[DELETED]

[LATER BUDDY]

[DELETED]

Edited January 30 by Wolfy

[Candescence]

I'm going to be perfectly frank about my opinion on this:

No. Absolutely not. And they won't be for a while yet.

Are games more able to 'evolve' over time? Yes. But it's often quite rare that this 'evolution' ever fixes fundamental problems in the game that was launched, and games being an 'evolving' medium is no excuse for a low-quality work on launch. Usually major reworks of a game itself come in the form of re-titled rereleases that are enough to draw the attention of the press, such as Slain: Back From Hell, which took the rather disappointing indie game and revamped the mechanics and design in major ways to make it the game that players originally expected in terms of quality.

Also, the example you used is Destiny, which is essentially an MMO-lite. It's one of those genres that 'evolves' a lot more than any other, and essentially an exception, genres outside of MMOs and MMO-lites (and other constantly-changing online games) don't change so much (and even Destiny hasn't changed nearly as much as, say, Warframe, which is pretty much a completely new and way better game compared to when it launched). Besides, last I checked, the expansions don't really actually change the base game progression anyway, just lets you skip it if you want. Most game expansions are generally just expansions to the base content, and thus judged on their own merits.

tl;dr: You're severely exaggerating the extent that most games 'evolve' through expansions and patches. Reviews around launch are still quite important, and usually reflect the game's quality long after release, barring certain exceptions.

[Wraith]

Worth noting that reviews aren't really looked at after the game is in the wild for a while. Once it is, people will typically just ask around on social media about it. Reviews are good for whether you should pick the game up on launch like so many publishers are desperately begging you to, so they're very much welcome for that. Once the gaming community realizes they don't have to have these things immediately as a collective, though, they'll stop being as relevant. 

[QuantumEdge]

In no way do I think reviews are becoming irrelevant, not by a long shot.  While I will admit some games held back on their full content (i.e. Splatoon) to keep it current end up being better for it, others don't.  If your game isn't totally finished when it releases and will need patches, then it's not the reviewer's fault they gave it a poor score.  If you wanted something higher, then you should push the release date back to give the full package.  Delayed games is one of the most, if not the most, annoying part of the games industry these days.  Devs get overambitious about release dates and wind up pushing out an unfinished product begging for a lesser score. 

Besides, people like to think in the now, therefore prefer a review now rather than later.  If reviews were held up until a title had all its patches, DLC, etc. released it will likely have been months and by then the unofficial reviewers will have posted their thoughts on it and render official critics reviews almost moot.  Right now, I'm perfectly fine with how game reviews work.  If people like Bethesda aren't letting early access because they're unhappy with what critics say, then then they should make better certain that their titles are well prepared in advance to handle any critical eyes.  I highly doubt they lack the ability to.

[Mystwalker]

Interesting point. I'd imagine an easy way to tackle this is to launch secondary review articles every time a new patch is added, or add a small summary of changes to the main review for each new patch the game has. That way a review article written at launch wouldn't be completely outclassed by future patches, and would instead provide the reader a better insight on how the game changed from launch to it's current state. Summaries would probably fit better here given how patches usually address existing issues first and foremost, issues which could've harmed the original review in the first place.

Personally I barely even read reviews these days. Most of my impressions come directly from other people on Twitter, and their impressions usually keep me informed better and faster than an (would-be outdated) launch review would. A "Patch Changes/Impressions" section or something like that would help a good lot to keep up with the times.

Not sure if that change alone would help in the long term, though. Lately it feels like appraising video games has become more of a community driven thing than a review publisher one, but that might be just me.

[Hyp3hat]

Reviews aren't just for people like us, they're for people who buy 4 video games a year or purchased a PS4 or Xbone as a FIFA machine and want to pick up what scores well besides. There's a reason why companies like Bethesda are so touchy about their review scores, and about reviews by harsh critics (I heard about the Bethesda thing from Jim Sterling's video, where he mentions that he's greylisted by EA for their biggest titles, like Battlefield 1 etc), which is that positive reviews make for positive sales, and that it's very important to get a high metacritic score fast during your highest opportunity for sales. There are company bonuses tied to positive Metacritic reviews, after all - this is a pretty wide practice across the industry. There are millions people who will pick up the new CoD sight unseen, but even those who are being relatively savvy will check a review or two first. Or watch something on Youtube, which is why WB's PR forced Youtubers to do that manipulative agreement for Shadow Of Mordor.

I mean, we know all too well what consistently poor reviews can do for a franchise, we're Sonic fans, and a publisher will do anything do to avoid this. Even doing some unethical shit.

