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[Robb]

How would you do this though? If I leave a score of “0” and just write “it’s shit” - should that then be removed? If it then gets removed and I can provide proof I own the game, will it then be added back?

The main issue here is verification and always has been. Might as well remove user scores completely unless they can solve that.

 

[ReBurn]

Unless they introduce a model that restricts everyone except verified owners from reviewing they may as well just eliminate the user score. They get tons of fake paid reviews on the positive side, too.

 

[Nydius]

These people are such hyporcites, if she was into dudes it'll be totes fine

You sure about that?

I recall people actively attacking Bayonetta 3 for no other reason than Cereza wasn’t gay for Jeanne and it ruined their lesbo headcanon.

 

[Aenima]

That's a pretty good idea. Sony, MS, Nintendo and Valve would have to buy into it though and allocate development resources to expose game playtimes to an API.
It would be pretty cool. User reviews would probably be more reliable than media reviews....lol

I dont think Sony, MS, Steam need to do any extra work cuz you can link your PSN, Xbox Live, Steam to GOG Galaxy and they know what games you own on those platforms. Metacritic is just being lazy about making a good user review system.

 

[Three]

That's another thing, the playtime is displayed next to the review on steam. Therefore it's far easier to see that a review with a long playtime is more trustworthy than a review with only 2 hours in.

I wouldn't say the long playtime review is more trustworthy than a short playtime review. Those are more likely to be skewed positive, because unless the person playing is a masochist they're not going to have a long playtime for a game they didn’t find enjoyable but gave a chance to.

A god tier review system would be a personalised recommendation system based on your own reviews. That weighs those who enjoyed games you enjoyed higher when reviewing games you haven't played.

 

[TexMex]

What is the point of user scores if someone can just decide they dont like the scores and delete them?

How can you possibly need this explained in this scenario?

 

[Heisenberg007]

Good.

Ban unverified buyer reviews to start things off.

 

[ADiTAR]

You're right, Sony clearly looked at their other IP with a female lead and thought...hey, let's do something different to separate Aloy from our other female character.
Hypocritical indeed....

There are still a lot more straight characters in video games.

People just want to see an agenda because they love to be outraged. Now, I dunno how they told the story, maybe it's bad.

 

[Shifty1897]

I'm surprised people are just now realizing Aloy's sexuality. They didn't come out and say it in the first game but there were a few tells that had my gaydar going off.

 

[LostDonkey]

I'm surprised people are just now realizing Aloy's sexuality. They didn't come out and say it in the first game but there were a few tells that had my gaydar going off.

If they'd have just called her Gayloy then all of this outrage could have been avoided. Would have been no doubt then

 

[UnNamed]

I would love to see the faces of these people who spend their time to write shits on a game because "woke" and "agenda".

 

[Arsic]

Probably just leave the ability to write a review but remove any metric associated with it.

That way if someone wants to read these dumb things to sift to some real ones they can.

 

[crackajack]

Reviews giving 0s are anyway useless, no matter if its never played it review bombing because of whatever or genuine I disliked the game. A 0 should be absolutely unplayable garbage and practically no game is that bad. I read arguments why Horizon should be 5, 6 or 7 and any anti woke person would have been wise to voice that opinion in a subtle manner and not cry like a baby.
10s are also quite often just useless. You like a game, fine, but there is solid entertainment and then there is genre defining stuff.

But that's getting more and more true for the pros too. Especially the new pros who are schooled in attention clickbait yadda yadda.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

I dont think Sony, MS, Steam need to do any extra work cuz you can link your PSN, Xbox Live, Steam to GOG Galaxy and they know what games you own on those platforms. Metacritic is just being lazy about making a good user review system.

Ah, gotcha. Can you see playtime as well?

 

[Fbh]

Metacritic user reviews will continue being meaningless unless they find a way for people to link their PSN/Live/Steam accounts so you can filter out everyone who isn't a verified owner. Ideally you'd also need a system like Steam where you can see how long they have played the game.

I'm surprised people are just now realizing Aloy's sexuality. They didn't come out and say it in the first game but there were a few tells that had my gaydar going off.

