Pathetic. Another company that can't take criticism.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/29

They are quick off the mark.

It's a shame, this kind of thing happensa a lot in the games industry these days and as a by product its why you see all review scales only going from 7 to 10.

One day we might have reviews we can trust again.

P.S: an average game should get 5 not 8 :) (I'm afraid your guilty of this too Bit)

Originally Posted by Neat69
P.S: an average game should get 5 not 8 :) (I'm afraid your guilty of this too Bit)

our average is somewhere between 6 and 7 - six is defined as below average, seven is just above average, but I see your point.

maybe it just wasn't his type of game, or just maybe the game was bad.... and after wasting my money i can actual say that the game is poor when compared to hitman

Agree with Neat69's P.S mark.

I would say he was quite kind, especially compared to the 1600+ users who have given it an average score of 4.1!

You can't just fire the guy for not being too keen on one game.

Ok, they want action because of the low score and threaten to take their business elsewhere ie advertising.

So if the magazine gives in and sack the reviewer in order to keep the money coming in. Isn’t that fixing the review scores. I mean I wouldn’t bother reading reviews done by them as they will have inflated scores because they are getting paid and to keep their advertisers happy.

This will do GameSpot more harm because you cant trust their reviews anymore.

the game is crap and zelda. All Zelda's.. that's right pure crap.

Originally Posted by Tim S
...six is defined as below average, seven is just above average, but I see your point.

So what's the average IQ now? 120?

The game is crap, 6/10 is a fair score.

Originally Posted by Tim S

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neat69
P.S: an average game should get 5 not 8 :) (I'm afraid your guilty of this too Bit)

our average is somewhere between 6 and 7 - six is defined as below average, seven is just above average, but I see your point.

So average for you guys is 6.5? I understand why you do this though, as everyone else does and you need to keep things comparable, but it means to many games get high scores and makes it tough to chose between them.

At the end of the day, the whole reason of reading a review is so you can decide if you want to buy that game, or get game A or B, how do I do that if they both have 9.0 scores they don't always deserve?

Well making games is big money now, can't say I'm surprised this sort of thing happens. As to what weight his reviews carried and hence what "damage" it has done to the title we can only speculate. Surely a slapped wrist would have sufficed. Firing the guy, especially after such long service seems disproportionate to the "crime". I suspect there are other internal issues which have contributed to this. Have to wait and see I guess.

Originally Posted by Neat69
So average for you guys is 6.5? I understand why you do this though, as everyone else does and you need to keep things comparable, but it means to many games get high scores and makes it tough to chose between them.

At the end of the day, the whole reason of reading a review is so you can decide if you want to buy that game, or get game A or B, how do I do that if they both have 9.0 scores they don't always deserve?

Rent 'em, try 'em...

Anyhow I too think bad games deserve bad reviews. And setting 6-7 to be average doesn't feel right to me. I'd say if it sucks tell the people it does.
Just out of curiosity what was the worst score you ever gave a game here at BT?

This is bad!

Originally Posted by Neat69
So average for you guys is 6.5? I understand why you do this though, as everyone else does and you need to keep things comparable, but it means to many games get high scores and makes it tough to chose between them.

At the end of the day, the whole reason of reading a review is so you can decide if you want to buy that game, or get game A or B, how do I do that if they both have 9.0 scores they don't always deserve?

I can see your point, but do you really decide whether to buy a game or not merely on a score out of 10? :?

Honestly, I don't pay much heed to scores out of 10, percentages, etc.
I'd rather actually read the review and get the detailed opinions of the reviewer about various aspects of the game so I can decide for myself - and I'd imagine you're much the same, as are most people.

As far as I'm concerned, scores out of 10 and the like are just a formality that reviewers have to go through to adhere to the norm, but it's the opinions presented within the review that count.

Originally Posted by Neat69
So average for you guys is 6.5?

We don't have a truly "average" score, as we only score from 1 to 10 (with no halves). We do this because it keeps things simple and secondly it's rare that a game (or product for that matter) is truly average... I think the tipping point is that 7 is something we think is worth considering, while 6 is something that we don't.

I understand why you do this though, as everyone else does and you need to keep things comparable, but it means to many games get high scores and makes it tough to chose between them.

You're right, it's not that we don't want to start at five and work upwards... we're kind forced into that in some ways by other sites. We started out with seven as an average, but decided that was too high, so now we classify seven as above average.

