Well, to me it just looked like he was thinking about 3s and 4s which led him to the Forza Horizon 3 receiving a 4. Which makes much more sense to use as an example than Recore, but of course Gamespot fail to mention FH3 at all...because that wouldn't make him look as bad, would it.
Phil Spencer: Some reviewers give games low scores to get more clicks
- Thread starter Raylan
- Start date
Well, to me it just looked like he was thinking about 3s and 4s which led him to the Forza Horizon 3 receiving a 4. Which makes much more sense to use as an example than Recore, but of course Gamespot fail to mention FH3 at all...because that wouldn't make him look as bad, would it.
He's saying Recore is susceptible to "low score click baity" reviews in the same vein other games are, but he hones in on FH3's to prop up his argument.
How is he wrong, though? We see this happen with every "major" game release (even though Recore is AA budget, it's still a pretty sizable release from a huge publisher). It's just something that stems from opportunity and nature of the environment.
Exactly, outliers happen because there's opportunity for them to happen.
Primethius
Banned
Wait, I get the posters history as an issue. But what's wrong with the first post?
Ninja Scooter
Member
Why would that make more sense? And I love the thought process that everyone who is doing something you don't like must be doing it for clicks. Reviewers are never going to win with some of you unless they like every game you like.
Primethius
Banned
I'm not saying he's wrong. Just pointing out that the Gamespot's excerpt is not a misrepresentation of the full review.
And I have no doubt it happens with games. But Recore is also just a bad game in a lot of ways, so that also explains the low scores.
Lmao
GHG
Gold Member
MisterR
Member
He still employs Aaron Greenberg doesn't he. When you have that troll as an executive you can't really call out fanboys.
ShockingAlberto
Member
If a review reads poorly, in what sense is it clickbait?
You're already reading the review! Do you think that reading a review that makes you mad causes you to just errantly click all over the article in hopes that you might click a banner ad?
You're already reading the review! Do you think that reading a review that makes you mad causes you to just errantly click all over the article in hopes that you might click a banner ad?
Yea but he's referring to it in general terms, he says "Recore" but that's because he was asked about "Recore". If this was a few months ago and was asked about "Quantum Break", he would've used "Quantum Break is vulnerable to low scores click bait" to deliver his argument.
This isn't him being mad that Recore was susceptible to these things, it's him saying that all games are.
I'm not sure of your point here?
GHG
Gold Member
Of course it's the most important thing. That's why he's getting so upset about the reviews that happen to be on the lower end of the scale.
Considering he literally had to put that crapgamer dude an (xbox gamer)in check earlier this year for putting quantum break on pc... lol
The Albatross
Member
I think this is true.
But I don't think it's true of Recore. Game looks rough, and low scores for it aren't very far from the mean. The 90/100 review from "Game Over Online" is further from the mean (63) than the 40 overall from Destructoid.
I think we have a problem with game review sites when reviewers can only look at a game from their specific point of view. Like, if you didn't like GTAIV or GTA:SA, you're probably not going to like GTAV. So, when a reviewer goes into GTAV already not liking the game, and then their complaints are that it's not like _insert favorite game_ so therefor, the game deserves a 55/100, then that's disingenuous. If you compare it to something like car ratings, somebody who exclusively drives zippy sports cars or performance coups isn't going to be able to rate a mini van on the same scale. If they do a review of a mini van, they should say, "Well, this van is probably more apt for someone with a family, and compared to other minivans, it's pretty good." But if they said, "Ugh, the handling is atrocious, I can't park in narrow spaces, and it goes 0 - 60 in 9 seconds... 20/100," then it'd be unfair.
A problem is that we've built up review scores to be the end all be all. Even for a forum of enthusiasts where we all recognize we have different tastes, we can't help becoming fanboys and rooting for our favorite games, brands, or equipment makers. This has created an industry where developers are paid based on arbitrary averages. It's rotten.
It's a rotten industry, though. That Naughty Dog 80-hour-workweek thread is good enough example of it. What's the point in destroying your life, for measly pay, just to get an arbitrary review score up where some other person is going to shit on it because they don't like monster closets?
But I don't think it's true of Recore. Game looks rough, and low scores for it aren't very far from the mean. The 90/100 review from "Game Over Online" is further from the mean (63) than the 40 overall from Destructoid.
I think we have a problem with game review sites when reviewers can only look at a game from their specific point of view. Like, if you didn't like GTAIV or GTA:SA, you're probably not going to like GTAV. So, when a reviewer goes into GTAV already not liking the game, and then their complaints are that it's not like _insert favorite game_ so therefor, the game deserves a 55/100, then that's disingenuous. If you compare it to something like car ratings, somebody who exclusively drives zippy sports cars or performance coups isn't going to be able to rate a mini van on the same scale. If they do a review of a mini van, they should say, "Well, this van is probably more apt for someone with a family, and compared to other minivans, it's pretty good." But if they said, "Ugh, the handling is atrocious, I can't park in narrow spaces, and it goes 0 - 60 in 9 seconds... 20/100," then it'd be unfair.
