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[Rapstah]

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity

Too bad this doesn't affect the Metacritic score from Polygon.

Putting those scores on Metacritic is manual, so unless Metacritic had a guy ready to handle scores temporarily changing, something I'm pretty sure has never happened before for them, it's not going to change.

Unless Polygon is a big deal for them I guess?

 

[Lord_Nergal]

Metacritic does not allow scores to be changed.

Well isn't that dandy. Good thing Metacritic isn't tied to important things, like contracts, bonuses, other th--


Shit.

 

[DirtRiver]

What the hell are you guys talking about? They have been talking about the possibility of having to change the score based on EA's situation with how they handle server connectivity.

NeoGaf has a lot of pull in some situations, but in this case it had none.

I do think it is a little bit strange the way they are handling this. If this was a genuine concern they should have waited before publishing the review to see how the game would behave in public.

 

[JABEE]

Well isn't that dandy. Good thing Metacritic isn't tied to important things, like contracts, bonuses, other th--


Shit.

Yep. Pretty unethical and shady shit. Polygon participated in it, and no one seems upset about it for the right reasons.

 

[benny_a]

It's not an instantaneous process.

It doesn't update at all. It is done as a precaution by Metacritic as to not have publications cave in on low scores by publisher pressure as with the Kane & Lynch scenario.

Polygon did everything right. Get all the early clicks. Get on MC with a very high score so EA is happy and invites them again for all kinds of preview events and junkets. Change the score to seem like the reasonable publication that is aware of complaints and whatever other "unforeseen consequences."

If you're jumping for joy due to this change you've been played.

 

[Vire]

This thread had nothing to do with it, Polygon already stated yesterday they would change the score accordingly.

It was a joke. Just ironic timing.

But I will give them credit for doing what they said they would in their policy.

I'd like to see if MetaCritic will be updated accordingly though. (I doubt it...)

 

[antitrop]

Yep. Pretty unethical and shady shit. Polygon participated in it, and no one seems upset about it for the right reasons.

Or maybe you're reading too much into it. The Great Sim City Conspiracy of 2013.

 

[Interrobang]

This thread had nothing to do with it, Polygon already stated yesterday they would change the score accordingly.

What the hell are you guys talking about? They have been talking about the possibility of having to change the score based on EA's situation with how they handle server connectivity.

NeoGaf has a lot of pull in some situations, but in this case it had none.

I do think it is a little bit strange the way they are handling this. If this was a genuine concern they should have waited before publishing the review to see how the game would behave in public.

It was a joke. Just ironic timing.

But I will give them credit for doing what they said they would in their policy.

I'd like to see if MetaCritic will be updated accordingly though. (I doubt it) :/

Kollar posts in this thread and then they post an adjustment. It's not a coincidence, guys. Come on now. lol

 

[H2Yo]

To play devil's advocate here, I don't think whether a game has optional micro-transactions or not should affect the score.

Diablo 3: Auction House items can also be purchased with in-game gold.
Mass Effect 3: The weapons packs can also be earned by playing the coop.
Dead Space 3: Weapons upgrades can be purchased using in-game seals.

 

[inky]

I do think it is a little bit strange the way they are handling this. If this was a genuine concern they should have waited before publishing the review to see how the game would behave in public.

But then they wouldn't be one of the first sites with a review out

clicks clicks clicks.

 

[Wario64]

Will they lower scores when EA yanks online servers for MP

 

[dLMN8R]

Wait so now it's Polygon's job to play nicely with Metacritic's decisions?

Weird.

 

[JABEE]

Or maybe you're reading too much into it. The Great Sim City Conspiracy of 2013.

Why post the early review on something that you knew would be inaccurate the day before a game launched?

 

[Baleoce]

Stopped reading reviews personally. I don't expect an individuals subjective opinion to be directly relevant to me, even if they are paid to do it.

If I'm in the market for a "AAA" game (ie. paying full price), then I'll check out aggregates or fish for a general consensus so that I know I'm not investing in a red herring, but that's purely because of the price point.

As for mid and indie, I'll just buy it and judge it for myself.

 

[benny_a]

Why post the early review on something that you knew would be inaccurate the day before a game launched?

Clicks.

 

[Gnub]

Well they review games. Not levels of consumerism. If the game play is hot then the game deserves a high score.

 

[Lord_Nergal]

Why post the early review on something that you knew would be inaccurate the day before a game launched?

"Buh-buh-buh-but readers want timely reviews! They won't get mad if their mileage varies!"

 

[Dibbz]

How about you review the game correctly the first time? Or not review it at all until you had a chance to really test it out.

 

[Hato-kun]

Really? Every review from Polygon I've read has been fantastic. Plus the layout of the site is so beautiful.

 

[injurai]

Everyone should just read

RPS

and Ars Opposable Thumbs.