That alone already tells you most of the "upset" people didn't even play the game to begin with.
If they had played Zero Dawn/Forbidden West they'd know Aloy is the clone of scientist who was also a lesbian, which should have made the direction they'd go regarding her sexuality obvious.

 

[Beastclaw Raider]

User reviews are useless and it's easy to spot when this happens, I'll never be for censoring though so fuck metacritics

 

[delfrickintree]

Review bombing is awesome and if youre against it you might as well be a commie. What next, they outlaw protesting in the streets for the next "social cause"? That would not be fair! We have rights!

 

[Musashipan]

Ridiculous !!!
Shut the site down at once

 

[Esppiral]

So because the game is not receiving the the reviews you expect or are criticizing an aspect of your game they don't like, they consider it review bombing? I consider it opinions and thank God we don't live in a dictatorship

 

[ManaByte]

Metacritic user reviews will continue being meaningless unless they find a way for people to link their PSN/Live/Steam accounts so you can filter out everyone who isn't a verified owner. Ideally you'd also need a system like Steam where you can see how long they have played the game.



That alone already tells you most of the "upset" people didn't even play the game to begin with.
If they had played Zero Dawn/Forbidden West they'd know Aloy is the clone of scientist who was also a lesbian, which should have made the direction they'd go regarding her sexuality obvious.

Except the main games introduce many male characters for Aloy, only to go the other way in a paid DLC people who played the game on the PS4 can’t even play.

 

[K2D]

[Between Sony who has removed user reviews altogether from ps store as of the Ps4], and Metacritic that doesn't validate purchases, it's been harder and harder to make purchasing decisions. "Luckily" I don't have the luxury of playing many games. So I end up dipping more into my back-log than ever before.

IMO this practise as well as the the disappearance of a larger yearly gaming event hurts gaming overall. Especially the AA, indie and non-tentpole games.

It would hurt games which try to be socially progressive (especially where it's shoehorned in and beats the player over the head with certain messaging), but I count that as a win overall.

 

[Gambit2483]

Metacritic is always gonna be a waste of time

I mainly use it as an aggregate of the professional reviews, particularly for games I'm sitting on the fence with.

Does anyone actually bother with the user reviews anymore?

 

[Gambit2483]

I'm surprised people are just now realizing Aloy's sexuality. They didn't come out and say it in the first game but there were a few tells that had my gaydar going off.

I mean wasn't Aloy's

Spoiler

clone mommy in a lgbt relationship?

that could be seen as somewhat foreshadowing..

 

[Aenima]

Ah, gotcha. Can you see playtime as well?

Yup, most of the times i get an error while trying to link my PSN to GOG, some ppl seems to have no problems and get all they games listed with the playtime as well. So if Metacritic really wanted to have a fair user rating system they could. They just dont want.

 

[AJUMP23]

This is the straw then. Horizon is broke the backs.

 

[StereoVsn]

Steam reviews are far better and a great example of user reviews. i trust steam's reviews far more than any paid critic.

Metacritic's lack of moderation and basically allowing people who didn't even play the game to make a review is why the user reivews are so damn toxic. They should force you to connect a Playstation/Nintendo/Xbox/Steam account and ensure you've played it for more than 30 minutes before you write a user review on any game

Yep, Steam reviews are a great source of information, especially so for smaller games that aren't really covered by regular review sources.

And you can filter Steam reviews using all sorts of options. They are legit great.

Metacritic and other unmoderated reviews will always be problematic.

 

[NickFire]

They should do the right thing and require some sort of verification of playtime. Anything short of that ignores the biggest issue with user reviews.

 

[StereoVsn]

Yes, but also means a person can just play for an hour and can review.

There is nothing wrong with folks leaving reviews after 1 or 2 hours played especially with 2 hour return policy limit.

There are often technical and gameplay issues clearly visible in the game in first hour.

Or publisher / developer might have done something to piss off the community like adding paid mods years later (Skyrim review bomb), jacked up pricing for DLC (Paradox), added Denuvo (Bethesda) , etc...