At the end of the day, the whole reason of reading a review is so you can decide if you want to buy that game, or get game A or B, how do I do that if they both have 9.0 scores they don't always deserve?

I hear you, but the reason we kept it simple is because how do you tell the difference, as a writer, between an 8.7 and an 8.8? Personally, I think scoring out of any more than 10 is overcomplicating things and it'd be even worse if we started going down that route with the hardware reviews too, because it's often incredibly hard to score a product even out of 10 - we spend a lot of time coming up with our scores and most of them are usually discsussed, or at least put out there by the writer and then they have to be able to defend why it deserves that score if one of us doesn't agree. :)

Originally Posted by quack
Pathetic. Another company that can't take criticism.

This is not something new. There's another example: this year, Vadim Computers lost the Dream PC2007 award (SCAN won it). The two guys who built the machine from Vadim Computers were fired a few days after that.

I would hope that someone will pick up this guy and give him a job. Someone with 10 years experience of the industry and who gives an honest review should be seen as an asset, not as a risk.

Unfortunately advertising revenue is a big part of keeping sites rolling. This guy had the balls to tell it 'how it is' from his perspective in the review. The ones without the spine are the people who have bowed to external pressure and sacked him.

If the average user is only rating it as a 4, then perhaps they should be grateful that he gave them a 6. I fail to see in other comments how a 6 can be described as below average and 7 as above average. On a 1 to 10 scale, 5 is and always has been the average!! Anything less than 5 is below average. Basic maths guys!!

The best reviews I see are ones where they rate cost, playability (SP and MP), graphics, performance etc individually and then give the final score as the average of them all. BF2 SP for me is about a 3, but MP is about an 8 which would give an average of 5.5 over those two things....see where Im going?

Originally Posted by indigo_prime
The best reviews I see are ones where they rate cost, playability (SP and MP), graphics, performance etc individually and then give the final score as the average of them all. BF2 SP for me is about a 3, but MP is about an 8 which would give an average of 5.5 over those two things....see where Im going?

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. :(

Originally Posted by Zurechial
I can see your point, but do you really decide whether to buy a game or not merely on a score out of 10? :?

Honestly, I don't pay much heed to scores out of 10, percentages, etc.
I'd rather actually read the review and get the detailed opinions of the reviewer about various aspects of the game so I can decide for myself - and I'd imagine you're much the same, as are most people.

As far as I'm concerned, scores out of 10 and the like are just a formality that reviewers have to go through to adhere to the norm, but it's the opinions presented within the review that count.

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.;)

Originally Posted by Angleus
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. :(

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).

Originally Posted by Tim S
We don't have a truly "average" score, as we only score from 1 to 10 (with no halves). We do this because it keeps things simple and secondly it's rare that a game (or product for that matter) is truly average... I think the tipping point is that 7 is something we think is worth considering, while 6 is something that we don't.

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.

Originally Posted by Tim S
You're right, it's not that we don't want to start at five and work upwards... we're kind forced into that in some ways by other sites. We started out with seven as an average, but decided that was too high, so now we classify seven as above average.

Originally Posted by Tim S
I hear you, but the reason we kept it simple is because how do you tell the difference, as a writer, between an 8.7 and an 8.8? Personally, I think scoring out of any more than 10 is overcomplicating things and it'd be even worse if we started going down that route with the hardware reviews too, because it's often incredibly hard to score a product even out of 10 - we spend a lot of time coming up with our scores and most of them are usually discsussed, or at least put out there by the writer and then they have to be able to defend why it deserves that score if one of us doesn't agree. :)

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)

Originally Posted by Tim S
[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 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.

Originally Posted by Jamie
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/29

They are quick off the mark.

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 $....

Originally Posted by CardJoe
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

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.

Originally Posted by Tim S
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).

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":D

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%.

Originally Posted by Drexial
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.

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 wank. 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.

If this is a sign of the amount of power held by the advertisers on such sites then in 6 months time the only reviews you will see will actually be written by the publishers own team and you would be better off going to somewhere like youtube for an unbiased review.

Originally Posted by Cr4zYEnder
If this is a sign of the amount of power held by the advertisers on such sites then in 6 months time the only reviews you will see will actually be written by the publishers own team and you would be better off going to somewhere like youtube for an unbiased review.

reviews need to be spot on and honest, at the end of the end its the gamer that gonna get the rough deal. Also i hope this reviewer gets another job quickly and has other like minded people working with him.

and finally, there has to be some poor quality games out there, so we can enjoy the good ones when they come along!

