It’s a funny thing, confirmation bias. I’ve postulated for a long time that reviews function more as a vehicle for confirmation bias, which according to one definition: “In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.”
I’ve been critiquing games for years, and I’ve noticed that while there are many gamers who look towards reviews to make informed purchasing decisions, most people look towards them to confirm their own pre-conceived notions about a game. It’s particularly prevalent here in South Africa where we sometimes get games late and review games after people have played them.
The most recent of those, is of course, Devil’s Third. The game has been nearly universally panned by critics because it is, in my opinion of course, a bloody terrible game – but fans of its developer, Ninja Gaiden designer Tomonobu Itagaki, that’s just not possible. He’s not capable of making an appalling game, so despite what reviews say, they’ll be picking the game up, spending their hard-earned money on something that those who’ve played it believe to be awful.
His fans have gone so far as attacking critics who’ve panned the game, while congratulating those who’ve been kinder to it for “seeing Itagaki’s vision.” We have of course, seen this sort of thing before. Reviewers who said bad things about Dragon’s Dogma, or good things about DmC.
Videogamer.com’s deputy editor Steve Burns summed it up with a memetic Simpsons picture, really – which was clever and all, but really just confirmed what I already knew.
— Video Game Loser (@TheSteveBurnio) August 27, 2015
Today’s FFD the, is a twofold one. Do you use reviews as a way to confirm your own thoughts on a game, as tool to find games you may not otherwise have looked at, or to make purchasing decisions. On top of that, are there developers whose games you would buy without question, no matter what those bastard reviewers have to say?
Last Updated: August 28, 2015
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 28, 2015 at 10:48
In order:
Yes & no
Yes
Yes
No
A good example is Batman. Putting aside all the broken on PC crap, it was something that was pretty much 50/50, and based on reviews I won’t buy it.
RinceThis
August 28, 2015 at 10:58
For you:
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Yes ^^
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 28, 2015 at 11:06
Why do you have 6 answers for 4 questions? :/ Are you counting in mandarin slices, or are you barking mad?
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 11:41
If you have to ask…. then, really, who is barking mad?
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 28, 2015 at 12:03
I don’t have to ask, already know the answer is both. I just asked for the sake of entertainment, to see what his answer would be.
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 10:48
Reviews can sometimes guide my thoughts OR in some case alert me to a game I did not know about. As with any reviews, food critics or whatever, I think yo need to build a relationship with the reviewer (a one sided one, of course) in that you get to know their likes and dislikes over time. this enables me to trust an opinion or disregard something that may seem important. This then greatly aids in my processing of the review.
Will I buy a game solely based on a review I read? Yes, have done so. Not a good idea, but sometimes it is awesome. (Deus Ex:HR).
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 28, 2015 at 12:46
I’ve often bought games based on customer reviews on Steam and Metacritic, since I tend to check those before every buy I make. The professional reviewers’ scores on Metacritic doesn’t mean much to me though. I need to hear it from someone who spent their money on it and whether they think they got what they were promised.
Way too often I’ve seen games get stellar scores from professional reviewers on Metacritic and then the user reviews are sitting around 3/10 or 4/10. In every case that I’ve been dumb enough not to heed the warnings of the users I’ve been burnt. So I tend to only rely on user reviews. Since there are over 100 per game, it’s quick to filter out the ones that aren’t helpful and you quickly pick up on a trend where something is either great or terrible.
Mossel
August 28, 2015 at 14:40
This. When I got back into gaming, after a 4 year break destroying my liver at varsity, I wanted to buy a lekker shooter, turns out Bioshock Infinite just came out and got grand reviews. I’ve never heard of it so I bought it…and what a game to start off with!
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 10:50
BUT: Status of site. I see landing page is not as it was, missing the right hand bar of status updates, what is trending, what is being viewed. That was useful.
Also, although not as useful to me, not a single article (at the time of writing this) has an article count.
DDOS? Over?
Hammersteyn
August 28, 2015 at 11:00
Seems it’s over.
Geoffrey Tim
August 28, 2015 at 11:30
Spoke too soon. Turn off DDoS protection: site falls over.
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 11:40
wow. I saw some other SA Gaming / tech sites suffer the same issues. Same source of attacks?
Geoffrey Tim
August 28, 2015 at 11:47
Honestly, no idea. The attack against us is distributed; so very hard to pinpoint – and we’re just not clever enough to stop it it seems.
