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Discussion In another episode of Metacritic's user score sucks: all of Nintendo's 2023 releases have been review bombed for no reason (update: it's fixed now!)

ILovethegameAC

ILovethegameAC

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I wanted to share this I found: all of the NIntendo games that released this year were attacked with lots of 0/10 reviews and now have a terrible review score on Metacritic:
-Advance Wars Re-boot Camp was in the high 70's a few days ago and now has a 50
-Cereza and the Los Demon had over a 80 a few days ago and now has a 56
-Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass Wave 4 currently has a 38 (previously there were barely any scores)
-Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe also had over an 80 a few days ago and now has a 56
-FE Engage has a 62 now but since it already was kind of trahsed on Metacritic at launch for the art style and story I don't know if it was affected too much
-Metroid Prime Remastered it seems also was heavily attacked but since the score was so high already it only went down to 82

Maybe some of you think this is useless information, but since so many people are going lately with the mentality that "only the user score matters" after the Mario movie, probably more than one will see the score of these games and avoid them, which is terrible for stuff like Cereza or Advance Wars which are smaller games that need all the sales they can get.

Source: https://www.metacritic.com/company/nintendo
And obviously as you can see basically none of those 0/10 are with a small user review to give reasons, it was clearly just an attack
 
Even when they work "as intended" Metacritic's user scores are utterly worthless because almost everyone follows the "I like this game! 10/10; I don't like this game! 0/10" dogma, so the idea of someone wasting what has surely been a significant amount of time on trying to rig them is completely surreal to me.
 
Dark Cloud said:
Who cares? It has no impact on anyone’s lives. I never understood people who give this any news or thought. It’s nothing
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As I said, my issue is that both Advance Wars and Cereza and the Lost Demon are smaller releases that need as many sales as they can, so probably some of the people who think "only the user score matters" will avoid them for that reason, which sucks. Obiously not enough to make the sales go to 0 or anything, but at least even a little of uneeded bad word of mouth is terrible imo.
 
ILovethegameAC said:
As I said, my issue is that both Advance Wars and Cereza and the Lost Demon are smaller releases that need as many sales as they can, so probably some of the people who think "only the user score matters" will avoid them for that reason, which sucks.
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I can't imagine that many people think this way.

And regardless, from what I understand, Advance Wars has already sold quite well compared to the expectations for it.
 
Brock Reiher said:
my guess would be because those people don't care about the quality of games and are just desperate for new hardware. 2025 gonna be a long wait for them
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It's just as likely it's some daft fanboy warring nonsense. More hardware won't change anything about this in the slightest.
 
ILovethegameAC said:
As I said, my issue is that both Advance Wars and Cereza and the Lost Demon are smaller releases that need as many sales as they can, so probably some of the people who think "only the user score matters" will avoid them for that reason, which sucks. Obiously not enough to make the sales go to 0 or anything, but at least even a little of uneeded bad word of mouth is terrible imo.
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I don't think people who come out from the theaters after watching Mario movie are going to find themselves interested in two rather niche games.
 
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ILovethegameAC said:
people who think "only the user score matters"
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On that note, how many people are actually like this? Like I’ve seen plenty of people check out similar aggregate review sites for restaurants and hotels, and all of them read the text of the reviews, and always question the numerical ratings themselves.
 
ILovethegameAC said:
As I said, my issue is that both Advance Wars and Cereza and the Lost Demon are smaller releases that need as many sales as they can, so probably some of the people who think "only the user score matters" will avoid them for that reason, which sucks. Obiously not enough to make the sales go to 0 or anything, but at least even a little of uneeded bad word of mouth is terrible imo.
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no one thinks user scores only matter outside of terminally online weirdos
 
These scores are meaningless. I could give The Last of Us 2 a 0/10 right now even though I don't even own the game.
 
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Nobody cares about the Metacritic user score anyway so they’re just completely wasting their time.

Literally the only aggregate user scores that matter online for any medium are the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Scores (and even that plays a distant second fiddle to the RT Critic Scores) and Cinemascores (only useful for judging general WoM immediately post release to get an idea of the box office legs a movie is likely to have).
 
Kartina said:
I see no problems here at all, we all know that the greatest nintendo game ever made metal torrent on the dsiware with is gigantic 96 metacritic user score https://www.metacritic.com/game/ds/metal-torrent.
no other game comes even close to it.
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Damn even after going through like 10 videos about 3DS hidden gems to buy before the eShop closes I never knew DSiWare had a Cave-like shmup made by Arika. They gotta reopen the eShop NOW
 
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Dcubed said:
Nobody cares about the Metacritic user score anyway so they’re just completely wasting their time.

