taking away users scores just hurts the site. Just look at Rotten Tomatoes. It used to be around #300 in terms of WW traffic. They took away the option to say you are looking forward to seeing a movie and changed how user reviews work, just to appease companies who didn't like people hating on their films. Now, Rotten Tomatoes is around #800.

If you want to like a game, like it. Don't let others disliking it trigger you. There are real reasons to be upset at TLOU2. Personally, I'm just not buying the game, even though I loved the first one.

 

[Stilton Disco]

Removing decsenting voices, especially in regards to a a commercial product, is always a cuntish thing to do.

Just because you don't like why they're upset, doesn't give you a right to silence them.

Besides which, the only real metric that matters is sales.

If the game continues to sell gangbusters, then these people are an angry minority and can be ignored.

However, if sales drop off sharply, and there is clearly an issue with the game that is making it less commercially viable than the first one, then knowing why people are upset, even if they express it in a way that might be offensive, will be important for making a better product next time.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Removing decsenting voices, especially in regards to a a commercial product, is always a cuntish thing to do.

Just because you don't like why they're upset, doesn't give you a right to silence them.

Besides which, the only real metric that matters is sales.

If the game continues to sell gangbusters, then these people are an angry minority and can be ignored.

However, if sales drop off sharply, and there is clearly an issue with the game that is making it less commercially viable than the first one, then knowing why people are upset, even if they express it in a way that might be offensive, will be important for making a better product next time.

I think this used to be true for days of old.

Nowadays, where gaming is a popular social hobby, everyone wants to be in the gang talking about 'that big game' around the water-cooler, just like watching the latest episode of Friends in the 90's.

The issue is the more popular something is, the more that average joe will say they like it, just to fit in and go with the crowd. This skews the reliable data of whether or not it's a good game. Not saying that's the case here, but we just can't rely on data like we used to be able to.

We could take any example from any industry that is popular, most people like things because everyone else likes it, without having any critical thoughts of their own.

 

[cireza]

It would a problem to leave room for people to express their opinion, better remove user reviews !

 

[Honey Bunny]

They will. And it will be the wrong move.

 

[ZywyPL]

Actual gamers reviews > paid journos.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Can anyone explain to me why sites like Metacritic don't implement the following system?

Allow user to slide a minimum acceptable review, and a maximum acceptable review, and THEN tabulate the average.

So for TLoU II, I have no interest in including users who scored the game less than a 5/10. I think they're all insane. Why not let me eliminate every 4/10 (and under) user score to see what I think is closer to a true average?

We need that, and some kind of reputation system (like Uber) where I can check an insane user review, and never see that user in other reviews again. Just for me obviously, not anyone else.

Why haven't these, what I assume are easy to implement systems, been included yet?

 

[Stefan.North]

Even though review bombing sucks, one finds more honest reviews under user reviews.

Honestly, a game like tLoU2 that relies havily on storytelling, having a idiotic story that it does, should make game unable to have higher score than 7.5
Since it got bunch of 10/10, one would get quite wrong picture from paid and ordered journo reviews.

 

[Honjo]

You suggesting that a lot of "gamers" or at least people with a purported passion for gaming aren't equally political these days? I can think of a certain gaming forum beginning with R that is dominated by activist types!

And? Gaming reviews are informed by opinion. It's only natural for idealogy to colour our preferences. But it's awfully convenient that anyone who doesn't tow the company-line is called "racist" or "homophobe" or any number of SJW terms. When there is no room among the gaming press for a conservative opinion, this kind of polarisation is inevitable. TLOU is just another entry in a beloved franchise seized upon by the leftist mob. It's happened to Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Max Max, Dr. Who, Jurassic Park, Terminator, and Marvel, to name just a few. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the recent trend of writers raping a franchise, and then villifying the fans when they complain.

 

[Dynasty8]

I would love to see a website that requires proof of purchase, or some type of proof that you've played a certain amount of time before being able to leave a review. A requirement to leaving a review would be to have your PSN ID, or your Steam account, XBL Gamertag and so on synced to your profile proving that you've played the game for set hours or unlocked certain trophies/achievements. I know that might sound like too much, but these reviews are mostly all bullshit salt tbh. I mean that from both sides of the political spectrum. Just look at far cry 5 when that released.