A problem is that we've built up review scores to be the end all be all. Even for a forum of enthusiasts where we all recognize we have different tastes, we can't help becoming fanboys and rooting for our favorite games, brands, or equipment makers. This has created an industry where developers are paid based on arbitrary averages. It's rotten.
It's a rotten industry, though. That Naughty Dog 80-hour-workweek thread is good enough example of it. What's the point in destroying your life, for measly pay, just to get an arbitrary review score up where some other person is going to shit on it because they don't like monster closets?
Fahzgoolin
Banned
He thought Giant Bomb was too harsh on Quantum Break, but that's rubbish. Gerstmann was perfectly fair.
Opinions and all.
Opinions and all.
My point is that it's a little disingenuous to complain about review score tweeting when your fanbase does the same thing but with added racism
Yeah I haven't seen Phil comment on his racist tweets, ever, or how Greenburg retweets CG all the time
Primethius
Banned
Okay, I'm a bit confused. Let's go ahead with your interpretation: how does that make it conflict with the Gamespot summary which is quoted in the OP?
Spencer believes that there are reviewers who put out clickbait articles. He puts that statement out generally in response to Recore (but it could've been any other game). Where is the conflict between the Gamespot summary and the full interview?
It's not really. He probably has no idea what messages Shu receives.
He's not claiming that only PlayStation fans can be dicks... he's just giving a specific scenario which occurred that involved them.
ShockingAlberto
Member
There are probably reviews that are being edgelords for attention, but they are almost exclusively smaller sites that people are only paying attention to because it provided them an emotional reaction that they wanted.
Most of the time you feel it's coming from big sites, it's probably just someone disagreeing with you and you being mad.
Most of the time you feel it's coming from big sites, it's probably just someone disagreeing with you and you being mad.
The Albatross
Member
Have you seriously made a world for yourself where the fanbase for your non-preferred console is racist...?
Are there racists who own Xboxs? For sure. Are there racists who own PS4s? For sure. Given the sheer sales numbers of PS4s over Xboxs, playing to the averages, there are likely more racists owning PS4s than racists owning Xboxs, but that's a ridiculous point.
Scientist Supreme!
Banned
If it's the one I just read then I'm even more confused as to how one can say such a thing. It's just sounding more and more like guys can't handle a negative opinion unless you have more then "he put his personal opinion in this review" or "he compared it to other games in the genre".
Yeah, unfortunately it does happen, but it seems to be rare.
In ReCore's case, having completed the game myself and enjoyed it for the most part, I think the lower scores were justified due to the amount of game-breaking technical glitches and some less user-friendly aspects of the game's design in the final stretch of the game. All things that could have been addressed with more time, and frankly the game-breaking bugs should have never made it to release in a game from one of the top game publishers.
There really is a great foundation to build on with ReCore, it has some immensely satisifying platforming mechanics, so I hope they give the IP another shot while avoiding the same mistakes of the first game.
In ReCore's case, having completed the game myself and enjoyed it for the most part, I think the lower scores were justified due to the amount of game-breaking technical glitches and some less user-friendly aspects of the game's design in the final stretch of the game. All things that could have been addressed with more time, and frankly the game-breaking bugs should have never made it to release in a game from one of the top game publishers.
There really is a great foundation to build on with ReCore, it has some immensely satisifying platforming mechanics, so I hope they give the IP another shot while avoiding the same mistakes of the first game.
Lys Skygge
Member
If Recore had 1 or 2 bad reviews despite being universally praised by everyone else, he'd have a point (FH3 and U4 are good examples of this). However, Recore has mostly middling to bad reviews; I doubt every one of those bad reviews are doing it for clicks.
I dont believe that what he was saying but a few of those guys,who phil openly interacts with and follows, crapgamer and that mooch guy have some extremely racially charged tweets particularly about asain people
That being said i kinda agree with phil but if bet its not just smaller sites that do it but prominent reviewers too, and they need to be called out as well.
Caddyshack
Banned
Agreed. It's pathetic watching the same handful of posters harassing other members of this forum because they can't handle the topic of discussion on such a regular basis.
BRocknRolla
Member
I've gone around and around in my mind about trying to make an "objective" review. Honestly, I've given this a ton of thought in the past. Unless we have tangible metrics like lines of resolution, frames of animation, input response time, etc, we literally cannot have such a thing as an "objective" review.
