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Review scores are ‘irrelevant’ to Sniper Elite dev

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Sniper-elite

Developers place far too much stock in Metacritic these days. While it’s a useful tool for aggregates and watching performance on a franchise over a long period of time, using it as a tool to reward or punish a team based on their game output is kind of bonkers. But UK-based developer Rebellion manages to fall asleep every night without any Metacritic worries weighing them down. Or even review scores, as their games have proven to be profitable, despite what those nasty professional writers have had to say about them.

And that’s because Rebellion has a modest budget for games, when compared to other industry players, that has allowed it to make a tidy profit on their releases.

“Nobody here ever bothers about Metacritic. We think of it as irrelevant, quite frankly,” CEO Jason Kingsley said to GamesIndustry.

We only concentrate on what the users think, and every aggregate user score has been significantly higher than the aggregate professional score. We care about the people who are spending their money, and whether we’re happy that we’ve made a good game. The acid test isn’t somebody’s abstracted number.

Kinglsey then explained that what a reviewer was looking for in a game, might not be what a regular member of the public was expecting. And that’s why Rebellion preferred to embrace the more casual side of getting their games eyeballed.

“The greatest value for us as digital publishers, if you like, is in embracing YouTube and Twitch and the normal people being seen playing our games,” Kingsley said.

It lets you see what the gameplay is like, and make a decision on whether you like that and want to play it. You might not actually care whether it didn’t seem totally original to one person, or that the story was a bit crap. That new approach has taken over.

And in some ways, I agree with that approach. If it wasn’t for our damn digital infrastructure being more hobbled than the Great Khali’s speech patterns, I’d kill to be able to properly stream some games that I was busy reviewing, so people could see if I was being honest with the words in my reviews. However, just saying that a game is suitable for different folks with different strokes, isn’t enough. It’s the reason why we try and get the right man for the right game to review it, but remind them to be critical. After all, would you want me to review FIFA?

As for ditching numbers in reviews, I’m personally still all for them. But I’d gladly replace the system with that prototype GIF system I created last week.

Last Updated: February 18, 2015

35 Comments

  1. We don’t want you to review FIFA, we want you to review Raves Cry and to save time here’s a gif

    http://img-9gag-ftw.9cache.com/photo/a7yd6pz_460sa.gif

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      February 18, 2015 at 10:29

      I second this motion

      Reply

      • The D

        February 18, 2015 at 11:07

        If you guys put a fund together to get me the game, I’d unhappily review it for you.

        Reply

        • Corrie

          February 18, 2015 at 11:39

          I’ll happily donate 5c towards this…oh look Homefront and all dlc is R72.95

          Yeah umm…….yeah anybody else will to front the R643.00 for this

          Ohhh new idea for a YouTube series: Lets not play…..It’s mine I saw it first and shall fight thee with copyright infringement lawsuit till a nuclear fallout…oh crap I’m about to get a letter from Bethesda’s lawyers for saying Fallout…crap I did it again-_-

          Reply

  2. HvR

    February 18, 2015 at 09:23

    What shouldn’t be irrelevant is the complaints arising from reviews and user experiences.

    Having you damn scope sight picture disappear 90% through a 2 hour sneak, shoot and scoot mission and the only way to correct this is to restart the mission will generate some negative feeling towards your product.

    Reply

  3. Captain JJ the crafter

    February 18, 2015 at 09:31

    This is how I feel too. It’s the people who pay for it that give the most helpful reviews.

    Reply

  4. Dutch Matrix

    February 18, 2015 at 09:32

    Hey, you reviewing FIFA might not be such a bad idea. A newbie taking on FIFA? As a FIFA Virgin that is a review I would LOVE to read…

    Reply

    • The D

      February 18, 2015 at 11:03

      “Can’t find the button prompt to allow me to make a pit stop. Runs can’t be comverted into homeruns. 2/10”.

      Reply

  5. Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

    February 18, 2015 at 09:44

    If you think Review scores don’t affect sales, you are going to have a bad time

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      February 18, 2015 at 09:57

      7/10

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        February 18, 2015 at 11:04

        XD

        Reply

  6. Admiral Chief

    February 18, 2015 at 09:48

    I call for a motion to make Darryn’s GIF system MANDATORY!

    All those in favour?

    Reply

    • Spaffy

      February 18, 2015 at 09:49

      Aye

      Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      February 18, 2015 at 09:57

      Aye! Savvy?

      Reply

    • Dutch Matrix

      February 18, 2015 at 11:16

      Why is this not yet mandatory???

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        February 18, 2015 at 11:21

        I dunno dude, but it should be!

        Reply

  7. Spaffy

    February 18, 2015 at 09:51

    Review scores mean nothing to movies (Transformers) so it shouldn’t mean that much to games. Right? Right?

    Reply

    • Blood Emperor Trevor

      February 18, 2015 at 10:08

      A certain, unnamed critic gave the last Transformers movie a 1. I quite enjoyed it despite it having an incredibly stupid plot.

      Reply

      • Matthew Holliday

        February 18, 2015 at 10:11

        such shiney
        much explershuns
        wow

        Reply

      • Spaffy

        February 18, 2015 at 10:16

        Hehe, you just called Darryn a critic.

        Reply

      • RinceThis

        February 18, 2015 at 10:19

        Eish, the movie was kak!

        Reply

        • Blood Emperor Trevor

          February 18, 2015 at 10:20

          Myself & Johnny Walker disagree.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief

            February 18, 2015 at 10:30

            Red/blue?

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 18, 2015 at 10:31

            Red, and pretend it’s blue.

          • Admiral Chief

            February 18, 2015 at 10:44

            XD

          • RinceThis

            February 18, 2015 at 11:06

            Drinks red till he’s blue in the face? 0_O

          • Skoobaz

            February 18, 2015 at 11:06

            Or green!

  8. Umar

    February 18, 2015 at 09:52

    Nothing wrong with Metacritic. It’d be proud of a good score though. The emphasis publishers put on it however is the real problem, but hey, it’s all a money game at the end of the day. You’ll likely see more box arts and trailers with all the awards the game won before it was even out and then the inevitable GOTY box with all the scores on it.

    Reply

  9. Matthew Holliday

    February 18, 2015 at 10:16

    my problem with reviewers is the lack of putting appropriate reviewers on specific games.
    if you put a reviewer that doesnt like FPS titles, on the next CoD, the next CoD is going to get 3/10.

    Toribash, a non-conventional ragdoll physics game, got a 2/10 from some reviewer, because he didnt know how to play the game, meanwhile, ive been playing the game since 2006.
    dont assign reviewers that dont like the games or dot know how to play them

    Reply

    • RinceThis

      February 18, 2015 at 10:17

      So, like putting Kumar on a non-fantasy game and expecting a score of more than 9.9?

      Reply

    • Captain JJ the crafter

      February 18, 2015 at 11:52

      I completely agree. If I have to see one more reviewer starting with “I don’t usually play these kinds of games but…” I’m going to lose my sh!t.

      Reply

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