Literally the only aggregate user scores that matter online for any medium are the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Scores (and even that plays a distant second fiddle to the RT Critic Scores) and Cinemascores (only useful for judging general WoM immediately post release to get an idea of the box office legs a movie is likely to have).
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Rotten tomatoes user scores are exactly the same as metacritic, no matter what they desperately wanted to believe in the mario movie review thread, they're equally worthless.
 
I'm witnessing an increase anti-Nintendo narrative online in 2023 which I don't get. What exactly changed this year compare the last ones? The only thing I can think of is the Bowser case, but I think most people don't even know the details. Like they think he was a regular emulator guy or something.
Of course this is nothing but a trend. For example after Redfall it's time for Xbox to be ridiculed.
 
AegisField said:
It reminds me of the Astral Chain review bombing four years ago.
Did Metacritic take action at the time?
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actually they did, they made it so that you have to wait a day and a half before posting reviews. Not that it helped
Enpsty said:
I'm witnessing an increase anti-Nintendo narrative online in 2023 which I don't get. What exactly changed this year compare the last ones? The only thing I can think of is the Bowser case, but I think most people don't even know the details. Like they think he was a regular emulator guy or something.
Of course this is nothing but a trend. For example after Redfall it's time for Xbox to be ridiculed.
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probably people salty over the pointcrow thing and jealousy over totk

if TOTK gets good reviews it will all go away
 
Lugia667 said:
actually they did, they made it so that you have to wait a day and a half before posting reviews. Not that it helped

probably people salty over the pointcrow thing and jealousy over totk

if TOTK gets good reviews it will all go away
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TotK gonna be review bombed on principal at this point
 
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I thought exclusives were the target, but seeing as the Switch version of Persona 4 Golden was also review bombed. lmao

Of course, metacritic user scores are joke, but I know some devs care about this, so I feel sorry for them.
 
The absolute hilarious thing are the arguments from people suggesting that removing the ability to review bomb would be anti-consumer. I haven't seen that bad take on Fami from what I recall, but good lord.
 
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Enpsty said:
I'm witnessing an increase anti-Nintendo narrative online in 2023 which I don't get. What exactly changed this year compare the last ones? The only thing I can think of is the Bowser case, but I think most people don't even know the details. Like they think he was a regular emulator guy or something.
Of course this is nothing but a trend. For example after Redfall it's time for Xbox to be ridiculed.
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Can't say I've noticed much of an increase, feels like Nintendo has been pretty disliked online since around 2020 or so.
 
xtoc said:
So are reviews scores.
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Naw. Generally speaking review scores can help people pick out high quality titles they may be interested in. If you are picking between a bunch of titles and all you have is a review score, you're more likely to pick something you would like if you pick a 9/10 than a 5/10.

Obviously other things come into play but the idea that scores have no value to the average consumer is just false.

There is no value in pretending things that review well wont help consumers make better purchasing decisions.
 
I dont think it's so meaningless as people want to make it in this thread. It actually is - even if to some audiences only - one of the criteria to make a purchase.

These perceptions matter. Imagine you are a dad you are trying to buy something for your kids for example. But not only that.. Some people actually do follow user scores to make a purchase

In a more general context this kind of perception building actually has real life effects. I had many friends who had perceptions about Nintendo games through word of mouth that they realised were false when they tried a game (like BotW for example)
 
Review scores are a good shorthand so long as the score is easy to understand and is in line with the text of the review. I don't personally look to Metacritic or Open Critic for purchasing advice or validation, but those sites do have a use for a lot of people.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Rotten tomatoes user scores are exactly the same as metacritic, no matter what they desperately wanted to believe in the mario movie review thread, they're equally worthless.
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If I’m not mistaken, RT has an option to see only the “verified” audience score where you have to prove you purchased a ticket, whereas MC audience reviews are on “honor system” that you actually watched or play the thing
 
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This seems to also be extending to smaller indie games which is just a shame.

DREDGE is currently sitting at a user score of 8.0 on PS5, and 5.1 on Switch, despite the fact that it runs well on the hardware.
 
