News Rumour: Gamespot Editor fired over review

I agree with your component scores even using bit-tech's scoring system, but surely you wouldn't buy Battlefield 2 to play the single player game and therefore that should not really be factored into the game's score? Or am I completely barking mad and people actually bothered playing the game in singleplayer game for more than a few minutes?

Classic example: UT3 is a multiplayer game, but it has a singleplayer component... we gave the game a 9/10 because it's a fantastic multiplayer game, but we also described the singleplayer campaign as 'so cheesy that the French won’t eat it.' I would never buy UT3 for its singleplayer campaign, and therefore it's not really worth considering when you're rating the game IMO.

 

I think this is disgusting, whats the point of having reviews if they cant be honest?! I mean (although its kind of irrelevant) its not like he should it 1.3 or something! Would Joe get sacked if he had given Crysis a 3 or something? As this is the kind of career I am trying to work towards I just find it plain worrying to be honest.

 

Totally agree here. Scores tend to cloud the review somewhat. People (as seen here) at the end of a review look at the score and try and fathom why it was given based on the review. It's the reviewer's opinion that is important not some conjured up intergers that should be brought to the readers attention. Choosing a game is like choosing a partner, you can't make a sensible choice, based on what someone else has scored.

 

I'm not going to talk about any writer in particular here, because I don't think that's the right way to handle it.

Ultimately, it would depend on what the writer based their opinions on. If they were baseless, then there would definitely be discussions as to what their motives were for writing jibberish... but if they were based on fact, of course not.

As long as the writer has got facts on their side, nobody can argue with their opinion... no matter how much people don't like it, because after all, it's the writer's opinion. I don't think we've ever changed a score pre-publication (or added a note below the scores post publication) without discussion between the writer and editor (and sometimes even farther afield to the other guys in the office).

 

I can understand this, but sometimes with games you really do get something that is average, maybe no so much with hardware etc. I also was not implying that you should use a more "complex" system with half scores or smaller variances.

As a writer you only giving your opinion on the product or game, so no, you can’t define between a 8.7 and 8.8, you should be giving a general ballpark of where it at.

I like Bit's system for hardware, recommendations are the way forward it regards to this, as hardware is only one part of a bigger system and you can’t create a score as it depends on how it interacts with other configurations.

I guess my only point is I would like to see someone doing reviews where the scores are balanced as they should be.

P.S: Joe is doing an excellent job of game reviews, balanced and informative. (though I found Crysis, while being very, very, pretty, pretty average gameplay wise)

 

I bought UT3 for the single player, as I very rarely play online multiplayer over the PC (can never get a Microphone to work properly for team based games on the PC, so I prefer the 360 for my multiplayer shenanigans).

 

It's arguments like this that make me miss that one issue of Computer Gaming World (that particular magazine might be US only, not sure) where they didn't publish review scores, but instead just the review text and a few summary points.

Just a side note: the "average" score should be higher than average (5) if the review score is an independent scale, rather than an adjusted scale.

If a 1 is a bad game, and a 10 is a perfect game, most games tend towards perfection, and so the scale should be bumped slightly up.

If 1 is the worst game ever made, and 10 is the best game ever made, then 5 is the average game. However, this won't work over time since the scale itself will always be shifting.

If you listen to the back issues of the GFW Radio podcast they get into this topic quite a bit. Even a little in this week's episode.

 

The way I look at it is this:
1 - Something I'd probably not review unless it was important
2 - Garbage which you should destroy
3 - Really, not worth your time
4 - Not worth your time unless you are a massive fan
5 - is the bog standard you EXPECT from a game (that it works, that it does what it says)
6 - Problems outnumber the advantages, but the game is still fundamentally playable
7 - What you HOPE most games will offer as minimum (good levels, fun story etc)
8 - Damn good, some flaws
9 - Must have
10 - the best a genre has yet reached

Given the quality of most games now though and the type of games we review, 5 is considered a lower score than average. That's just perception though because most games do what they say on the tin and then layer in some additional elements to impress us.

I don't think averages work that well personally. A game can have great graphics but crap gameplay, scoring high on one and low another which makes a score which isn't representitive of the overall game. Tetris is a perfect example - crap graphics, repetitive gameplay, but still awesome and high scoring game.

To be fair, somebody who judges a game solely on a score is stupid anyway. The point is that you read the review, see our thoughts and from that forms YOUR OWN DAMN CONCLUSIONS. If I tell you that a game like Boiling Point is sandboxy, massive and fun but is ruined by bugs then you decide for yourselves whether you think you can cope with the bugs and you decide to buy the game or not. You should never just skip the whole text, see the score and go "hm, Joe gave Boiling Point a score of 6", I will/won't play it.

We're here to guide your and help you make up your minds by giving you facts and opinions based on facts, not to tell you what you must and must not play based solely on a numerical score which we include primarily because people expect it.

Translating a feeling into a number is a notion born to fail, so never rely on it and you'll start to see reviews as being more useful and helpful to you.

