Everyone knows that big companies manipulate reviews scores on big sites like IGN.com and Gamespot.com but there weren't any big evidences to prove that. Until now at least: http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/com...-manipulating-dragon-age-2-metacritic-scores/ Epic fail!
Their excuse is very interesting. Yes, in an election a candidate votes for himself. But the market isn't democratic, and ideally a product stands on its own merits. For someone who participated in development to pretend to be an unrelated reviewer is not only unethical, but says to me that the product does *not* stand on its own merits. This doesn't really make me angry because I don't expect any better from Electronic Arts.
Does anyone honestly read the user reviews on Metacritic? They always seem to be either "10/10 BEST GAME EVER" or "OMG GAME SUX -1000/10", I just can't imagine anyone taking them seriously. The employee should've known better, but it's hardly the big bad corporate corruption scandal that the thread title implies.
This is stunning that it came from BioWare who you'd think would be above this kind of thing with their track record. So they come out with one average to mediocre game and they pull something like this?
Somehow I can't see this being something that has been ordered by the management. Just hypothesizing, but dude could have been an intern working on the project, loved working there, seen the backlash the game has been getting from the fans and written a stupid comment about the game for a laugh.
Technology companies that are worth anything have specific policies about who can and can't speak in public about the organization or its products. My employer doesn't make video games, but they've got a very strict and enumerated set of rules on the subject. I can understand a garment factory not having that sort of protection in place, but a game development shop definitely should know better. On the value of user-generated Metacritic reviews, it's generally informative to see when there's a wide disparity between consumer impressions and critical response. Just like with movies, sometimes the professional reviewers are blind to something that the marketplace is demanding. On the other hand, the general public might not always be equipped to offer a compelling, nuanced argument about a product's worth, especially when it comes to subjective media like games. Isn't Electronic Arts usually more skilled at buying positive press? My recollection is that they schmooze the target demographic ahead of time to generate positive buzz, and when that fails they resort to outright payola to ensure that they get magazine covers and Gannett/AP/UPI/Turner coverage. On the other hand, now that nobody reads print or watches TV maybe their methods of hype are out of date.
I don't know - if it was something I worked a small part on and feel proud of, I'd heap praise on it too. At no point did he mention either way whether he was an employee or not. I think if it's the PR dept making 1000s of fake reviews that's one thing, but if it's 1 guy who honestly loved the game, I can't blame him. Hope he only gets a slap on the wrist for this.
The big deal is that basic ethics demands full disclosure. If you don't state clearly that you're involved, that you were invited, or that you're invested in some other way, then you're misrepresenting yourself as an impartial third party. To pick just one absurd example, do you trust a oil company executive to tell you where the cheapest gas is, or do you expect him always to recommend his company's?
If he was a professional journalist maybe I'd give a damn, but he's not. It's just another worthless user review. Unless it was part of some wider conspiracy to raise user reviews (and fuck knows why anyone would bother) it just doesn't matter.
I'd prolly use common sense. Atleast to me, it doesn't matter if a game or movie has 10/10, if I'm interested in that kind of thing, I'll try it, or listen to someone I trust, as in professional reviewers several years into their career. For example, I've seen movies rated 5/10 on imdb that I loved, and movies rated 10/10 that wasn't my cup of tea. :shrug:
If he likes the game, then so be it. If the scoring can be drastically thrown off by one review then the system is a piece of rubbish.