Hammersteyn
August 28, 2015 at 11:55
FFS
Geoffrey Tim
August 28, 2015 at 11:16
We are slowly, slowly turning features back on.
Lardus-For the Emperor!
August 28, 2015 at 10:51
I use reviews to inform. If I am looking forward to a game, I get confirmation that the game is possibly good. If not, I move it down on my priority list. Games in the middle spectrum might be elevated on my list. Games I’ve been ignoring could become interesting. I don’t take reviews as Alpha-Omega, but I do not discount them based on my prior views on a game either. Just like astrology, they inform, the do not control.
RinceThis
August 28, 2015 at 10:54
All I can say is that turd of a ‘reporter’ who dissed Dragons Dogma is an imbecile.
Hammersteyn
August 28, 2015 at 11:00
*shots fired XD
RinceThis
August 28, 2015 at 11:06
Hue hue hue! The Yetti knows he has my heart!
Ryanza
August 28, 2015 at 10:57
People will buy what ever they want. And they tend to buy what they know. That is why sequels sell so well.
There are people who would follow gaming websites as an example, who would wait for reviews before deciding to buy. But if the review scores are good, The Witcher 3, you will still find people not buying the game.
Reviews are not responsible for the majority of sales. That is why you see a shitty game with bad reviews, still selling well.
Reviews are really there for people who have already bought the game and looking for opinions about the game matching their own opinions.
You know, buying something and liking it and then wanting to hear that other people like it. And why people don’t like when I call shit games, shit.
Don’t Support DRM. Cyberpunk 2077 review is coming.
RinceThis
August 28, 2015 at 10:58
I use them to inform myself. One has to remember that games are an art form, and that no matter what shit you produce, I’m looking at you A:CM, some punter will swear by it and love the thing in ways only Martha and cabbages would understand. As a critic one is supposed to know a bit more about the industry than the average Joe, and with that knowledge inform people about a game. Is it worth your time and money, why, and for what reasons. Saying a critic is crap because they don’t get the ‘vision’ of a developer, something that is totally subjective, is plain stupid and is about as defensive a reaction as certain people and their love of this platform or that game and their ranting.
Hammersteyn
August 28, 2015 at 10:59
I can see why people would still pick up the game. Loyalty to the developer. Extreme loyalty if I read Youtube comments. Also if someone gave a Kojima game 4/10 I’d still be interested.
Ranting Raptor
August 28, 2015 at 11:16
I use reviews to make sure a game is complete before purchasing. If I’ve decided to buy a game, reviews generally don’t sway my choice unless they tell me the game is unpolished, buggy and broken.
That being said, reviews can often make me want a game that I hadn’t considered before
Dutch Matrix
August 28, 2015 at 11:21
You know, I used to fall in that trap quite a few times. Read a great review and find the game is not all that great. Fine. The game, 9/10 is a genre I cannot play even in my life depended on it. (RTS for example.)
Ranting Raptor
August 28, 2015 at 11:44
well naturally there are limitations. I’m not going to play a moba because it’s 10/10.
But, with games like The Witcher where previews and reviews were showing an amazing game, it made me change my mind and go try play 2 that I could never get in to. I ended up loving it all
Jac7
August 28, 2015 at 11:24
I don’t board the hype train. It’s either the reviewers or the public who can’t get it right. For instance; Watchdogs still has an average score of 80 on metacritc (for critics) and and a 6.2 user score. Alien Isolation, which is a far more superior game, has a metascore of 79 and a user score of 8.1. Concerning Watch Dogs, I feel reviewers were way too lenient with their scoring (like handing out gold medals to all the kids for showing up for gym class), but the public clearly showed their disappointment when they picked up a product inferior to the one that was showed off earlier. Alien Isolation scored lower among critics than the public, which is confusing when the general complaints lodged against it was a exhaustingly long campaign and a unstoppable alien (mostly coming from critics). Maybe some people still had the bad taste of Colon Marines left in their mouths. Point is I wait now. I wait and learn. Then I get frustrated and order pizza with all the toppings, because this is nothing more than a First World problem, but damnit, it’s my problem. I don’t know man, I need to go think in the shower a bit.
Gavin Mannion
August 28, 2015 at 11:28
I think reviews count more for games that don’t have a solid history. Games like GTA, Call of Duty and FIFA don’t need to rely on reviews but new entries in the market are totally defined by reviews.