 

they arequick. thats prettty funny lol.

mine's simpler, on review scoring that is:
<4: dont bother
4: if ur really bored at work, read it. it may be funny.
5: huh? what game deserve a 5? read it out of curiosity.
6: wonder what game did to deserve a 6? read it out of curiosity.
7: interesting. if i play the genre, i may rent it out.
8: if its my genre, most likely i'll pick it up. but no rush. read more review before actually buying. if not, read the review anyway.
9: if its my genre, better schedule a day to pick it up. if not, then maybe its time to try another genre?
10: why am i not in the local EB? who cares what game it is, if somebody (respectable) scores a perfect 10, its definitely worth the $....

 

I Feel this is a perfect scale. considering how in tune Bit-Tech is with its users. I feel they generally don't rate games that would have scores below a 6. If that score that low ever came up i would assume it wouldn't be a featured new release. More like if you decided to do a collection of the worst games ever made. Basically if a game got below a 6, Bit-Tech probably shouldn't have even bothered reviewing it.

 

If my memory serves me right, it was Gerstmann who gave Shenmue on the DC a harsh review back in 2000. However looking at the site, they had someone else re-review it and gave it a higher score. His name stuck in my head after that review though because of such a great game Shenmue was.

More on topic though, it doesn't mean he should be fired. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. A review is just that. They pay him for his opinion. Should he taint the review just to please the advertisers?

He should sue them for wrongful termination.

 

There are a few other thoughts... would you bother to review a 1? or a 2? or 3? Would you review a game you wouldn't normally play? If you're a FPS fan, would you review Strawberry Shortcake Pony Playland (I'm making this up... at least I hope I did)? Would you rank it lower as it isn't your style of game? If you did review something and it was a 2, would you even bother publishing the review?

Certain products, games, etc. I won't even consider as they're just not my style. So based on just playing the ones that, going in, I believe I would like, then most of my reviews should be 6-10. If instead I reviewed a wide variety then 1-10 would be more of a reasonable range however those lower scores very well could be reflecting me knocking off a few points cause the game isn't my style. Is that fair to the game? to the readers?

Regardless, if the individual was fired for an honest review then that is just wrong.

 

Apologies if I was misinterpreted ,my point wasn't about anyone in particular (sorry Joe, love ya work) just that I would like to think that the actions of Gamespot are completely at odds with how a similar situation would be handled here at Bit, and that reviewers should be allowed to give a low score if that is their opinion.

Again sorry if I offended anyone, not my intention at all

EDIT: fixed crappy grammar

 

We should be be angry at Eidos here if indeed the review was not of a malicious tone. Companies that take such actions are bullies.

 

I miss the old days of ZZAP 64 where you had a little image of the reviewer pulling a face based on the game.

For Joe's scoring system I would change No.1 to be "Games your dog can play with"

 

Amiga Power's reviews were legendary. If a game was crap, they pulled no punches and often took it to pieces or wandered off on a tangent. And then gave it 1%.

 

My thoughts exactly... I would in fact be surprised if I saw a below 5-6 rated game here simply because I trust the Bit-Tech reviewers to filter out the crap games so that I don't even have to bother reading the review only to learn that the game is rubbish. If I ever see a score 4-5 review on BT I surely hope that it would be followed by "we were hopeful that this game could be great, but in reality it was written by 5 squirrels on LSD...". If you look at the hardware reviews BT has some kinda like that which end up saying something like "the product looked great and the idea sounded cool, but it just didn't work..."

 

Whatever happened to total separation of the editorial and ad-sales functions of publishing? If this turns out to be true, it kicks sand in the face of journalistic independence!

 

We don't go out of our way to review crap games. Take Cycling Manager 2007 for example, which came into the office and which Hugo reviewed on the forums. I looked at that, said "ugh, thats going to be **** - what else do I have in, oh GRAW 2". Now, GRAW2 turned out not to be a fantastic game, but we reviewed it because it was semi-big and could have been good.

We could look at games which are pants - I have Falling Stars, Escape From Paradise City, Crash of The Titans, and lots of others all sat in my drawer and I can tell you that they are all going to be ****. Instead though, we'll look at the games which are interesting to our readers - Orange Box, Halo, BioShock, etc. If BioShock turned out to be crap then we'd tell you and, as you can see from some of my past reviews, I'm not scared to tell you that something is awful. Read my impressions of Physx!

However, because a game is from a big dev and publisher, there is an increased chance that it'll be good and we have to compare it to all the games out there - thus, 6 - 10 is the score range you'll see most often. It doesn't mean that we don't tell you the truth. If you want to see me review crappy games more often then just let me know. I love it when people post in the forums requesting reviews of specfic games, no matter how ****.

 

I'm don't read Gamespot reviews all too much, but any reviewer shouldn't lose their job like this. If it does turn out to be true then it's a real shame this happened.

He really didn't hold back though: http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/video_player/popup.php?sid=6182850&pid=934403

I didn't enjoy the game either to be honest, so I thought the review was justified.