Discussion Washington Post: The video game review process is broken. It’s bad for readers, writers and games.

[lemonfresh]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/10/12/video-game-reviews-bad-system/

What's the point of a review? No less than to answer the weighty question of how people ought to spend their limited time on this Earth.

That's some task, and different reviewers approach it in different ways, though in writing about video games there are two main schools of thought. Some writers attempt to give readers a broad picture, weighing a title's gameplay, story, stability, features — or lack thereof — and the number of hours a player could foreseeably invest in the game. (Here we return to the language of spending time.) Others endeavor to enlighten readers, unlocking new or instructive ways to understand a game. But both of these approaches are hurt by the way video game reviews are done these days.

Washington post coming in with a banger take

 

[Brofield]

They're not wrong, but I think this also comes back to the notion of crunch in the industry.

People wouldn't take too kindly to delays just so reviewers had more than a week to dedicate their time to review a game, not to mention publishers rarely sit on games for long periods of time when they got bills to pay after spending an exorbitant amount on development.

It's good to put a magnifying glass on the problem, but difficult still to come up with an acceptable compromise solution.

 

[E.Gadd]

I remember being enamored with video game magazine reviewers as a kid and thinking "Wow! What a cool job that would be."

I don't know how ya'll do it today though. The stress and harassment seem off the charts.

 

[Nintendianajones64]

Are they talking about their own reviews? Because their Metroid review is a joke.

 

[Oregano]

The issue is games are already coming in really hot even with reviewers getting them last minute.

Giving reviewers longer with games either means delaying the release or giving them rougher builds that they'll judge more harshly.

 

[Theswweet]

SEGA/Atlus used to be really good about giving reviewers plenty of time to review games, back on the 3DS. But then someone leaked 7th Dragon: Code VFD 2 months before launch. Ever since then it's never really been the same, not that I can blame them.

 

[wonaph]

The issue is games are already coming in really hot even with reviewers getting them last minute.

Giving reviewers longer with games either means delaying the release or giving them rougher builds that they'll judge more harshly.

Or outlets/websites could actually let their reviewers take as much time as they actually need to complete the game (without crunch), thoroughly assess what they want to assess, and write the thing WITHOUT forcing them to publish the review 2 days before the game comes out. For outlets I actually trust, I wouldn't be mad if their review came out a week or more after a game launched. I get that that's not the business model any more, but that's not my fault, and they could change it if they wanted to, instead of continuing the death spiral toward the lowest common denominator. Because it is a death spiral and it'll change eventually when they're forced to. But they could do it now and gradually and in a way that enhances their products and moralizes their staff.

 

[Oregano]

Or outlets/websites could actually let their reviewers take as much time as they actually need to complete the game (without crunch), thoroughly assess what they want to assess, and write the thing WITHOUT forcing them to publish the review 2 days before the game comes out. For outlets I actually trust, I wouldn't be mad if their review came out a week or more after a game launched. I get that that's not the business model any more, but that's not my fault, and they could change it if they wanted to, instead of continuing the death spiral toward the lowest common denominator. Because it is a death spiral and it'll change eventually when they're forced to. But they could do it now and gradually and in a way that enhances their products and moralizes their staff.

Oh for sure, but not many places are going to do that. The first review is going to get the most eyes.

 

[xghost777]

I think reviewers shouldn’t always have to finish a game to review it. The deadlines are too harsh and rushing to finish a game makes you view them differently than how an average person would play through them.

I also think reviews shouldn’t have scores because the text is what matters (is a 7 a positive or negative score for a given game, the number alone won’t tell you that) and we can kill the unhealthy obsession with Metacritic and OpenCritic. Would force readers to actually read and understand the text. Would probably cut down on the harassment against reviewers a tad too, though the worst people out there would inevitably still be awful.

 

[Clix]

My take and many of my favorite reviewers form the 90’s and 2000’s attest to this:

I don’t think a reviewer should need to beat a game to review it. Just spend enough time with it to understand it and recommend it.

When someone tells me the game gets good halfway through that’s a pass.

At the end of the day, the gameplay is king to me. If it is a narrative focused game, it should be engaging from the get go. Not, oh it picks up and gets better after 50 hours.

Only caveat to this are visual novels, which are pretty much books with visuals to accompany them. But that’s because I don’t consider them video games. And that’s not a knock because I love visual novels. It’s just another medium for a book like a radio play or an audio book or a graphic novel.

 

[Theswweet]

It's bad enough to get a week to review a game like Metroid, but 2 weeks for a long JRPG is even worse. Anecdotally I've mentioned before that for my Trails of Cold Steel IV review I put 108 hours into the game in 10 days in order to meet embargo.

 

[Lant_War]

It's bad enough to get a week to review a game like Metroid, but 2 weeks for a long JRPG is even worse. Anecdotally I've mentioned before that for my Trails of Cold Steel IV review I put 108 hours into the game in 10 days in order to meet embargo.

And then you remember the Gamexplain reviewer that had 48 hours to play through the entire Final Fantasy 7 Remake and write the review

 

[Theswweet]

And then you remember the Gamexplain reviewer that had 48 hours to play through the entire Final Fantasy 7 Remake and write the review

This is definitely going to be a hot take - but to a certain extent, I'd rather get launch day code for an RPG than a week (or less) before launch. At least then I can justify not having content out for embargo, which means I can just... take my time.

