Stop making them. You are losing credibility. Fast.

It is why I don't read them anymore. I know you all get payed with adds and everything, but .... hm?.....when is the last time you guys gave a major game a bad review?

Hmmm,....not very honest I think.

Maybe call them something else instead of reviews and it would be more fair.

My dog could write more objective reviews.

You can't get beta keys and money from adds and then pretend to be objective.

Stop making them..I'm serious, they're a joke.

Originally posted by Bastioni

It is why I don't read them anymore. I know you all get payed with adds and everything, but .... hm?.....when is the last time you guys gave a major game a bad review?

Hmmm,....not very honest I think.

Maybe call them something else instead of reviews and it would be more fair.

Well, how about the 6.0 for Age of Conan, or let's maybe look at the 6.8 from Vanguard, or let's look at the 6.5 given to Star Wars Galaxies, maybe the 6.1 as well. Those are not good score. 

I honestly don't know what some people are used to making as far as grades go in school, but I know if I came home with anything less than 70%, I was looking at some trouble. anything below 70% is simply NOT UP TO STANDARD.

If the problem is that we're not ripping into games and giving them 2/10, then your standard is completely unrealistic. Realistically, in order for a game to score below 5, it has to be completely unplayable. Not "Oh, I don't like this game, so it's unplayable", but you know, good old fashioned unplayable. Five to six means that while playable, the game had very little "fun" in it. six to seven brings that fun only a little bit higher.

I would also like to point out that our lowest review scores have been for games that either have, or were at the time, advertising with us. The two are simply not connected. I don't know how YOU would choose to run YOUR business if you were in a similar situation, but the owners and staff of this website put integrity first. The editorial staff (those of us responsible for reviews, and the like on the site) and not privy to who advertises with us (obviously, we see the same ads you do, but we have no foreknowledge or inside knowledge), or even how much those companies are paying for ad space. It's simply not our department.

Now, let me bring out my lesson on why selling reviews is a BAD idea in any shape or form:

Here's how selling ad space works when you're dealing with a website:

Advertisers pay for space on a website based on the probability of the money they spend there generating them exposure to people who would be interested in their product. Generally, that is based upon how many unique visitors the site gets, as well as page views.

the business of websites is to provide articles and other items that will draw people to the site, generating traffic which, in turn, allows them to charge more for the advertising space available.

In order for website businesses to thrive, they need to draw and retain as large a readership as possible. The key word here is retain.

Here's where the whole "giving companies good reviews for ads" thing falls apart. You see, in the short term it seems brilliant - "I'll just pad scores sot hat the advertisers are happy and they buy more ads". The problem is that only works in the VERY short term.

In the long term, if we essentially sold editorial content (including reviews) for ad space, then we would inevitably lose readers. Losing readers make our space less valuable to advertisers (good reviews or not), which means less money that will eventually fall to not enough to run the site.

In the end, selling out our integrity and objectivity just isn't worth it. there's absolutely no reward for it.

So, if you don't want to believe that the people behind the site are games and honestly think that selling editorial content is unethical and wrong, there's also the hard financial truth of why doing something like that just isn't worth it.

Now, I would humbly suggest that the next time you want to start accusing people of being dishonest that perhaps you should make an attempt to get all of the facts of the situation straight before saying something that might offend people.

So, before you go accusing people of corruption

I could not agree more Stradden.  You can almost tell who is going to be bitter and leave stupid, small minded comments by looking at their signatures alot of the time.   I wish people would spend more of their time playing the mmorpg of their choice and less bitching about a game that they will never play.  I mean really what is the point?  As soon as I see a thread that overly negative without any constructive points(constructive criticism is ok), I stop reading.  I am sure alot of people feel the same way too.

Not meant to offend anyone sorry.

I still think that 6+ scores are good. When I see 6-7 score or in between, I think "OK game".

Sub 5, I think "BAD game'.

I don't think a game should be unplayable to warrant a sub 5 score.

Vanguard is a game I bought because it got many 7+, 8+ scores. I bought it and it crashed and bugged, and surprise I wasn't the only one with this problem, many many players had this issue and many had read the overly positive reviews from sites (not mmorpg.com in particular). Well I was a bit disappointed because if the articles had pointed out that it was crashing a lot and completely unstable I would have never bought it.