I’ve seen a noticeable uptick in social media personalities and YouTubers trying to piggyback on Zelda’s marketing campaign with stories about controversies and scandals involving Nintendo which are complete nonstarters and clickbait nothingburgers. There’s some merit to the whole Gary Bowser case, but also a shitload of blatant misrepresentation. I’m guessing this current spate of review bombing is partly fans of those channels fighting against the power, and partly people who just want to shit on a fan base that’s at a fever pitch with anticipation of Zelda’s release.

Just to be clear, I couldn’t give a toss about review bombing campaigns and this isn’t corporate bootlicking. I have no strong feelings about any of this. It’s all a bit silly. This is just what I’ve seen cropping up time and again on social media and YouTube.
 
It's plausible that third parties are attempting to smear Nintendo's image, anticipating an oncoming "Mario Mania" coinciding with the release of a new game starring our favorite plumber.
 
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I also feel is very weird how in a year were we have had some very broken or unpolished releases that have been trashed in pages like Metacritic, maybe to an overly harsh degree, so far we have had very polished and well made games from Nintendo and yet someone decided to review bomb them for some unrelated reason. Either they get review bombed for being a bad product or because the company is bad, I guess.
 
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Most review bombing has a reason. Doesn't mean it's a good reason, but it is a reason. I imagine this reason is because of those recurring stories that make Nintendo look bad. Some of which, tbf, are valid reasons to have grievances with Nintendo. That said, handling it by review bombing is being a child.

Though I disagree, user scores do matter. It's easy to throw out a simple dismissal, a simple "it doesn't matter" if you're informed. If you're attuned to Nintendo or metacritic or just the practice of reviewbombing in general, obvious review bombing isn't going to make the product look bad unless you already agree with the inciting motivation. It's just going to devalue the metric. Then it doesn't matter that much.

But when you're detached from the online swamp, a bad score is still a bad score. Maybe you're a supercasual or a parent looking for games, maybe you're looking to buy someone a gift. Maybe through word-of-mouth the only piece of information that gets conveyed to you about the game is this bad score, without the context around it. Having a bad user score isn't not a detriment, even if many people can see past what's going on.

If you were going to make a selection within a field you didn't have a great working knowledge of, and you saw the user and official review scores varied greatly on an option, it might give you pause, would it not?
 
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Lord Azrael said:
Huh? What instigated this
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Being subscribed to retro game corp might have revealed the issue.

gbatemp.net

Nintendo reportedly issues DMCA takedown for Switch homebrew projects, Skyline Switch emulator development ceased

Some fallout from the early leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom appears to be taking place. As players are loading the game into emulators and playing them unofficially on their computers, prior to the launch date, Nintendo is taking action to prevent that from happening. Lockpick...
gbatemp.net gbatemp.net

Nintendo sent a DMCA to the github for lockpick, the tool which let users rip the roms from their Switch games, and this domino effect has lead to Skyline emulator team to abandon the project.
 
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Checked if Sony is similar and HZD burning shores is 4.2/10 (ps5 edition) : https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/horizon-forbidden-west-burning-shores . Redfall has a suspiciously low userscore too at like 2.9, but given how panned the game is, I can at least believe that could be a harsh, but still genuine response. Anyway, gut feeling is there's some console warring going on.

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As for user scores themselves? To be honest, I find users scores as a concept--albeit not metacritic's implantation specifically--much much more useful than professional reviews which. but as long as metacritic becomes the hotbed for petty or nigh indiscernible grievances, guess I'll need to rely on reddit/gamefaqs/Era/here to pick up vibes, blog reviews and steam reviews for more niche games, and opinions from friends.
 
Kinda expected considering the weird "Nintendo is evil" mindset that has spewed forth from Twitter over the course of the last few years.

Any enemy to hate and focus all of your attention on so you don't have to deal with your own problems.
 
Stephen 776 said:
Checked if Sony is similar and HZD burning shores is 4.2/10 (ps5 edition) : https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/horizon-forbidden-west-burning-shores . Redfall has a suspiciously low userscore too at like 2.9, but given how panned the game is, I can at least believe that could be a harsh, but still genuine response. Anyway, gut feeling is there's some console warring going on.

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As for user scores themselves? To be honest, I find users scores as a concept--albeit not metacritic's implantation specifically--much much more useful than professional reviews which. but as long as metacritic becomes the hotbed for petty or nigh indiscernible grievances, guess I'll need to rely on reddit/gamefaqs/Era/here to pick up vibes, blog reviews and steam reviews for more niche games, and opinions from friends.
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Horizon was review bombed for two women kissing. Metacritic users can be like that.
 
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