MetaFuture Talks Review Inflation

MetaFuture, a game journalism analysis site, has recently refocused on review scores from the big gaming sites. The author takes an interesting approach, taking a look at Gamespot's review spread and IGN's tendencies. Unsurprisingly, both sites tend towards the 7 to 9 range, making it debatable whether their numbers are actually useful. The site's eventual goal is to normalize the review scores from the major sites, and actually make them useful. From the article: "Games will still get an average score from all contributing reviews. But a site's contribution to that average will depend on that site's own individual normal curve-- with the immediate left and right of the bell's tip signifying three stars on a scale of one to five. Watch the drama as the biggest sweethearts see their 8.4 score for Gun and Car IV get pegged as three stars." This is the reason Slashdot videogame reviews don't have numbers anymore.

Comments

Who cares for hose numbers?

[Denial93]

I gave up on game reviews when I worked at a game company and my boss explained his frustration with the review industry to me. He hated having to use dishonest means to catch the reviewers' attention - in particular, photoshopped preview game stills - but he said this was the only way to compete for those exceedingly rare "Game of the Month" etc. spots. He showed me a six page "exclusive preview" by a competitor and explained the only reason it was that big (as opposed to a small paragraph somewhere) was that the competitor had moved the preview session to Florida and paid the expenses of half a dozen editors for an extended weekend. How much sense does Florida make, when you're a European software developer and neither the game not the magazine are released in the English language? Now editors don't need to allow these tactics to work, but they evidently did. And worst of all, the magazine was the most respected (perceived fair) one in that market. Others were way more blatant about their corruption and deception of readers. The one that eventually made ours Game of the Month did so because we'd agreed to give considerable amounts of merchandise to readers who participated in a lottery.

When I want opinion on a game, I turn to a friend with a good taste in games, a fat pipe, and lots of time.