I think reviews should be a lot more careful, especially previews, they are very positive on the site. Free Realms and AIon are the latest 2 games you preview, very positive about the game. Aion, no mention of GameGuard crashing and blocking many players from even playing it. No mention of all the botting issues....weird.

Yes I still don't agree with the overly positive reviews. I used to read (and still do) PCGameplay, a very old and trusted magazine in Europe and the scores are often below 50%, often 20% or 30% scores, not because the game is unplayable but because it is bad.

When a game is good you praise it, but when a game is bad people have stopped slamming it, I think they should do this again, have some guys to do it. When a game is bad I want to know about it so I don't buy it and I would rather see sub 50% (or sub 5) scores than getting lead to believe the game isn't bad.

Anyway, it's not really specific to MMORPG.COM, gamespot does this, many sites do this, giving very very positive reviews....magazines often give very bad scores, online sites not so much, has add space being more powerful online something to do with it? I think so sometimes. I'm not accusing the site of it, but it just seems weird how the internet has evolved into positive reviews of companies..imo overly positive.

Originally posted by Bastioni

Not meant to offend anyone sorry.

I still think that 6+ scores are good. When I see 6-7 score or in between, I think "OK game".

Sub 5, I think "BAD game'.

I don't think a game should be unplayable to warrant a sub 5 score.

Vanguard is a game I bought because it got many 7+, 8+ scores. I bought it and it crashed and bugged, and surprise I wasn't the only one with this problem, many many players had this issue and many had read the overly positive reviews from sites (not mmorpg.com in particular). Well I was a bit disappointed because if the articles had pointed out that it was crashing a lot and completely unstable I would have never bought it.

I think reviews should be a lot more careful, especially previews, they are very positive on the site. Free Realms and AIon are the latest 2 games you preview, very positive about the game. Aion, no mention of GameGuard crashing and blocking many players from even playing it. No mention of all the botting issues....weird.

Yes I still don't agree with the overly positive reviews. I used to read (and still do) PCGameplay, a very old and trusted magazine in Europe and the scores are often below 50%, often 20% or 30% scores, not because the game is unplayable but because it is bad.

When a game is good you praise it, but when a game is bad people have stopped slamming it, I think they should do this again, have some guys to do it. When a game is bad I want to know about it so I don't buy it and I would rather see sub 50% (or sub 5) scores than getting lead to believe the game isn't bad.

Anyway, it's not really specific to MMORPG.COM, gamespot does this, many sites do this, giving very very positive reviews....magazines often give very bad scores, online sites not so much, has add space being more powerful online something to do with it? I think so sometimes. I'm not accusing the site of it, but it just seems weird how the internet has evolved into positive reviews of companies..imo overly positive.

You can't help it.  These sites all cost money to run and the only way for them to make money is by charging for advertising.  Who is going to pay for ads on MMORPG.com and the like?  MMORPG companies.  One bad review of a game could cost the site money,  or worse, their entire business.  They don't want blackballed by being overly honest if the game sucks.  Everyone knows what happened when that other review site let a "bad review" on an Eidos game.  The reviewer got canned and the site spent months apologizing to EIDOS.  Every review is bought in one form or another.

The only info on a game that's worth reading is info provided AFTER the game has been around for about 6 months.  Anything prior to that is press-release waffle, eye-candy video and fanboi vs troll frothing - totally worthless and ALL of it an utter waste of everyone's time.  Anyone raving over a game because of a pre-release video has the IQ of a pineapple.

I totaly agree with bastioni. I have the exact same feelings as you. Couldnt have said it better.

To whoever said my signature is overly negative let me tell you something. Very often I get positives replies and emails about it. On this website or others websites. Its true. I mean, looking at most games out there, I really wonder if developers give a crap about the games they are making. The passion there once was in video game is long gone. Its obvious, look at most video games out there atm. Sigh, and I wish it wasnt like that believe me.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Bastioni

It is why I don't read them anymore. I know you all get payed with adds and everything, but .... hm?.....when is the last time you guys gave a major game a bad review?

Hmmm,....not very honest I think.

