Lunchtime Discussion: Positivity

Recently there has been some discussion about reviews and the general outlook with which they’re approached. I take a lot of interest in this subject because of how hard I know our reviewers work and how much effort I put in to making sure we’re as accurate and as fair as possible. So it’s really interesting to me and it’s a subject I spend hours every week researching and keeping informed about.

People complain when we’re too positive. They say (in that splendidly ignorant way that the internet seems to foster) that we must be biased or on the publisher’s pay-roll (anybody’s pay-roll would be good right now…). But then, people complain if we’re too negative too. Apparently too much precision when pointing out the faults in a product means that we don’t love gaming.

I’ve read a lot about differing approaches to reviews. Some people say that all faults must be indicated and incorporated into the text; others say that it’s best to ignore some minor faults if the overall feel of the game is positive. Generally speaking (according to the research I’ve done), the metric scores of the first set of people are lower but the text is more accurate while the metric scores of the second group of people are generally higher but with sometimes quite poor text to back it up (or not, as the case may be).

So the choice seems to be between those “emotional” reviews which are artificially high and those “technical” reviews which are scored more accurately but you have to read the words as well as looking at a score. Of course, most people don’t read a video game review to be informed about the product, they read it to be assured about their preconceptions and in those cases, there really is nothing we can do.

Oh, in an effort to pre-empt the people who will no-doubt claim that we should just review without scores I will point out that publishers, developers, retailers and – believe it or not – almost every reader likes a metric rather than just a body of text. Almost all good reviewers use scoring systems because they are a convenient summary.

So what would you really prefer: frank, analytical honesty and a lower (but possibly more accurate) number at the end or unrestrained enthusiasm with a (possibly inflated) score to match?