Re: 1st HL2 game memories from 2004...

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:42:07 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 22/11/2024 21:34, Zaghadka wrote:

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired, some 3 years later*, for failing to give a
good review to a corporate partnership game, my opinion was sealed.

<very interesting but long post snipped>

Although with the proliferation of user reviews, this has become less
of a problem. I honestly can't remember the last time I looked to a
'professional' review site to help me decide whether or not a game was
good enough to purchase. I _do_ look at user reviews for that purpose,
though. If I go to a website like PC Gamer or Kotaku to learn about a
game, it's literally that: what is the game about? But there's an
underlying assumption --founded by years of professional reviewers
sabotaging their own stories, as mentioned above-- that they're just
repeating marketing hype.

Not that user reviews are without their own problems, of course.
They're, individually, just as easily manipulated, and even the ones
that are written in earnest, a lot of them lack objectivity or any
sort of real analysis. But the sheer number of them means that _some_
of them are going to be honest and trustworthy. Which is more than you
can say about professional reviews.

But part of the problem also lies with the audience, who /demand/ day
one reviews. The only way this is possible is if the reviewers are in
direct contact with the publishers, which leads to a worry about
LOSING that contact if the reviewers say the wrong thing. And even if
the reviewers are trying to be objective and avoiding this sort of
conflict of interest, the very fact that they have to rush to get
their review out to meet the publisher's release date (often running
pre-release code to boot!) is problematic. Gamers' obsession with
getting the game right away is part of the problem.

Although maybe this too will become less of an issue, as video game
libraries balloon and being able to get games for free if you just
wait a few years becomes more common. Who needs to rush out and get a
new game when you have a hundred others already waiting for you to
play them? ;-)