Controversy Clocking Episode 5: The finger of suspicion and outrage over game reviews

The subject of reviewing in gaming is a fairly tricky one to decipher and has become a more widely discussed topic in modern gaming. Video game reviewers themselves have had all kinds of abuse and attacks hurled at them over the past few years, and it seems that as the internet age has enveloped more aspects of our discussions, these incidents have only grown more toxic and accusing.

It's probable that the review that really kicked off the cycle of suspicious review commenting and discussion was Kane and Lynch: Dead Men by Gamespot in 2008. The then senior editor of the site, Jeff Gerstmann, gave the game a six out a ten while the website was dedicating a substantial amount of its advertising space to promote the game. Apparently several confrontations between Gamespot and the game’s publisher Eidos Interactive occurred, resulting in Jeff being dismissed from the site soon afterwards. It was eventually hinted by Gerstman in an interview four years later that Eidos had threatened to pull their advertising revenue over the bad score and Gamespot let Jeff go to appease them, as it were. The Giant Bomb journalist was most recently called out for his criticism of Fallout 4, with people getting up in arms over him being too critical of the game.

Kane and Lynch was only the first of many reviews which sparked controversy on Gamespot; in the years that followed, people became more and more fixated on the review number itself. Tom Mcshea was a big target for this; his 8 out of 10 for Fable: The Journey and 7.5 score for Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in 2011, as well as the 8 out of 10 for The Last of Us in 2013 were all met with pointless anger by commenters. But what really enraged the masses on the site was Carolyn Petit and her review of Grand Theft Auto V; I checked in early on the review when it came out, saw how she was disappointed over the game’s use of women and thought to myself: “Fair enough, it’s her opinion, but that 9/10… people will be mad”. Mad didn’t even begin to describe the amount of hatred and borderline persecution that was about to erupt. I’d never seen anything like it; it was probably the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in all of my time with gaming. Over 20,000 comments the majority of which harassing, belittling, bullying and calling for Petit to be fired from Gamespot. The site did hit back at these heartless comments but it did little to ease the fires; when things finally did calm down, a new discussion existed in the gaming community. Should political discussion and societal viewpoints be injected into game reviews? It could be argued that the whole debacle on Gamespot may have been a strong contributor to the launch of the GamerGate scandal a year later.

Other websites have also been subjected to scrutiny as well; IGN has received a pretty negative reputation from the gaming community for constantly giving Call of Duty games at least at 8 or 9 every year despite their lack of innovation as well as their overrating of other modern games. Their review of Mass Effect 3 was also called out for being biased because one of their own staff members (Jessica Chobot) was a character in the game. On other occasions, many of the big reviewers are also criticised for ignoring glitches and issues, thus misleading the consumer into paying for a broken product; for example GameTrailers gave 9.5 out of ten to EA’s Battlefield 4 in 2013 and did not mention anything about the game being unplayable at launch. In some cases this may be down to the game developer purposefully giving out an unrepresentative review copy to the mainstream press to avoid any kind of point docking for an unfinished game. Story isn’t really a big factor in mainstream review scores either for fear of spoilers; truth be told, there really isn’t any way to satisfy everyone and that’s what the common gamer has been raising concerns about, that reviews are supposed to be objective. The problem comes when the mainstream gaming press can’t afford to keep this focus consistently anymore.

Between not wanting to upset fans of a series or console, not wanting to repel potential benefits with publishers, and not wanting to direct traffic away from their website, video game reviews now have more influencing factors than any other piece of entertainment. It could be argued that they have become something which could potentially make or break the success of a website and the wages and livelihood of bona-fide game journalists. Anger a fan base over a low score of their favourite game for example and they won’t come to the website again and because of this, the revenue taken in by click and visit numbers goes down. Bash a game from a particular company who invited you to an event or break the review embargo and you risk being placed onto the blacklist, meaning you won’t have access to the resources and releases that your journalistic competitors have. Developers and publishers want their game to sell well and game reviews can play a much stronger role in informing consumer purchases than films and music; if a game gets bad reviews that is sure to impact sales and so with games becoming so expensive to make, the makers may take more decisive measures to ensure this impact does not occur when the game is ready for general consumption.

Based on what I’ve seen through reading and watching several reviews on Gamespot, IGN and other websites over the years, the common accusations cried out at reviews from both internet commenters and other press members usually go as follows…

• ·     “They were paid/bribed/endorsed to give a good score!”

This usually springs up whenever advertisements for a particular game pop up on a website, a reviewer attends a developer or publisher sponsored event or if they were given earlier access to a review copy than other outlets. Commenters believe that undisclosed deals were made between the game makers and the reviewer; they score the game highly and in return the publisher places advertisements, both of which work to sell the game upon release.

• ·      “Their agenda got in the way and shouldn’t have been part of the review!”

Political correctness is a pretty sore subject in game reviews with many crying foul whenever someone utters a word about games relating to current political climates, gender roles and other external debates. Those who argue against the mention of these usually state that games are simple entertainment and shouldn’t be judged on the same level as films or other artistic entertainment.

• ·      “The score is too high/low for this game! You should have praised it/criticised it some more!”

This criticism is almost always borne from comments that look at the score first and mostly comes from fanboyism. There’s a nasty habit where people demand that their favourite game or franchise gets at least a nine or higher and if it doesn’t, then they automatically call out the reviewer for being biased towards a one system or company over another. The word "sell-out" is especially popular when this accusation is mentioned.

• ·      “They only gave it that score to be different from everyone else and direct traffic to themselves and their website!”

There’s a rather pointless element of conformity that exists in review comments nowadays, one that may have sprung up as a result of aggregate websites such as Metacritic. It’s a fairly simple system; green is good, yellow is mixed and red is bad, but it’s possible that some take this too far and uses it to fuel a demand that all mainstream reviews conform to the overall Metacritic score.

With all the endless accusations going around in the mainstream gaming press, it’s easy to see why popular YouTubers are now the preferred place to go when it comes to criticism of video games. By that I mean the hardcore reviewers; AngryJoe, TotalBiscuit, Super Bunnyhop, Tarmack, MatthewMatosis, SomeCallMeJohnny and Jim Sterling (All of which I highly recommend). They have all made their presence felt on the site in varying ways, but they all have something which the big websites don’t really possess anymore. A dedicated following and fan bases that always return to their channels time and time again because they have created a brand and identity which feels more genuine and credible. They don’t deal with game publishers nearly as often and aren’t restrained by those pressures, meaning they can give a more whole-hearted, long-winded and deeper critique.

Are mainstream reviewers corrupt? There is no easy answer to that question and it greatly varies depending on which website or outlet of games journalism you read into. The companies won’t tell a soul about these kinds of review practices and for internet commenters, simply disagreeing with a score is never enough nowadays. The two sides (along with publisher influence in the middle) are constantly clashing and this I believe is why reviews on long-running websites carry so much scepticism.