Why do overhyped games get the best scores?

[Heroine of Winds]

It seems like it's a common trend these days that something overhyped like Call of Duty, Destiny, & SSB always get the best scores despite not being perfect in the end while a game that isn't overhyped always get the lowest scores (and I'm not talking about games that are terrible like AC: Unity & Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric). Is it because places like IGN get paid from companies to give their games good reception instead of actually saying what's wrong with the game?

Sometimes I think the gaming industry's a complete joke because of things like this. :/

 

[Reila]

Literally what

 

[final lap]

They probably get paid but this doesn't even necessarily have to be true. For example a game publisher might decide to pull ad support, its not really bribing since it's optional. Altogether a reviewer might be juggling a relationship with not only readers (which may be comprised largely of people who buy Cod and madden) and the game publishers, but also his employers (see also Jeff Gerstman) and metacritic. In the end, it's going to be very easy to rationalize giving a game whatever score you decide to give it, with all these factors and more affecting your decision.

 

[Spak]

The video game reviewing sites (IGN, GameSpot, etc.) all get paid by advertisements, meaning they get money for every time someone visits a page. If the millions of people who go to their site looking for how good the new COD is (that they just preordered with the season pass for a whopping $120) and they see someone say "this is a retextured version of last year's game with a few new guns" about their new favorite game (because few of the CODs actually have relevance after about a year), they won't ever go to that site again. That means next year when the next COD is released, they will get less money because everyone who didn't agree with that review will just go to some other site that says it is the new masterpiece of the year.

 

[finalark]

Maybe become many hyped up games are actually good and most of the hate for them comes from backlash towards that hype?

 

[Spak]

Maybe become many hyped up games are actually good and most of the hate for them comes from backlash towards that hype?

Nah, that can't possibly be true

 

[Mindles]

too much water thats why 7.8/10...

 

[Yong Dekonk]

Although I'm not a fan of COD, GTA, Destiny, or other mainstream games, I don't think they're grossly overrated. They also usually post a critic score alongside user scores. Take IGN sponsored reviews with a grain of salt and read other gaming sites like Destructoid, Kotaku, or Giantbomb.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

Although I'm not a fan of COD, GTA, Destiny, or other mainstream games, I don't think they're grossly overrated. They also usually post a critic score alongside user scores. Take IGN sponsored reviews with a grain of salt and read other gaming sites like Destructoid, Kotaku, or Giantbomb.

The same guys who go around spreading vague rumors? Lolwut?

 

[HeavyLobster]

The video game reviewing sites (IGN, GameSpot, etc.) all get paid by advertisements, meaning they get money for every time someone visits a page. If the millions of people who go to their site looking for how good the new COD is (that they just preordered with the season pass for a whopping $120) and they see someone say "this is a retextured version of last year's game with a few new guns" about their new favorite game (because few of the CODs actually have relevance after about a year), they won't ever go to that site again. That means next year when the next COD is released, they will get less money because everyone who didn't agree with that review will just go to some other site that says it is the new masterpiece of the year.

This explains a lot of what's going on here. While sometimes popular games do genuinely deserve high reviews, and sometimes they also get unfair backlash due to being overhyped, usually big gaming sites are reluctant to call out AAA games that aren't as good as they're made out to be, and will write reviews that gloss over flaws and give scores that will keep fans from whining in the comments section instead of trying to objectively evaluate and inform. People like being told what they want to hear, and media in all forms tend to pander to this, so you have to be skeptical of what you're being told. The good news is that in the age of the internet it's easier than ever to get information on what you want, so you can just look up LPs and stuff and see the game in action for yourself and make an informed decision based on that instead of worrying about scores. That's what I recommend, anyways.

 

[finalark]

As @ HeavyLobster said, in this day and age word of mouth spreads faster than ever thanks to the internet (which is why you see fewer and fewer genuine cult classics these days). That means that any faults critics might look over in their reviews is exposed quickly. Plus since we has access to online gaming communities (such as this one) it's pretty easy to just hop into a thread, ask if X game is right for you and chances are you'll have at least six different people tell you what the game is like.

 

[LunarWingCloud]

>Destiny
>high scores

Pick one.

 

[Chinaux]

"why are games that people are excited for good?"

 

[Heroine of Winds]

"why are games that people are excited for good?"