 

[Gp1]

Curiously this so called review bombing only happens when the directors/creative head act like an asshole... (last of us 2, warcraft, star wars etc.)

 

[fersnake]

naa just leave the user score like this.

 

[A Rifter in Space]

Naw, they should keep them so that people can warn others when the press is obviously virtue-signalling or not doing their jobs correctly. TLOU2 is an objectively bad game. Deal with it.

 

[Helscream]

Alright so to help give some broader context for what is going on.

Gaming Media/Gaming Journalism (as with other entertainment mediums) are by design setup to SUPPORT the gaming industry. That is their first and foremost reason for existing. They are not here to look out for the average consumer. That being said we have to take a logical approach as to why review bombing exist. Oh and don't forget POSITIVE Review Bombing exist too.

For people to take time out of their day to go online and express their disappointment with a game should be recognized. Sometimes review bombing does not reflect the quality of the game itself, but issues surrounding the game. As a GAF user mentioned before, Metro Exodus was review bombed because it was a Epic Games Store exclusive. At this present time, outside of having a large following on Twitch, or Youtube. The only meaningful way for gamers to voice their disappointment is through review bombing. This issue is magnified when "Video Game Journalist" lacking any real ability to objectively critique a game and review it as a "journalist" instead of a "fan". So to offset all these "10/10 GOTY, GOAT, Best Video Game in my Entire LIFE!". Upset Gamers have to bomb shit to offset the bullshit.

You take away User Reviews from places like Metacritic or Steam and your are going to cripple the ability for upset people to voice their legitimate grievances.

I maintain the review bombing of The Last of Us Part II is due to any real critque of the games many glaring issues that no mainstream reviews are talking about. (Mass Effect 3 ending anyone?)

 

[hussar16]

go f urself, they changed the game to fit an agenda and forced murdering a character to push the new tranny character so we would care about her

 

[Faenrir]

 

[Infested Goblin]

damn nazis review bombing because of lgbt characters, kappa

 

[Kerlurk]

Someone has obviously not read the reviews on Metacritic.

 

[shaddam]

Why should we even care about game "journalist" or user review numbers?

 

[RedVIper]

This is a good idea.

This is basically how Steam reviews work right? You have to own the game in order to review it and the review shows many hours the user has played the game.

You can just buy, leave a review an return it.

 

[Kerlurk]

Gaming Discussion

Video game news, industry analysis, sales figures, deals, impressions, reviews, and discussions of everything in the medium, covering all platforms, genres, and territories.

www.neogaf.com

 

[Dthomp]

Gaming "journalists" are just users who get paid for their opinion. Most of them are just political activists with only a passing interest in the medium. TLOU 2 wouldn't be getting such low user scores if the gaming media were less biased in their own appraisal. How is scoring a game so low any different from scoring it unjustly high? The game's politics have ensured high review scores across the board. There isn't a journalist alive that would dare defy the mainstream press by giving a fair review. Just look at the plethora of shit indie titles that garner fantastic reviews because they feature a lesbian or some plot about childhood abuse. We've reached the point where it is possible to reliably predict a game's metacritic score with the inclusion of SJW content.

Agreed 100%, I don't understand how they see the bad reviews (Many with actual reasons given unto why they gave it low scores) as trolls, but the flurry of 10/10 with no substance or (Amazing writing) Which we all know TLoU2 may be a very pretty polished game, the writing is atrocious, and the characters are awful in the decisions that they make (Still, bad writing).

I didn't enjoy TLoU1 at all so I knew I was skipping this one, watched every vid, and knew the entire story going in. Was gameplay going to make me enjoy a terrible story? Not at all. Honestly based on feedback of people who have played it and reviewed it unbiased, this game is probably a 7/10 which in not crazy town is a fine game. The problem is we have a 10 point scale that anything less then a 9.5 is considered trash somehow. I don't believe a 10/10 video game exists outside of maybe a few all time classics from yesteryear but I could argue those down to a 9. A 7/10 should be what is viewed as a decent game with some glaring flaws, performance, visuals and gameplay alone could carry a game to this score.