In our gut when people say this, I think they're trying to encapsulate what they see as a review being "unfair", but at the end of the day, that's such an amorphous concept that we can't be applying it to a review. Even if this person docked the review because it wasn't the type of game they wanted, that's still a form of criticism, and it may in fact be very helpful for readers who would have a similar reaction.
We can all disagree with a review, but at the end of the day, they're just subjective opinions. Objectivity is either an impossible standard, or would result in reviews that told us only the raw, technical aspects of a game. The notion that we should label all divergent game reviews as click-bait is a disturbing thought, though ever time a game comes out, we definitely see just that. on these forums.
I'm saying that the Xbox warriors who tweet nastiness will often include a racist element that I don't see going the other way.
Edit: and these same warriors have the support of people like Greenberg
Night Angel
Member
While Phil's example was for Forza, he brought it up to make a point about Recore, a mediocre game by all counts. The summary is accurate.
Boo, Phil.
Boo, Phil.
I would say the vast minority of reviewers have integrity and rate a game based in how they actually feel and not to get clicks. Obviously not every single one. I'm sure there are people out there that write extreme opposite reviews just to get clicks, but I don't believe they are employed at reputable establishments. Usually running a personal review site.
Chobel
Member
So we went from "Phil only meant FH3" to "He's right you know?", and somehow that's OK?
Right, he just suddenly wanted to critic review culture nowaydays /s
Right, he just suddenly wanted to critic review culture nowaydays /s
Shin-Ra
Junior Member
A great majority of the reviews for The Master Chief Collection didn't reflect a game with busted campaign checkpointing and achievements, choppy performance in Halo 3, 4 and all split-screen, no anisotropic filtering even in original graphics modes, an assortment of inferior visual features taken from the PC port of Combat Evolved, broken menus, crashing, matchmaking failures, P2P fallback and countless other faults.
Microsoft's gained far more from these 'easy' reviewers than the rare few that might try to stand out for clicks.
Microsoft's gained far more from these 'easy' reviewers than the rare few that might try to stand out for clicks.
Is that why IGN gave God Hand 3.0?
Call them out, lol
At the same time though, this is a collection of FOUR Halo games, 2 of them remastered, scoring slightly below what Halo 4 alone did two years prior.
A significant portion of those reviews came out before release, and most cited the sheer amount of content as a reason for the higher score. Even then they mentioned the problems, but the full extent of the problem wasn't clear till after release, especially in anticipation of a day 1 patch.
This isn't MS exclusive either, BF4 got the same treatment. Reviewers in general are far more careful with AAA MP orientated games nowadays.
Those that came after release were far lower.
The same guys Phil interact with on Twitter. Went after Respawn for posting a pic of the ps4 version of Titanfall 2. So don't mention other fanbase when you interact with some of the worst xbox fanboys.
More_Badass
Member
He makes the mistake of assuming that a review score is a measure of a game's quality, when it's actually a representation of how much that individual person enjoyed the game.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
This is understandable. Judging the topic titles of the Gamespot / MCV articles, it seems they both took it out of context, presumably just for more clicks.
I guess this is precisely what Phil was talking about! :v
This reads like a tweet Donald Trump would post lmao
Pretty much. You don't ever go full Greenberg. Tis the point of no return.
Is that why IGN gave God Hand 3.0?
When outlets give games strangely low scores, "clickbate" isn't the direction one should be looking. The answer is typically a reviewer that didn't understand the game, someone whose personal preferences clashes with that particular game, or other similar explainations. It could also simply be an issue of ratings scale differences, something we've (EGM) run into numerous times.
The idea of trying to use reviews as clickbate is laughable to me. There's so many other options for content that would work 10x better.
Well, I learned a new word today: "Edgelord".
Unrleated:
This is the post of the thread (and possibly of the day, it's early).
Unrleated:
This is the post of the thread (and possibly of the day, it's early).
He is not wrong, I used to write reviews for an up and coming outlet a few years ago. The editor would sometimes change the score to generate traffic. As a freelancer working with a pen name I couldn't really contest if I wanted to get paid.
The comments would be filled with people saying the review read like the score would be higher, I couldn't tell them its because it was.
I don't even read reviews much but when I do I can mostly tell if its been changed or scored lower for traffic. The big sites don't need to do this but any smaller sites or new staff to big sites should be treated with scepticism. As a new writer you are only as valuable as the traffic you generate.
That said, this is not the case with Recore. I tried the demo and had no wish to play the full game.
The comments would be filled with people saying the review read like the score would be higher, I couldn't tell them its because it was.
I don't even read reviews much but when I do I can mostly tell if its been changed or scored lower for traffic. The big sites don't need to do this but any smaller sites or new staff to big sites should be treated with scepticism. As a new writer you are only as valuable as the traffic you generate.
That said, this is not the case with Recore. I tried the demo and had no wish to play the full game.