Maybe call them something else instead of reviews and it would be more fair.

Well, how about the 6.0 for Age of Conan, or let's maybe look at the 6.8 from Vanguard, or let's look at the 6.5 given to Star Wars Galaxies, maybe the 6.1 as well. Those are not good score. 

I honestly don't know what some people are used to making as far as grades go in school, but I know if I came home with anything less than 70%, I was looking at some trouble. anything below 70% is simply NOT UP TO STANDARD.

So, before you go accusing people of corruption

 

Jon, here is a link to the editorial reviews of games.  It is fact that the closer the game is to release and when distributors are paying for advertising to hype their games, the higher the scores are on MMORPG.com  I don't think anyone is accusing you of corruption.  Matter of fact, you are a great writer and I enjoy reading your articles.  Saying that, there is something at play.

http://www.mmorpg.com/features.cfm/view/reviews

I mean seriously, Free Realms getting a 8.3 at release?  That is a very interesting score to say the least for that game.  Let's look at any bad grades, shall we?  Hero Online 6.1  DDO 6.5 Age of Conan 6.0 ASDA Story 6.0 SWG 6.5 Vanguard SoH 6.8 Scions of Fate 5.1

Those are MMORPG.com's staff "bad" reviews for the past two years.  What do the Age of Conan and SWG bad reviews have in common?  Those are bad reviews way past the official launch date of those games.  Now let's look at Vanguard SoH which was given a 6.8.  From the date the review was written, MMORPG.com had no choice but to give it a bad review because by then, Sigil had already thrown in the towel and SoE had bought Vanguard and stripped any remaining assets from Sigil.  Of all the other releases the past two years, by your definition of bad, there were no bad game reviews from your staff at the launch of the games.  Do you honestly expect your audience to believe that Free Realms was a better game at launch than Lord of the Rings Online?  From looking at launch dates and looking at the reviews from the editors, the closer the review is to the launch date the higher the rating the game gets.  It just doesn't happen that way.  There has got to be a reason. 

To me, and a lot of others, the bottom line is MMORPG's bottom line.  Just like what happened with Gamespot last year, when a review site gives a bad review at launch time, publishers can and will pull money from the site.  Now I'm not saying that MMORPG.com has ever done that or had money pulled because of a review..  But what I am saying is that for the last two years the closer to launch the higher the review from MMORPG.com.  How is that possible?  Also interesting is all the games that crashed and burned after launching the past two years, the reviews are gone.  Where are the reviews for Fury, Tabla Rasa, and Hell Gate:London?  Where did those reviews and scores go?

Case in point, there was going to be a Darkfall Online review when that game launched.  We have the NA-1 server launch coming any time.  Can we please see a review of Darkfall Online before the NA server launches?

Keep up the good work!

Originally posted by Shannia

 

You can't help it.  These sites all cost money to run and the only way for them to make money is by charging for advertising.  Who is going to pay for ads on MMORPG.com and the like?  MMORPG companies.  One bad review of a game could cost the site money,  or worse, their entire business.  They don't want blackballed by being overly honest if the game sucks.  Everyone knows what happened when that other review site let a "bad review" on an Eidos game.  The reviewer got canned and the site spent months apologizing to EIDOS.  Every review is bought in one form or another.

 

I agree. It seems unavoidable. Your only advertisers are going to be MMORPGs. They're not going to advertise on the same site that's saying the game is a piece of crap. That wouldn't make much sense. And MMORPG.com isn't going to get a ton of advertisers that want to sell high heels or handbags

But I could be wrong. Maybe the typical forum poster here is into Gucci and Prada?

Originally posted by Shannia

You can't help it.  These sites all cost money to run and the only way for them to make money is by charging for advertising.  Who is going to pay for ads on MMORPG.com and the like?  MMORPG companies.  One bad review of a game could cost the site money,  or worse, their entire business.  They don't want blackballed by being overly honest if the game sucks.  Everyone knows what happened when that other review site let a "bad review" on an Eidos game.  The reviewer got canned and the site spent months apologizing to EIDOS.  Every review is bought in one form or another.

Shannia,

No offence, but your comment here is not only uninformed, but also shows that you didn't actually read the post where I addressed this issue specifically.