 

[ultron87]

I'd really rather they just stuck by their original score. Unless the game literally never works that's what it is going to be eventually. Changing the review score to be fancy is arbitrary and weird from a reader perspective more than anything. It's like yesterday: "man, I should buy this! *preorders*" Today: "I can't wait to open my now downloaded copy of SimCity... 8.0 the fuck? POLLYYYGGGONNNNNN!"

And where do you come up with an 8.0 now? If the game had had these kind of problems throughout the whole review process I doubt it would've gotten that.

 

[Vire]

To play devil's advocate here, I don't think whether a game has optional micro-transactions or not should affect the score.

Diablo 3: Auction House items can also be purchased with in-game gold.
Mass Effect 3: The weapons packs can also be earned by playing the coop.
Dead Space 3: Weapons upgrades can be purchased using in-game seals.

Optional microtransactions that affect gameplay decisions and game design?

Diablo 3 is next to unbeatable on Nightmare without purchasing things from the Real Money Auction house.

 

[JABEE]

Wait so now it's Polygon's job to play nicely with Metacritic's decisions?

Weird.

Or not post your scores on Metacritic, but that would mean that your reviews would matter less to publishers, you would get less access, and you wouldn't benefit from the exposure that being on Metacritic gives reviews.

These are business decisions, not editorial.

 

[Margalis]

Wait so now it's Polygon's job to play nicely with Metacritic's decisions?

The original score was undeserved. It did not represent the game consumers were getting.

Video game websites know very well how Metacritic works and how important Metacritic is. Giving a game a speculative 9.5 then adjusting it after it's enshrined on MC makes no sense.

It's not like SimCity was great then broke one day. It never worked!

 

[Vire]

More from Arthur:

Metacritic will not change the score.

 

[Corto]

I don't expect most of them to touch on those issues on their reviews because they don't affect them. They forget who is their true audience.

edit: sorry. It seems that SimCity server problems are indeed affecting Polygon too and they are changing the review accordingly? Cool. Good thing that those happened before they were too busy with the next reviews.

 

[DocSeuss]

I think this is the gist of the angst right here. The problem is not so much with reviews at large, but rather finding reviewers that share a similar attitude towards gaming as you do and then following those writers.

Justin McElroy has always stated - going back to when he was still with Joystiq - that while he will talk about mechanics and production value, at the end of the day, his scores are about how much fun he had, or how impactful the experience was.

Honestly, if I played a game that was broken as fuck and fun as hell, I'd probably tell people to buy it. Some reviewers only seem useful for telling me whether a game is awesome or not, so I tend not to care about what they have to say. Guys like Kollar, on the other hand, tend to convince me to try out games I might not otherwise have any interest in, and that is something I find invaluable.

The best reviewers, in my opinion, are the ones who broaden my horizons.

I wish more people would do a group discussion about a game (RPS did a cool Deus Ex: Human Revolution discussion a while ago). It's always cool to see differing, intelligent opinions arrive at a consensus. Wish more people would do those. Hell, wish I could do those.

Everyone should just read

RPS

and Ars Opposable Thumbs.

Didn't the guy writing for Ars Technica write a really fucking stupid review about Rage where he made it obvious he didn't understand game design?

Or was that someone else?

 

[benny_a]

More from Arthur:

Metacritic will not change the score.

Of course it's fine. EA and Polygon both benefit from this.

I don't expect most of them to touch on those issues on their reviews because they don't affect them. They forget who is their true audience.

The SimCity always-on-DRM affected the reviewer greatly. Check the review.

 

[Rapstah]

To play devil's advocate here, I don't think whether a game has optional micro-transactions or not should affect the score.

Diablo 3: Auction House items can also be purchased with in-game gold.

Not the same items, the two auction houses are separate. Buying a good item for very little money doesn't compare perfectly to spending eight hours grinding the gold to buy a comparable item for gold instead.

Mass Effect 3: The weapons packs can also be earned by playing the coop.

This is true. The day 1 DLC is a more valid complaint.

(I haven't played Dead Space 3 so I don't want to comment on that one for real, but the issue for that seems to be that they're prompting you to buy shit all the time in a game that a lot of people saw as a step down in the first place. Don't take my word for this.)

 

[RiccochetJ]

Optional microtransactions that affect gameplay decisions and game design?

Diablo 3 is next to unbeatable on Nightmare without purchasing things from the Real Money Auction house.

But not ME3. It's just a booster for the impatient with money to burn. EA's sports titles have been like this for a very long time.

 

[Skinpop]

To play devil's advocate here, I don't think whether a game has optional micro-transactions or not should affect the score.

Diablo 3: Auction House items can also be purchased with in-game gold.
Mass Effect 3: The weapons packs can also be earned by playing the coop.
Dead Space 3: Weapons upgrades can be purchased using in-game seals.

If it affects game design/balance it should. And it usually does, especially in the case of Diablo 3.