Anyways, as long as ownership can be verified, users should be able to leave reviews. However, there should be filtering options that allow you to filter out those reviews if you do wish.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Nothing makes me want to play game less than some retarded nontroversy stemming from some woke creative decision and legions of dumbasses getting their knickers in a twist about it.

 

[Loomy]

always smells of fascism, whenever a company says ''moderation'' goodluck

How is fixing a broken thing fascism?

 

[Aenima]

How would you do this though? If I leave a score of “0” and just write “it’s shit” - should that then be removed? If it then gets removed and I can provide proof I own the game, will it then be added back?

The main issue here is verification and always has been. Might as well remove user scores completely unless they can solve that.

If you read the OP about what Metacritic say, is not against they TOS to rate a game any way u like, it is a violation to use the reviews to offend ppl or groups of ppl by being racist, homophobic, etc. Those are the reviews that will get moderated. The usual toxic console wars 0's and 10's trash will keep on going, and user reviews on metacritic will keep being irrelevant.

 

[mckmas8808]

I don’t know or care what happened but they might as well remove user reviews altogether.

This is my thoughts on it too. Especially at this point.

 

[GenericUser]

Awesome, only allow 9/10 or above reviews while you are at it. Big thumbs up, smile.

 

[TGO]

That alone already tells you most of the "upset" people didn't even play the game to begin with.
If they had played Zero Dawn/Forbidden West they'd know Aloy is the clone of scientist who was also a lesbian, which should have made the direction they'd go regarding her sexuality obvious.

Are you saying being gay is passed on through genes?
I mean Aloy isn't even a 100% match to Elisabet and neither is Beta who is completely different to Aloy, just like Aloy is actually different to Elisabet.
But regardless of all that Elisabet's sexual preferences gets passed on
Guess those multiverse story's where one variant is gay is bullshit then

 

[FF:Enhanced_Reality]

I don't understand this. You can complain as long as we say it's acceptable. Jesus Christ. I have colleague at work who's religious and he virtually plays nothing but racing games basically because anything he criticises constructively ends up as an "ism" or "phobic"

His religious says that being gay is a sin. We have gay colleagues and he's got gay friends. He doesn't actively promote it but he says he couldn't be gay because of his beliefs. Seeing things like what's going on with HFW he says he would find uncomfortable. And I get it. He isn't actually hating on anyone. There's no intent to offend or upset.

But why is his opinion less valid that someone throwing this LGBT stuff on every social media platform? I guess it's because it's not the "correct" opinion to have.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

I don't understand this. You can complain as long as we say it's acceptable. Jesus Christ. I have colleague at work who's religious and he virtually plays nothing but racing games basically because anything he criticises constructively ends up as an "ism" or "phobic"

His religious says that being gay is a sin. We have gay colleagues and he's got gay friends. He doesn't actively promote it but he says he couldn't be gay because of his beliefs. Seeing things like what's going on with HFW he says he would find uncomfortable. And I get it. He isn't actually hating on anyone. There's no intent to offend or upset.

But why is his opinion less valid that someone throwing this LGBT stuff on every social media platform? I guess it's because it's not the "correct" opinion to have.

I can respect opinions for sure. But at least have played the game and give a review of it as a whole.
Also, I'm glad that people don't get banned here for asking a question such as this...lol. In the other place you would get perm'd. lol

 

[Rush2112]

“You can’t give the game a negative score if your reasons are not approved by us.”

 

[Flutta]

about fucking time. so many review bombs in the last 3 years and they're just NOW taking action

Because this isn’t about the reviews in general it’s about the them being anti-gay. It’s all about protecting the alphabet people.

Otherwise they wouldn’t care like with other games getting the same treatment.

 

[Fbh]

Are you saying being gay is passed on through genes?
I mean Aloy isn't even a 100% match to Elisabet and neither is Beta who is completely different to Aloy, just like Aloy is actually different to Elisabet.
But regardless of all that Elisabet's sexual preferences gets passed on
Guess those multiverse story's where one variant is gay is bullshit then

More than any statement about weather homosexuality is passed through genes or if it's a choice, I think in "current year" no studio would dare have the clone of a strong independed lesbian woman be straight. At most I'd expect them to give you the option to be bi.