Not every game, mind you. Most hyped games end up being terrible in the end.

 

[Chinaux]

Didn't you just contradict yourself? You asked why they get the best scores but now you're saying they're terrible.

 

[Spak]

Didn't you just contradict yourself? You asked why they get the best scores but now you're saying they're terrible.

I think she meant that a lot of games that are extremely hyped get good scores on some gaming sites even if they are bad.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

Didn't you just contradict yourself? You asked why they get the best scores but now you're saying they're terrible.

No, I'm not. Spak pretty much said what I meant earlier when I said that even though most games are hyped, they're not always gonna be good. Hell, look what happened with games like Watch Dogs & Sonic 06. Those were extremely hyped, but by the time they came out, they had a slew of problems.

 

[Chinaux]

Sonic 06

I liked this game

Spoiler

when i was 8

 

[Spak]

I liked this game

Spoiler

when i was 8

Really? That's interesting.

Spoiler

BUUUUURN!!!!

 

[Chinaux]

Really? That's interesting.

Spoiler

BUUUUURN!!!!

oh haha nice

Spoiler

What the **** did you just ****ing say about me, you little *****? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the **** out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my ****ing words. You think you can get away with saying that **** to me over the Internet? Think again, ******. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re ****ing dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little ****. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your ****ing tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will **** fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re ****ing dead, kiddo.

No but seriously, IGN/major gaming site is likely to be sponsored to give it good reviews.

That's why I always youtube reviews of the game and look for less popular users. They're going to be more honest.

 

[finalark]

Not every game, mind you. Most hyped games end up being terrible in the end.

Examples?

Hell, look what happened with games like Watch Dogs & Sonic 06. Those were extremely hyped, but by the time they came out, they had a slew of problems.

Looking at average scores on meta critic Watch Dogs usually got 7-8/10s while Sonic '06 usually hung around in the 4/10 range. Both of your examples contradict your point.

Granted, we also live in a world where the school system teaches us that a 70% is "average" which is why you see critics only using the high end of the scale. Meaning that Watch Dogs was usually given an "average" score while Sonic '06 was given a horribly failing grade. This is why I prefer a 1-5 scale. Three is an average and the other numbers are self explanatory.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

That's why I always youtube reviews of the game and look for less popular users. They're going to be more honest.

Too bad you can't even tell from Youtube reviews whether the game is good or bad. Some people say it's good while others say it isn't. They're not very consistent.

 

[Chinaux]

Too bad you can't even tell from Youtube reviews whether the game is good or bad. Some people say it's good while others say it isn't. They're not very consistent.

They state things in the game and show some gameplay. It's really just finding other people's opinions on it, and you can watch gameplay of it to see if it looks fun to you or not.

kind of opinionated

 

[finalark]

Too bad you can't even tell from Youtube reviews whether the game is good or bad. Some people say it's good while others say it isn't. They're not very consistent.

Most of the time both Youtube reviews and reviews from major media outlets will lean heavily one way or another. If you keep finding split opinions on a certain title then that means that it's probably a love-it-or-hate-it situation. In that scenario the best thing to do is watch a number of reviews and decide for yourself if the positives mentioned intrigue you and if the negatives don't bother you. After all, in those cases it pretty much just comes down to personal taste.

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

I don't trust big review sites anymore, if I recall Hyrule Warriors got a 7/10 on IGN and I absolutely love the game, it's more of a 9.5/10.

 

[Spak]

I don't trust big review sites anymore, if I recall Hyrule Warriors got a 7/10 on IGN and I absolutely love the game, it's more of a 9.5/10.

This is an example of someone not going to an online site anymore because their overhyped game didn't get the score they wanted. If their points are valid but you personally like the game a lot so you would give it a higher score, that doesn't mean that they are wrong.

The reasons they gave for a lower score (local multiplayer making the graphics and performance much worse overall, only change in difficulty was amount of damage you take and amount of health the enemy has, and bland bosses in general) were all good points, but the score is all determined by how much you think that affects overall game. The lack of exciting bosses and local multiplayer was enough to make it a 7.0, or only a "Good" game for the reviewer, while someone else may not have played the multiplayer mode causing them to not be affected by the performance issue and thought the dull bosses weren't that much of a problem, giving that person the impression that the game is better than it actually is.