The bottom line that that we have it on DIRECTIVE from the owners not to take advertisers into account when thinking about editorial content. Frankly, there are plenty of advertisers out there. There's no point in losing our business over one of them pulling because of a bad review (if you had read my post you'd know that the danger of losing your business in this industry isn't getting blacklisted by a game company, it's losing your readers).

So, no, every review isn't "bought". It's not even a thought.

I think some people posting need to take their tinfoil hats off for a minute and actually read Stradden's reply. Do people honestly think that if a site like this actually "sold" reviews, that A) the industry wouldn't know about it, and call them out on it bloody quickly, or B) that we wouldn't cotton on just as quick, and point our browsers elsewhere?

Like the man said, the minute they start "selling" reviews, they shoot themselves in the foot for long term business. The writers on this, and any other site, write because they like writing about a subject they're passionate about. I write for a magazine and I can say with all honesty that I'd never sell out and lose any credibility I might have built up over the years.

While I'm sure there are some unscupulous journalists that do just that, I'm sure that they don't last long, or get taken seriously by anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Look at things objectively, and I think some of you might be letting your own dissatisfaction with the last few years of MMO's bleed out into negative feelings about all aspects of the industry.

Originally posted by Shannia

Jon, here is a link to the editorial reviews of games.  It is fact that the closer the game is to release and when distributors are paying for advertising to hype their games, the higher the scores are on MMORPG.com  I don't think anyone is accusing you of corruption.  Matter of fact, you are a great writer and I enjoy reading your articles.  Saying that, there is something at play.

http://www.mmorpg.com/features.cfm/view/reviews

I mean seriously, Free Realms getting a 8.3 at release?  That is a very interesting score to say the least for that game.  Let's look at any bad grades, shall we?  Hero Online 6.1  DDO 6.5 Age of Conan 6.0 ASDA Story 6.0 SWG 6.5 Vanguard SoH 6.8 Scions of Fate 5.1

Those are MMORPG.com's staff "bad" reviews for the past two years.  What do the Age of Conan and SWG bad reviews have in common?  Those are bad reviews way past the official launch date of those games.  Now let's look at Vanguard SoH which was given a 6.8.  From the date the review was written, MMORPG.com had no choice but to give it a bad review because by then, Sigil had already thrown in the towel and SoE had bought Vanguard and stripped any remaining assets from Sigil.  Of all the other releases the past two years, by your definition of bad, there were no bad game reviews from your staff at the launch of the games.  Do you honestly expect your audience to believe that Free Realms was a better game at launch than Lord of the Rings Online?  From looking at launch dates and looking at the reviews from the editors, the closer the review is to the launch date the higher the rating the game gets.  It just doesn't happen that way.  There has got to be a reason. 

To me, and a lot of others, the bottom line is MMORPG's bottom line.  Just like what happened with Gamespot last year, when a review site gives a bad review at launch time, publishers can and will pull money from the site.  Now I'm not saying that MMORPG.com has ever done that or had money pulled because of a review..  But what I am saying is that for the last two years the closer to launch the higher the review from MMORPG.com.  How is that possible?  Also interesting is all the games that crashed and burned after launching the past two years, the reviews are gone.  Where are the reviews for Fury, Tabla Rasa, and Hell Gate:London?  Where did those reviews and scores go?

Case in point, there was going to be a Darkfall Online review when that game launched.  We have the NA-1 server launch coming any time.  Can we please see a review of Darkfall Online before the NA server launches?

Keep up the good work!

I'm going to address a couple of your points in no particular order

- Your complaint about the score of Free Realms: Have you played it? This game has been universally praised and deserves to be. We rate games based on their own merits and what they are trying to be. Free Realms is a family oriented game that does a great job of achieving the goals that it set out to achieve.

- Do NOT assume because one website chose to bend to a publisher's will that all websites will or do. Sure, they could pull money, but the entire argument I laid out explains to you why it's more important to keep readers than publishers happy.