 

[Fools idol]

“You can’t give the game a negative score if your reasons are not approved by us.”

that is exactly not what they are saying.

Honestly would rather they remove them entirely, we have forums for general hot take opinions which is what the users score is.

 

[TheGodfather07]

There are still a lot more straight characters in video games.

People just want to see an agenda because they love to be outraged. Now, I dunno how they told the story, maybe it's bad.

its the times we live in. if this was 2000 and a character was lesbian, would anyone care? people would just play the game and think nothing of it.

 

[64bitmodels]

Because this isn’t about the reviews in general it’s about the them being anti-gay. It’s all about protecting the alphabet people.

Otherwise they wouldn’t care like with other games getting the same treatment.

if it were just because of LGBT then they would have taken action as far back as TLOU2. It's still a long time to act

 

[Drizzlehell]

I don't understand this. You can complain as long as we say it's acceptable. Jesus Christ. I have colleague at work who's religious and he virtually plays nothing but racing games basically because anything he criticises constructively ends up as an "ism" or "phobic"

His religious says that being gay is a sin. We have gay colleagues and he's got gay friends. He doesn't actively promote it but he says he couldn't be gay because of his beliefs. Seeing things like what's going on with HFW he says he would find uncomfortable. And I get it. He isn't actually hating on anyone. There's no intent to offend or upset.

But why is his opinion less valid that someone throwing this LGBT stuff on every social media platform? I guess it's because it's not the "correct" opinion to have.

That's called "using religion as a shield"

I get that some people are still pretty big on this religion thing but the scripture is old and people who wrote it probably weren't very forward thinking. Also, if your friend isn't into gay stuff he can just say that he could never be gay because he's not into guys. Not because religion forbids it. But when he says that seeing a gay romance in a video game makes him uncomfortable then yeah, I don't know what should be so off-putting about two people being in love. The only stance he could take on this is a moral one and that's already being kinda judgmental.

 

[64bitmodels]

its the times we live in. if this was 2000 and a character was lesbian, would anyone care?

I can imagine if a game like metroid came out today gamers would be outraged because of the 'feminist' agenda. this shit is annoying

 

[Calverz]

This is pretty ridiculous. User reviews should remain but should have some kind of authentication to prevent alt accounts etc. obviously too much work for them.

 

[Fools idol]

Sites like PSNProfiles.com use some sort of authentication to log into your playstation account and check trophy status. They can also see game time.

IMho, these review sites should introduce a similar feature that requires you to have at least shown and proven you played the game for X hours or even completed it before you can post a review. That would weed out a significant amount of review bombs, at least the idiots who just reviewbomb for the sake of it would have to waste some hours of their life to do it instead of 2 seconds to mouse click and copy paste some stupid opinion.

 

[Flutta]

if it were just because of LGBT then they would have taken action as far back as TLOU2. It's still a long time to act

No TLOU2 was hated because of other reasons. Ellie was already a lezbo from the first game.

 

[Gambit2483]

“You can’t give the game a negative score if your reasons are not approved by us.”

Imagine a professional review outlet giving a 1/10 because the MC is a woman.

You can't critically review something if your review score is based on something that has nothing to do with the universally accepted parameters used to critique that product/performance

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Who even fucking looks at user reviews on Metacritic? It surely must be widely known that it's more than likely mostly people trolling shit they don't like or frothing fanboys.

Just remove them wholesale. The idea that every moron out here, me included, needs to be able to spout their opinion on something that they're completely unqualified to review is nonsense anyway. But alas, it must create a ton of traffic for them so why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that.

 

[Robb]

If you read the OP about what Metacritic say, is not against they TOS to rate a game any way u like, it is a violation to use the reviews to offend ppl or groups of ppl by being racist, homophobic, etc. Those are the reviews that will get moderated. The usual toxic console wars 0's and 10's trash will keep on going, and user reviews on metacritic will keep being irrelevant.

Ah okay, yeah I should’ve read it more carefully. Thanks!