 

[dLMN8R]

Of course it's fine. EA and Polygon both benefit from this.

How does Polygon benefit from Metacritic showing their score as a 9.5 instead of an 8?

 

[Retro_]

I think games should be reviewed for their content, not the way they're delivered to the user (which may change over time). Imagine TV show reviewers giving lower scores because the network went overboard with commercial breaks or something to that effect. DRM and other problems may be mentioned in a separate frame, but they should not impact the score, unless the game is downright unplayable for everybody.

Depends on how central the online delivery methods are to the experience.

I think, like in the case of Diablo 3 and RMAH, if those type of delivery methods affect the game on a design/creative level then they should most certainly have a presence in the review of the title.

If it affects game design/balance it should. And it usually does, especially in the case of Diablo 3.

guess we had the same thought lol

 

[Glorified G]

Just learned from this thread that SimCity has online drm. Now I know that i'll never play it.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

How about you review the game correctly the first time? Or not review it at all until you had a chance to really test it out.

I'm honestly not trying to be dismissive here, but what's the "correct" way to review the game. Just to be clear, I don't have SimCity and would be pretty pissed myself if I couldn't play because of the DRM. But I'm not entirely sure about how that should affect the perception of the definitive review. If you had early access to Diablo 3 and had no server issues, or were late to the party by about a week, it's quite likely that server issues never meaningfully affected your experience. Now, I can understand still objecting in principle, but I'm not sure what the real world implications should be.

I agree that companies should be held accountable for anti-consumer practices, but I don't necessarily agree that there's necessarily objective criteria for assessing what, if any, impact it has.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Just learned from this thread that SimCity has online drm. Now I know that i'll never play it.

Origin only made that choice for me. The rest of this bad news just make it easier to take.

 

[kassatsu]

How does Polygon benefit from Metacritic showing their score as a 9.5 instead of an 8?

Higher up on the list which would drive more traffic.

 

[Risible]

Giantbomb is the place to go.

Regardless of Polygon's claims, they couldn't shill harder if they tried. Their Diablo 3, ME3, and DS3 reviews read like the PR people crafted them for Polygon. Simply awful. I understand opinions are like assholes and all, but if you're going to do it professionally you should at least try to take all facets of a game into account when reviewing. Shameful.

 

[LiK]

i liked that they changed the score because the servers are making it unplayable.

also, online only sucks.

 

[JDSN]

Pretty sure the worst part about that Sim City reviews is releasing it so early while being reviewed in a bubble, that means they get to ignore the henious shit that goes down and the potential fuck ups of the social features while giving the game a high score that will trick their userbase into buying it.

Ohh look at that, what a bad site that one.

 

[Derrick01]

Just learned from this thread that SimCity has online drm. Now I know that i'll never play it.

The entire game was designed around a F2P style social and microtransaction system, hence the ability to slip online DRM in there. Not to mention you still have to pay $60 for the game even with that other stuff.

 

[Margalis]

I'm honestly not trying to be dismissive here, but what's the "correct" way to review the game.

The Idle Thumbs guys said that during the SimCity beta they ran into server issues and had to spend a half hour trying to get the server to load the tutorial.

The "correct" way to review the game is on production servers during rollout. But if that's too late at the very least if the beta is having server issues you can be pretty sure the launch will as well.

 

[Vire]

:lol

 

[nel e nel]

Optional microtransactions that affect gameplay decisions and game design?

Not trolling, just curious, have you played Dead Space 3? I never once considered getting a microtransaction, and it didn't affect my gameplay decisions.

 

[Goldenroad]

What was anti-consumer about Mass Effect 3? That was a huge game with tons to do including a multiplayer mode that all worked right out of the box. Yeah, you could pay for microtransactions to get unique loadouts, but if anything giving the consumer those kind of choices is actually pro-consumer. I never paid anything on top of what I paid for my ME3 disc and I was more than satisfied with the experience.

 

[nel e nel]

The Idle Thumbs guys said that during the SimCity beta they ran into server issues and had to spend a half hour trying to get the server to load the tutorial.

The "correct" way to review the game is on production servers during rollout. But if that's too late at the very least if the beta is having server issues you can be pretty sure the launch will as well.

The Idle Thumbs guys also went on to gush over it for over 30 minutes each on two different episodes, ending with "I can't wait for this game to be released."

 

[Htown]

It's funny that you guys think most of these sites work for the consumer and not the publisher.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

I liked Russ Pitts when he was on Gamers with Jobs. I feel bad for him now though he probably makes more money.

Though this thread probably had nothing to do with them changing it, it still pretty crazy. The metacritic policy is the kicker though. I think I'm done going to polygon links from here.

 

[Vire]

More fun tweets from Giant Bomb

I know you guys are reading.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

More fun tweets from Giant Bomb

I know you guys are reading.

Giant Bomb could make a living poking fun at Polygon. It's been happening constantly this year, like big brother vs. little brother.