- "The closer to launch, the higher the score". Honestly, I haven't considered that before, but even just off the top of my head, let me tell you why i think that might be the case: MMOs are shiniest in the beginning stages. The more time someone has had to actually play the game and deeply discover flaws in the game, the more lilley it is they will find more to complain about. This comes down to the problem with reviewing MMOs at all. it's not like single player reviews, you're never "done" the game. In an ideal world, MMO reviewers would be able to play for 6 months to a year whenever a new MMO comes out before reviewing it. The reality though is that in order to be current, reviews have to be written MUCH more quickly than that. Honestly, any MMO review that comes out, whether from this website or someone else's that is written before a game turns at least six months old should be taken for what it is: A review written by someone who can not have experienced all of the game's content. basically, it's an "is this game worht investing in the box price and first month" review. Reviews further out from launch date have a deeper perspective that is impossible for any reviewer to get in less time.

- Darkfall - We do have a review coming. There have been some delays, and frankly we want to make sure that the game gets a fair shake in terms of play time ina  world that, by the developer's own admission, takes some time to actually get into.

- Bottom line - Again, go and re-read my other post. Our bottom line isn't based on what you seem to think that it is.

I tend to look at overly positive reviews as bad infomercials I see on tv at 2am...take it for what it is...if it isnt offering a good synopsis of the game then brush it off...If the game looks like it could be appealing to you then try it...if not there are many more games in the mmorpg sea to try

Originally posted by Stradden

 

I'm going to address a couple of your points in no particular order

 

- Your complaint about the score of Free Realms: Have you played it? This game has been universally praised and deserves to be. We rate games based on their own merits and what they are trying to be. Free Realms is a family oriented game that does a great job of achieving the goals that it set out to achieve.

- Do NOT assume because one website chose to bend to a publisher's will that all websites will or do. Sure, they could pull money, but the entire argument I laid out explains to you why it's more important to keep readers than publishers happy.

- "The closer to launch, the higher the score". Honestly, I haven't considered that before, but even just off the top of my head, let me tell you why i think that might be the case: MMOs are shiniest in the beginning stages. The more time someone has had to actually play the game and deeply discover flaws in the game, the more lilley it is they will find more to complain about. This comes down to the problem with reviewing MMOs at all. it's not like single player reviews, you're never "done" the game. In an ideal world, MMO reviewers would be able to play for 6 months to a year whenever a new MMO comes out before reviewing it. The reality though is that in order to be current, reviews have to be written MUCH more quickly than that. Honestly, any MMO review that comes out, whether from this website or someone else's that is written before a game turns at least six months old should be taken for what it is: A review written by someone who can not have experienced all of the game's content. basically, it's an "is this game worht investing in the box price and first month" review. Reviews further out from launch date have a deeper perspective that is impossible for any reviewer to get in less time.

- Darkfall - We do have a review coming. There have been some delays, and frankly we want to make sure that the game gets a fair shake in terms of play time ina  world that, by the developer's own admission, takes some time to actually get into.

- Bottom line - Again, go and re-read my other post. Our bottom line isn't based on what you seem to think that it is.

Jon,

Thank for the reply.  You response is greatly appreciated.

How ever, I do have a question regarding one of your points.  You said, "MMOs are shiniest in the beginning stages."  Could you please explain that.  I am assuming (which isn't the wise thing to do this I asked for clarification) you mean "new" to the player and not shiniest as in quality of the game.  For the most part, the first 90 post launch are patch after patch after patch of fixing things.  So I can't see how the game would be rated the highest at that point do to it's "shiniest" factor.  In my opinion, it is the hype factor setting in combined with advertising dollars.  If the fanbois of a website are going to hype something to 9.5 at launch, there can be no way you or any other staff writer can down mark it into failure 6 or 7 something.  Also, I contend if that publisher is paying for advertising on your site, it could influence the score.  I'm not saying it does, I'm saying it could.

Also, yes I have played Free Realms and I played LOTRO both at release,  .3 isn't a big difference, but I do contend that LOTRO was the much better game at release.  Yes, I agree.  For what Free Realms wanted to do, they achieved it successfully.

By the way, thank you.  I greatly look forward to the staff's review on Darkfall Online.

Bottom line is, do you think a publisher would pay you for advertsing on this site if they felt there was a chance that a writer for MMORPG.com would write down a new released game on initial review?