In the end, I'm not sure we ever really see an agreed upon score for this game. Personally, I don't want/need identity politics, politics, or the forced LBGTQ? made the focus just to make it the focus to appease that crowd. If that fits your story (Without needing to add a DLC to make Ellie gay) then go for it, didn't bother me the slightest in LiS when they had similar vibes. Maybe instead of Neil constantly asking what if the character was female and changed it, he asked why isn't it ok for this character to be male?

 

[Dthomp]

Pointless topic.

Metacritic is not going to get rid of the users scores, as that is the reason why I and many others go to Metacritic.

Come on, you don't go there for their 100% non biased critic scores about their new piece of art...I mean video game

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

At least the skewed user reviews tell me something helpful. I know that something happened to piss off the masses: the publisher did something consumer-unfriendly, the game has issues that need patching, the PC launch was a disaster, etc.

"Professional" reviews are nothing but written diarrhea that overwhelmingly prop up a very specific viewpoint in today's political climate. There used to be a time when game reviews were actually game reviews. That time has sadly passed.

 

[wzy]

There is already a segregated list of people who did not purchase the game. It's called the "Critic Review" section.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Lol, no. As bad as users can be, critics are overall worse across the board. You'll find tons of games, especially AAA, where critics have suspiciously rated the game 10/1 or 20/2 points higher than the average consumer, even without any controversies. Like MGSV. 93/9.3 metacritic. Absolutely retarded. User: 8.2. Much more reasonable considering its MANY flaws. Honestly, either they were completely up into hype or literal shills behind MGSV. Same with Fallout 4. Even a lot of sports games. Really, of most games critics overrate most titles, without a doubt. Probably the worst overall judges of how good a game is. In most cases the best judge might be the average between critics and users, giving you likely the most accurate overall view of a game.
Without a doubt, critics as an aggregate are overall absolutely a terrible means of judging a game. If you remove user ratings, then you could just as well remove the whole metacritic. You'd just be served bias in favor of the game for the most part. There's also the times when reviewers try to put in an agenda as well, like a certain Eurogamer review of a "controversial" medieval rpg.


Edit: Also, on TLoUII. Remove the 0/10 and 1/10 and 9/10 and 10/10. You'll like see the best weighing of how good the game is. However, the creator himself said it would require people to have an open mind, so in that sense a really divisive rating with extreme scores isn't that unexpected. Though it's likely fed by people with an agenda as well, which might skew it in either direction, this time likely in a far less favorable way. I don't believe the critics 9.5 average and I definitely don't believe the users 3.5 average. The average of critics and users or it +1, seems like the likely overall reasonable rating of the game, 7/10, especially considering the numerous flaws even people that liked the game mentioned.
However, people disliking it isn't surprising. Just look at Pewdiepie's reaction to some of the things in the game. Personally I decided to not buy it until much later and instead work on my backlog. If a game takes a direction I know is terrible, then I'm not going to waste my time to confirm it's terrible.

 

[DevilFox]

Big no-no to remove user reviews, leaving us with only the professionals' (mh..) opinions.
I don't think people are shooting at TLOU2 for the LGBT content either, as I don't remember anyone complaining about Left Behind. They're hating it due to what they've seen in the spoilers, that's it.
Right or wrong, I believe that such harmless behaviour still works as a message, and Neil should take it into account (imho he will not, but eh). After alll, artists' vision or not, this is the audience of 5 years of hard work and I don't believe for a second that ND team would not be happier with a better public consensus.
However, these situations could be easily prevented by forcing users to link a PSN/XBOX/STEAM account to their profile, allowing only those who have at least purchased the game to write a review. As a matter of fact I don't understand why this is not a thing already, it would be very easy.

 

[Damigos]

I dont want them to remove user reviews, i enjoy those. Just the number part

 

[D.Final]

I agree