The job of IGN is to assess the overall performance of the game, so they would need to analyze every single aspect of the game even if certain people would not use that part of the game. A personal note I have is Hyrule Warriors has little replay value, but that is to be expected with a Dynasty Warriors style game. I think the score should a bit be higher (around 8 or 8.5-ish), but 9.5 is a bit unrealistic.

EDIT: Made it more visually appealing by splitting up the giant block of text into paragraphs. Giant blocks of text aren't that fun to read through

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

This is an example of someone not going to an online site anymore because their overhyped game didn't get the score they wanted. If their points are valid but you personally like the game a lot so you would give it a higher score, that doesn't mean that they are wrong.

The reasons they gave for a lower score (local multiplayer making the graphics and performance much worse overall, only change in difficulty was amount of damage you take and amount of health the enemy has, and bland bosses in general) were all good points, but the score is all determined by how much you think that affects overall game. The lack of exciting bosses and local multiplayer was enough to make it a 7.0, or only a "Good" game for the reviewer, while someone else may not have played the multiplayer mode causing them to not be affected by the performance issue and thought the dull bosses weren't that much of a problem, giving that person the impression that the game is better than it actually is.

The job of IGN is to assess the overall performance of the game, so they would need to analyze every single aspect of the game even if certain people would not use that part of the game. A personal note I have is Hyrule Warriors has little replay value, but that is to be expected with a Dynasty Warriors style game. I think the score should a bit be higher (around 8 or 8.5-ish), but 9.5 is a bit unrealistic.

EDIT: Made it more visually appealing by splitting up the giant block of text into paragraphs. Giant blocks of text aren't that fun to read through

I understand, but I don't want a full analysis on the game, I don't care if X mode sucks, if there isnt any online play, etc, I just want to know how good the game plays, so I've been uneasy when using review sites to judge when to get a game (they still help, though, but the score means nothing.)

 

[Heroine of Winds]

I don't trust big review sites anymore, if I recall Hyrule Warriors got a 7/10 on IGN and I absolutely love the game, it's more of a 9.5/10.

Not to mention the awful review for Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire while giving Smash Bros. 4 ( a pretty underwhelming game) a 9. This got me not trusting those IGN jokers anymore because I find Pokemon to be a lot more fun than Smash.

 

[SSBMLahti]

Not to mention the awful review for Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire while giving Smash Bros. 4 ( a pretty underwhelming game) a 9. This got me not trusting those IGN jokers anymore because I find Pokemon to be a lot more fun than Smash.

IGN gave Omega Ruby& Alpha Sapphire a 7.8/10. I'm not sure how that's bad.

Your posts make no sense to me. Because IGN doesn't rank a game highly based only your preferences (finding Pokemon to be a lot more fun than Smash, in your case), you don't trust them? Either way, I don't read nor take into consideration reviews of game because I like to make my own judgment.

 

[SilentBob]

Do you even know what overhyped means?

When something is so hyped you end up having expectations so high that nothing will ever live up to those expectations no matter what because you'll always find something in it that will disappoint you. Now if you were to take these "overhyped" games and ignore all the trailers, footage, reviews and comments about it before playing it you'll have no expectations so nothing can disappoint you unless the game is really bad. You need to ignore all this info. I did this mistake with Smash. I wish I wouldn't have read anything about the game before playing it. Remember how fun it was as a kid when you'd not know which secret characters were in the game? Well you can't live this anymore if you're constantly reading up about a game before its release.

 

[finalark]

When something is so hyped you end up having expectations so high that nothing will ever live up to those expectations no matter what because you'll always find something in it that will disappoint you.

This is why Twilight Princess had such a negative reaction. Nintendo hyped that title up to be the greatest Zelda game of all time. Needless to say, letdown was inevitable. Which is a shame, because it's a pretty solid game IMO (although flawed in places).

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Too bad you can't even tell from Youtube reviews whether the game is good or bad. Some people say it's good while others say it isn't. They're not very consistent.

People have different opinions? ON THE INTERNET?? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?

 

[finalark]

On a tangentially related note, I do believe that reverse-hype is totally a thing. Meaning games that are built up to be the worst thing ever but in practice are usually just average. Games like Star Fox Adventures, Shadow the Hedgehog or Castlevania 64 come to mind for me.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

People have different opinions? ON THE INTERNET?? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?

Well, I have a different opinion myself then. Overhyped games are crap to me.