God of War |OT| Now on PC

[Legend]

Dooooooooooooooooom! This game is trash now.

[Kerotan]

A 7.5 from them is great. Quarter to three the only troll reviewer left. Looking forward to the next 5 or 6 reviews.

About the game critic reviewer "Mike's first exposure to video games was when his parents bought him a Game Boy and a copy of Kirby's Dream Land."

He's a Nintendo fanboy and he's review scores reflect that. Pity he can't grow up, it would be like me only reviewing games like crash and spyro high because I grew up with them. This guy isn't qualified to review mature games.
 

God of war reviews have triggered this fanboy on resetera. He's always pro Nintendo and anti Sony in the mediacreate threads. He didn't react like this when zelda was reviewed. Salty. Everything wrong in the game press industry is your fault | ResetEra

 

The recent stream of great exclusives games releases is certainly a good thing, and while some consoles are getting more of the spotlight than others, all three big ones made the press rather positively recently, whether it's due to their record-breaking sales or amazing reception by the press. The unfortunate side effect of that situation is that it also reveals the dirty side of the press industry, and by that I don't mean to blame at all the hard-at-work journalists, but instead the reason of everything wrong in the game press industry: you. Let me start by defining that "you". I'm talking about you, the reader of many media outlet, whether it's online press (IGN, Kotaku, Polygon, Eurogamer...) or physical magazines (Edge, GameInformer...). It also includes all of those who aren't reading any reviews and just looking at the scores that ResetEra spontaneously gather every time there's a new release. Same for those who don't have the time for all that and only use Twitter for the big headlines. And, more importantly, it includes all of those who are commenting these articles, the behaviour of those media outlets, who are following their activities, and in general are actively participating in the game press industry's world. Of course, that includes me too. And if you don't feel like you're in any of the categories I just mentioned, you probably read them wrong, or you're only here for the laughs (and I certainly won't blame you for that). I'm going to begin with a recent example, the God of War release. It'd be hard to argue that the game wasn't received incredibly well. Look at that Metascore, 95 out of 100, therefore ranked as one of the best games of all-time. Look at those sales, breaking records in every country it's releasing in. And it's certainly resonating as well with the gamers, just a sneak peek in the OT on this board and all you'll see is people having a blast with the new video game they bought. Santa Monica are probably the happiest they've ever been in their life with these glowing reviews after several years of hard work. What to say of Sony, that is probably glad that they're once again making the headlines, especially when it's followed by the surge of people who are buying a console just to play that game. Every party involved is supposed to benefit from that situation, the developers who made a great game, the gamers that can play a great game and the publishers who will sell a lot of that great game. Who could possibly be losing anything in this situation? Well, there's one actor that is, and paradoxically it's also one that is contributing a lot to this situation: the press. As I've said, God of War was received incredibly well. Practically only 10/10 reviews, with a few 9/10 here and there from outlets that either never give 10/10 or maybe had a hard time reading those small subtitles, but no sweat over those, they're not going to lower the Metascore, so it's all fair. People are cheering on Twitter or the ResetEra review thread, making posters will all the perfect review scores the game got so far. In that honeymoon-like atmosphere, imagine being "that" outlet, about to make your review public, the one that isn't a 10/10, nor a 9/10, but a reflection of your opinion which isn't as glowing as the others. Well, whatever you've wrote, you better not look at your twitter account because you're about to get wrecked by a mob of angry fans. I'm of course referring to the Edge review thread on this very board, which was locked after twenty pages of fanboys spiting all the poison they could before a mod came in and locked that trainwreck. Edge is essentially responsible of two capital sins according to those people: reviewing God of War too low (it got 8/10) and rewarding Sea of Thieves of a score (7/10) too close to God of War. What's the relation between those two games you say ? Well, one HAD to be recognized as the second coming of the Christ by absolutely everyone, while the other had a more mixed reception and thus couldn't seriously have a score that fly so close to Santa Monica's sun. Different reviewers, different perspectives, different writings, different opinions, that doesn't matter to them, all wearing their Kratos avatars and showing their perfectly neutral stance by the same occasion, it was an impossibility. Then comes the research for explanations, and by chance, Edge happens to be published in the same country as Sea of Thieves developers, Rareware, comes from, so that must be it! These very professional journalists must have been biased and that's why they gave it such a high score, and I, a grown man spending all my day ranting on the internet, am much more objective than them and that's why you should avoid spending a dime to read their papers. Now, that was one specific and recent example coming from this place. Let's talk about another but not that different case. In May 2016, brilliant reporter Jason Schreier reported that No Man's Sky was about to be slightly delayed, two days before the game's developers confirmed it. In those two days, here's what happened. I invite you to read Kotaku's entire article about the subject (https://kotaku.com/i-got-death-threats-for-reporting-on-a-video-game-delay-1779617741). That case was widely reported as an example of extreme fanboyism. I'll assume that you already know what to think of sending death threats over video games (and in case you don't: first, you're scaring me, second, sending death threats to anyone is bad), so instead I'm going to talk about why you should feel concerned by that article. You're probably thinking that it doesn't have anything to do with you, because you're a decent human being and know that you shouldn't threat anyone over games, but that still doesn't mean at all that you didn't play a role in that. By complaining about review scores or articles you don't agree with, you're contributing to this nasty atmosphere that is toxic against games journalists. You're not going the extreme mill yourself, but you're encouraging those who are broken enough in their minds to go that far. And I'm going to clarify right now what I mean by "complaining": of course, nobody should ever blame you because you're disagreeing with an opinion and want to argue against it. It's the point of these reviews, to make people react, whether just by agreeing or by arguing otherwise. But arguing against doesn't mean one second that you should attack the outlet, the reviewer itself, or even his opinion about the game. Your opinion is NEVER more valid than the reviewer, most of the time it's much less valid because you don't have years of experience and a 2000-words essay to back you. Disagreeing is fair, arguing against is fair, trying to discredit the writer because you can't stand criticism against the company you've swear loyalty for isn't. And yes, this has consequences. Because you're trying to discredit the game press industry, you contribute to create movements against it, such as the GamerGate. You're directly responsible of that abomination. Even if all you were doing was a bad post about how Edge sucks because they gave low scores to all your favourite games, and therefore they must have been paid or just have a hate-rock. Hey, why not dig up that old battleship and almost fake-news story about how Polygon is paid by Microsoft, surely that won't stir even more hate against an industry that, by being based on people's personal opinions, is already heated enough. You are criticizing in bad faith an outlet or a reviewer -> more people that think the same way as you will follow your example -> creates a toxic atmosphere of hate against the press -> gives more excuses and confidences to even dumber people -> death threats and harassment comes -> the gaming community continue to be the worst in the entertainment industry. Now, that long post so far was a lot of blaming. And again, I'm blaming "you" to make you feel concerned, but that applies to me as much. I too have been trying to discredit reviewers or outlets when they were the outlier in the middle of a bunch of glowing scores about a game I was anticipating a lot. I often brushed off Polygon and Kotaku as clickbait outlets that just want to stir as much controversies as possible. I'm a contributor to that toxic atmosphere against the press, just like anyone else here is. But there are solutions. If you've come to this conclusion, just like I did, you probably want to change things, to improve yourself, and to improve the working conditions of reviewers. Supporting people is always the key. You think that God of War is a 10/10 game worth of every possible praise it had, and you can't comprehend how Edge could like it less than you did? Well, then just buy the issue and answer your own question. You can read the review and the numerous arguments the writer used to justify his score. You will probably understand why he thinks that way and just decide that what he considers as a flaw doesn't bother you enough to ruin in the slightest your experience. You may also just disagree with him, and you could then write here why you don't think like him, engaging with other people that may or not agree with you, and all that by staying respectful for the work of others. Buying a magazine may be too much for some, but that only applies to specific outlets. When Jim Sterling is giving Zelda Breath of the Wild a 7.5/10, watch his review video instead of spouting nonsense about his Nintendo hate rock, trying to back up your point with his previous and unrelated work. Yes, you're giving him clicks, advertisement and money by doing that, but that's how the entertainment and information industry work in general. If you still disagree with him, and his views in general, you can then explain why you don't like his opinion, or just decide to not watch any of his videos anymore. In any case, he won't suffer much of your loss alone. I could have given more examples of why the gaming community is acting against their interests and worsen media outlets, like that time when Bethesda announced that it wouldn't give press review copies in advance because they had faith in gamers to make the good choices, but this post is already way too long so I'm going to end with this: the gaming press industry is both better and worst than it was 20 years ago. It's better because we have a lot more variety and publishers are less directly invested in outlets, creating more neutral and diverse contents. The day of old magazines giving 90+ scores to every game the publisher sent them in fear of being blacklisted is over. We now have reporters that aren't afraid to break big news because they know that their audience will follow them no matter what the publisher could do. But it's also worst because people are now so emotionally invested in their favourite company that they can't stand any kind of criticism and try to create movements to protect them. Spoiler : big multinational companies doesn't care at all about you defending them on Twitter, you should try to go outside more often instead.TL;DR : when you criticize in bad faith a reviewer or a media outlet because you don't like that they gave god of war a lower score, you're responsible for the toxic atmosphere that leads to death threats being sent and the creation of stuff like GamerGate. Also, you shouldn't answer to my long-dog post just after reading this tl;dr.  