Bethesda are running scared - They are notorious for gamebreaking glitches and errors in their games at launch, and lots of these never get patched, or a patch will break something else, because their QA department is a goddamn joke. They are probably worried that, at some point, the press will just start marking games down immensely, because it's been nearly 15 years and a Bethesda openworld RPG is synonymous with 'bugs' that should not be acceptable at their budgets and price, and they should have fixed this shit by now. It's not an unreasonable request, but Bethesda make enough money with their buggy crap to sweep it under the rug.

As for updating reviews with patch notes, unless a game is completely fucked upon launch (Hello, Arkham Knight on PC, or even No Man's Sky) it's worth an addendum to a review to note that its fixed. But most game patches do not change up the whole experience significantly, even after several iterations - MGS V is on 1.10, and whats changed is mostly balancing resources and loot stuff, for one example off the top of my head - but unless you're playing a MMO, like Destiny, a patch never seems to warrant a new review. These things are mostly for obscure bug fixing, stability and cleaning things up, not huge swingeing gameplay changes. No Man's Sky has been patched extensively, but the experience still seems as boring and spiritually bereft as it was when it was launched. As a contrast, Stardew Valley's recent 1.1 would warrant an edit of the original review because it adds a bunch of new content - but even though there's a lot of new content, that doesn't change the main experience of the game. 

That's the thing - reviews are about what experience the game is trying to communicate, and how effectively it does that. If bugs break that experience, and they get patched, you can just change the word document. Metacritic will only accept your score once (which is why people are reluctant to review Early Access games, among other things), but hey. But, for Stardew Valley, No Man's Sky, Destiny, or MGS V (and obviously a lot of games besides) the core things the games have you do don't change with patches or expansions.

[Salamander]

1 hour ago, Mystwalker said:

Not sure if that change alone would help in the long term, though. Lately it feels like appraising video games has become more of a community driven thing than a review publisher one, but that might be just me.

I think you're quite correct.  It seems to me that there's an increasing consciousness in video game communities - perhaps because of present mass participation in the Internet - that video game reviewing will likely (indeed, can only) give you a very individual impression, and while there are always technical things which you can refer to objectively like how well a game runs and whether it suffers from any glitches - which is what this thread is largely about, so I'm not downplaying it - outside of that a review can be a very subjective thing.  If you've aligned yourself with a review site where past experience tells you that you tend to agree with the likes and dislikes of that site's individual reviewers, then that's great!  But what if they like things which you personally dislike, or vice-versa?  What if you have completely different opinions on style and tone?

This is the real use of things like Metacritic, honestly.  Averaging out review scores is not necessarily very helpful, but I think it is far more valuable to be able to look at a range of considered impressions than just one individual's thoughts.  Ditto social media responses, messageboards...  The wider the range of opinions you're exposed to, the better an idea you'll get not of what an experience is technically composed but of whether you as an individual will enjoy it - the more likely you are to find an individual whose tastes are shared by you.  When I'm interested in a game I'm not yet certain that I'll like, I always look up multiple reviews these days.

(This is also helpful if your tastes are contrary to the majority.  I personal thought "too much water" was a completely legitimate criticism of ORAS.)

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I'll give my full opinion at a later stage, but right now I think Jim Sterling's latest video brings up interesting points on reviews.

My short opinion is reviews need to stay. They're important for us to determine our opinions on a game's worth before buying it, something very important now that game renting is becoming very very scarce so if you buy a game, you need to buy it with some kind of information with what you're getting into. The bigger issue is how publishers are abusing the review system through corrupting/bribing/pressuring reviewers to give them good scores by basically saying "If you don't, you won't get a review out on time, and your website will be taking a huge hit compared to those who will get the game to review". It's a scummy system. See this video as well:

 

[LATER BUDDY]

[DELETED]

Edited January 30 by Wolfy

[The Man On The Inside]

So, publishers like bethesda and reviewers like jim sterling are in a constant battle with each other. What they fighting over is greater influence. Believe me when I say that reviewers and journalists are fully aware of the power they wield to "influence the conversation", if you know what I mean. That's probably too much power, so this is bethesda trying to take some of that power away from them.

Excuse me if I wax lyrical here, but:

Personally, I don't like how a reviewer can call a game bad, and then that becomes the gospel truth. I once heard the argument that a review is just an opinion that you don't have to agree with, but I don't feel like this is really the case. A review takes the opinion of the person writing it, and empowers it with such weight and influence, that it ceases to be an opinion - it becomes the truth. Now you look like a fool for disagreeing with the truth. The truth is, with a million people watching, they don't just listen - they believe.

Restricting the privileges of the games media to try and reduce their power is something I can personally get behind.