The metaphysical sword of care achieves it’s sharpest edge when tempered with reality.
Or with the souls of your fallen enemies…lots of good options
Unlike some of my cold openings, that one has an appropriate relevancy to my post today in a greater context, as I recently saw a new article discussing the always stylish Suda51’s thoughts on Metacritic, and the unneeded obsession with review scores, which is a tale as old as time, really. In a recent interview with gameindustry.biz, Suda provided a not so hot take in regards to the industry’s unfortunate fondness overall with the idea of Metacritic scores in general:
“Everybody pays too much attention to and cares too much about Metacritic scores. It’s gotten to the point where there’s almost a set formula – if you want to get a high Metacritic score, this is how you make the game. If you’ve got a game that doesn’t fit into that formula, that marketability scope, it loses points on Metacritic. The bigger companies might not want to deal with that kind of thing. That might not be the main reason, but that’s certainly one reason why everyone cares too much about the numbers.“
Suda goes on to finish with-
“Personally, I don’t care too much about the Metacritic numbers. I’m not really conscious of them. What’s important to us is putting the games out that we want to put out and having people playing the games we want them to be able to play.”
SUDA51: Focusing on what really matters
I think anyone within a rational mind set can get behind Suda’s words on this one, as review scores have always represented a constant plague upon the gaming landscape by and large, and are usually only touted by marketers and fanboys as being the end all be all of worth. Of course companies want to be praised by in large through the industry overall but sometimes the methods to their madness go a bit too far, as some have even given bonus incentives to developers who hit a certain average review score rating, which has got to add a certain element of frustrating headaches to the development cycle. The flip side is that a lot of fanboys will rally around one game that represents the industry, or part of it, that they want to prop up, so that game getting reviewed well is really an end all be all for them, and will go to extreme lengths to defend it at all costs, even to the point of attacking dissenting opinions.
The Zelda series being a victim of this fact time and time again
Review scores have been problematic on multiple occasions, even going as far as creating controversies within the industry for people literally just giving their honest opinion of a video game. Jim Sterling gave Breath of the Wild a 7/10, and people lost their minds, so much so that they personally harassed him and temporarily made his work and personal life a living hell , for a positive score non the less. Even more famously, Jeff Gerstmann gave Kane & Lynch a middling review score, reflecting the quality of the game itself, and ultimately being terminated from GameSpot as a result.
Even the developers admitted this game wasn’t that great
There have been others of note even, as I’m remembering how X-play gave a 5/5 to Killzone 2 and accused Adam Sessler of misdoings by both the Sony camp and the Microsoft camp at the same time somehow, IGN’s infamous comments on their reviews for the third gen Pokemon remakes claiming that “too much water” was a big reason the game got a less than stellar score, creating a meme in the process, and Gamespot taking GTA V to task about their treatment of women in a review of the game, creating outrage from fans and asking for the removal of the reviewer (Carolyn Petit) responsible.
Just about no one ends up looking good by the time GTA V is all
said and done, women included, so the reviewer wasn’t wrong in that regard
Video game review scores have probably done more harm than good in the overall grand scheme of things, and ultimately seems to lend itself more to the idea of clicks and controversies more so than to any meaningful discussion about the games as potential art, or a conversation involving the substance of the game industry as a whole, so I most certainly concur with Suda on the matter. Even when I had to review games back in the day, my least favorite part was having to slap an arbitrary number on an entire experience, somehow effectively reducing the entire process into a singular digit manifestation of worth, which always felt lacking on almost every level. Here’s hoping we eventually get to a place with the gaming industry where we won’t have to care about review scores, instead of just choosing to ignore them entirely.
~Pashford
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