[the-pi-guy]

^ I don't disagree with the content itself. People take game reviews way too seriously and some people just have different opinions.  There's nothing wrong with that.

A 98 added to MC.

[Dr. Pezus]

fudgy troll reviewers lol

[Xevross]

Omg the Era review thread is back. This will be much easier now.

Game Debate 9.5/10, on meta apparently.

[Dr. Pezus]

Omg the Era review thread is back. This will be much easier now.

Game Debate 9.5/10, on meta apparently.

Every point counts. Keep em coming boy

[Xevross]

News Arbiter 9.6/10
Nerd Slash 5/5

[the-pi-guy]

News Arbiter 9.6/10
Nerd Slash 5/5

On meta?

[Xevross]

On meta?

Narp. And neither is AVForums, who gave a 10/10.

[Dr. Pezus]

Narp. And neither is AVForums, who gave a 10/10.

Ffs people. Send meta your applications!

[Legend]

Another review added to meta, still 94.

[Dr. Pezus]

Another review added to meta, still 94.

Hanging on the edge

[the-pi-guy]

5th from the top of the 94s.

[Xevross]

10/10 from Pardis Game on opencritic. Secures the 95 a little bit more there.

[Kerotan]

It's now 1 spot from 95 on the list again. I more review higher then 95 should push it over. Super close.