Originally Posted by Neat69
P.S: an average game should get 5 not 8 :) (I'm afraid your guilty of this too Bit)

i think an average game should get 7.5 or so. the all "passing" games would get something from 5-10, i.e. these games are worth buying, depending on whether you like the genre or have spare money/time. all games below 5 are "failed", meaning you should actively avoid them, and hopefully prevent others from buying them as well.

The entire concept of rating a game on a score point based system is ludicrous; it is an attempt to quantify a subjective experience. The enjoyment to be wrought from a game is completely dependent on the end user. Tacking numbers to the game's quality just cheapens the opinion of the writer - compounded further when people can just take a glance at the numbers and decide off the bat that "ok, these guys gave it a decent rating, and so did these guys" while totally missing the boat about what might actually take place in the game. Not everybody who reads these things are the type of people who have done prior research into the content of the game they're about to get (as demonstrated by the number of 10 year olds with Grand Theft Auto 3 in their PS2s).

Hardware review scores work because they have something that exists in a distinctly numerical state; frame rates, or the amount of time it takes to perform a specific set of actions. Games don't really have that sort of thing to work with except at the technical level - but quantifying the technical merits, without scoring the rest of the game, would likely serve to pollute the overall review. Concrete information does not typically mesh with subjective information.

Honestly, I think we can get the point about what game journalists do and do not like about a game if they just write about it and let the readers actually examine the text of the review. Scores are just a cop-out for people with short attention spans who otherwise type TL;DR.

Goodbye Gamespot.com, you get no more visits from me. It's too bad because I really like their site. Another pc mag, I think it was PC World, did something similiar so I don't visit their site anymore. Power to the people!

If the advertisers don't like the scores given in reviews then they shouldn't advertise for bad games and in turn the developers shouldn't write bad games! Oh wait, its all money driven...... go figure......

Iv personally disagreed with many if Bit-techs reviews in the past but in the last 8 or so months, iv found myself agreeing pretty much to most of them.

My main gripe recently was with Gears Of Wars, had anyone mentioned it was plagued with issues and installation problems, i would have prepared myself for what was about to happen!
Never the less it is an amazing game, just abit buggy.

Nevertheless, everything eles on bit-tech has been spot on, the hardware mainly and i love the indepth reviews given. I look at Gamespots reviews with a pinch of salt but when i look here on the reviews for games or hardware i think...hmm...looks promising!

Originally Posted by Tim S
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?
.

Theres a single player???? I had this game from launch and never noticed :)

Well... Hopefully you guys have your head on your shoulders. Advertisers shouldnt have a say in sh!t about your reviews.

Places that (possibly) do this kinda of thing just lose the consumers trust as this just leads to distrust that the readers will start to think on other reviews. A rep of high scores because of advertiser comment/influence will just deter people from taking the comment/review as genuine.

Pitiful really....

I cancelled my subscription on Friday when I found out about that. I have lost faith in Gamespot. Nothing they say on the site can be trusted now.

sucks to be that writer and Gamespot, they lost all respect in my book

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
Theres a single player???? I had this game from launch and never noticed :)

Against bots.

as far as a review score, I think it's a lot like a grade in school. with A being 100% and D being 60% anything below that isn't really extremely playable and a failed game. I don't think an average game like say timeshift should always be a 50% it should be an average class grade of C which is 70%

does that make sense? anything below a 60% in school is failling and the same goes for games, that's why I think most games hit in the 7's to 8's if the developers do their homework and polish the game, get rid of the majority of bugs etc even if it's a rather bland game it will still be playable. There has to be a big failure on the developers part , rushed, untested, understaffed, small budget etc for a game to score below 60%

[QUOTE=lukasj3di]

Originally Posted by quack
The two guys who built the machine from Vadim Computers were fired a few days after that.

I dunno where you got that from. The whole company was restructured because Vadim was rethinking how best to target his computers. They'd had a few mediocre reviews recently so he took the criticism on board and acted upon it.

Edit: I've just been reliably informed that this did in fact happen. My mistake, sorry.

has this interview been linked?
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/03/exclusive-gertsmann-speaks-about-kandl-review-future/