 

[xghost777]

It's bad enough to get a week to review a game like Metroid, but 2 weeks for a long JRPG is even worse. Anecdotally I've mentioned before that for my Trails of Cold Steel IV review I put 108 hours into the game in 10 days in order to meet embargo.

That’s just not how it should be. Trails is exactly the kind of game that would suffer from a review process like that. I adore Trails and it still took me two and a half months iirc to beat that game over 140 hours of playtime. I took a much needed break halfway through. I’d hate Cold Steel IV if I had to play 11 hour days back to back. I’m impressed you did a review like that.

 

[ngpdrew]

I think reviewers shouldn’t always have to finish a game to review it. The deadlines are too harsh and rushing to finish a game makes you view them differently than how an average person would play through them.

I also think reviews shouldn’t have scores because the text is what matters (is a 7 a positive or negative score for a given game, the number alone won’t tell you that) and we can kill the unhealthy obsession with Metacritic and OpenCritic. Would force readers to actually read and understand the text. Would probably cut down on the harassment against reviewers a tad too, though the worst people out there would inevitably still be awful.

Personally, I don’t get much from scores. I do think they have a lot of value for people who don’t have time to read some of the very long reviews that are written about games these days.

Like all metrics, I think they’re abused by people who don’t understand them, but I don’t think the alternative is going to work universally.

 

[meatbag]

I think reviewers shouldn’t always have to finish a game to review it. The deadlines are too harsh and rushing to finish a game makes you view them differently than how an average person would play through them.

I also think reviews shouldn’t have scores because the text is what matters (is a 7 a positive or negative score for a given game, the number alone won’t tell you that) and we can kill the unhealthy obsession with Metacritic and OpenCritic. Would force readers to actually read and understand the text. Would probably cut down on the harassment against reviewers a tad too, though the worst people out there would inevitably still be awful.

Agreed with everything here. Instead of a full review, maybe give an impression of the first ten hours or something.

I also dislike review scores for any entertainment media.

 

[Clix]

Agreed with everything here. Instead of a full review, maybe give an impression of the first ten hours or something.

I also dislike review scores for any entertainment media.

I like the way some outlets do it. Recommend, not recommend. Simple.

The issue with scores that are to 10 or 100 is like, what the hell?

Films were always so easy with the mostly standard 4 star system. Where 1 is poor, 2 is fair and anything 3 stars or 4 stars is a must see.

 

[xghost777]

Personally, I don’t get much from scores. I do think they have a lot of value for people who don’t have time to read some of the very long reviews that are written about games these days.

Like all metrics, I think they’re abused by people who don’t understand them, but I don’t think the alternative is going to work universally.

Ideally the last paragraph still gives you the at a glance view a score would. Like the snippets usually pulled and seen in review threads. If someone doesn’t bother reading that then they weren’t interested in the first place.

But yeah I agree the main problem with scores is not really that there is a score, it’s that a good chunk of people don’t know how to interpret them.

 

[GamerJM]

I remember reading video game magazines when I was a kid and not even understanding how the writers could possibly review so many games in a given month. How did they have time to write all of the articles, and still play these games that would take me weeks to finish?

 

[Clix]

I remember reading video game magazines when I was a kid and not even understanding how the writers could possibly review so many games in a given month. How did they have time to write all of the articles, and still play these games that would take me weeks to finish?

Cause they would play enough to give a verdict. On Player One Podcast, all former EGM and Nintendo Power and GameNow guys… they flat out day they didn’t finish every game nor should anyone. Which makes sense. It’s like what I touched at before, playing enough to understand what a game offers is enough whether to recommend or not.

Heck, I never beat Castlevania 3 cause it was too tough for me. But I’ve played enough to say, hey, this is a great game. Same with Cuphead. One of my favorite games on Switch, never beat it. Give it thumbs up!

 

[GamerJM]

Cause they would play enough to give a verdict. On Player One Podcast, all former EGM and Nintendo Power and GameNow guys… they flat out day they didn’t finish every game nor should anyone. Which makes sense. It’s like what I touched at before, playing enough to understand what a game offers is enough whether to recommend or not.

Heck, I never beat Castlevania 3 cause it was too tough for me. But I’ve played enough to say, hey, this is a great game. Same with Cuphead. One of my favorite games on Switch, never beat it. Give it thumbs up!

I mean, I figured that was the case now, but when I was a child I think I just imagined they were all god gamers or something, lol.

 

[Heron]

I completely agree with the argument this guy is making, but there are also a ton of other issues with game reviews.

-Reviewers taking it on faith that issues in the build will be fixed with a day 1 patch
-Reviewers playing with unpopulated servers that work perfectly, only to not work once the game launches
-Reviewers being genre specialists who compare a game's quality only to those of the genre (or series) rather than to the industry as a whole

Back in the 90s, reviews mattered. Because the single determining factors were whether the gameplay was playable and the game was techically competent, and both of those things were very easily established given how much simpler games were back then. My two favourite games in the last 10 years are below 70 on Metacritic. I don't bother any more.