Devils Turd is obviously not going to be spinning out a sequel because no matter what a few fanboys say the general reviewing opinion is that the game sucks
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
August 28, 2015 at 12:26
A game that, to this day, blew me away, was Spec Ops: The Line, I read reviews on it, stating it’s mediocre at best, but then you play through it, and it’s quite simply, one of the best stories ever.
W.r.t. the established franchises, well, Rockstar didn’t have to prove anything with GTAV, we all knew it was going to be good, and that is where experience in game design plays a massive role, Sam and Dan Houser…Need I say more?
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
August 28, 2015 at 11:29
You know…. I had a discussion earlier this week about it, where a conclusion was drawn about the experience being rated as an opinion. We all saw what happened with Watch_Dogs, a game that was hyped by a developer we all thought could bring their A game, for a lot of people it was a complete let down, but the general rating was ok-good, factors taken into account were the hype that built up etc.. Stating that a reviewer is wrong is a very strong statement…
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
August 28, 2015 at 12:15
I have yet to meet a person who thought Watch_Dogs was good. Best I got was “So-so” and that was from a PS4 gamer. Uplay/Scandal issues aside the voice acting was stifling at best and the story went nowhere. The driving mechanics came from those 80s bike arcade games and the graphics were sub par unless you modded it.
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
August 28, 2015 at 12:19
Holy crap man…. I feel exactly the same way, the Jordi character was cool, but that was it, the main protagonist picked up his personality from a few shaving off of a grated cloth, the driving mechanics were atrocious to say the least and the story… I haven’t been as underwhelmed by anything as that(that includes watching paint dry, quite literally….)
Matthew Holliday
August 28, 2015 at 13:04
i managed to hold out for 30 minutes befor i shut my friends PC down.
so yeah, pretty much the moment i got in a car i started bashing alt-f4
Matthew Holliday
August 28, 2015 at 13:13
to be fair, the watch dog hype dropped real fast in the days coming up to release.
and the reviews from people not on ubisofts payroll were atleast sorta accurate.
one thing about oobi, is that their games always work well eventually. happened with both farcry 4 and AC:unity.
and if you’re a fan of a franchise, chances are you’ll be getting the games sooner or later.
but it pays to wait for the USER reviews for their games. the comments from users that tell you the shit you really care about “does the game actually work?”
that way you can atleast plan WHEN you’re going to buy them.
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
August 28, 2015 at 12:01
I pre-order many years/months/days before a review comes out for a game/franchise that piques my interest. I mean how am I supposed to know if Fallout is going to be that good based off of highly questionable E3 gameplay (All E3 AAA gameplay is highly questionable. If you disagree then go play Alien:CM). So I purchased several copies of the PiP-Boy Edition just because.
As for a dev that I will always purchase from.
BIOWARE!
Matthew Holliday
August 28, 2015 at 13:02
please notice me, Shepard-senpai
Matthew Holliday
August 28, 2015 at 12:24
personally dont give reviews any credit anymore.
the marketing being so prevelant in the gaming industry, i dont think reviewers can give an unbiased oppinion.
not to mention everyone has different oppinions about pretty much everything.
my most recent example is batman. PC issues aside, i dont think it deserved half the recognition it got.
gaming news and updates prior to game release are the stuff i find essential when it comes to ordering/preordering games, identifying the marketing gimmicks and comparing them to the gameplay videos. that is what i use to make a decision about ordering/preordering games.
as to whether or not reviews are used to only confirm your decision:
-if youve been following a game and only order it after the game got a good review, yes, decision confirmed, bias confirmed.
-if you havent really been following or considering a game, then you read a good review and end up buying it, then no, the review is the reason you made a decision, unbiased.
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 28, 2015 at 12:41
Professional reviewer Metascores are worthless to me, but the customer reviews I find very helpful.
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 14:31
A bit late, BUT
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt
Look at that, a user scored the Game 0 on Xbox One. And PC. And PS4. So, did the user play it? Does the review of the user mean as much now? This, to me, seems sort like a SJW thing, trying to the word out there about MY opinion, cause I am sure you want to know.
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 28, 2015 at 15:04
That’s exactly what I mean by easily spotting the crappy user reviews when you have 100s to read (I said it somewhere else here on another comment – I realise now). There will always be people like that. Unfortunately. But then take this as the point I’m making…
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/need-for-speed-rivals
Got scores above 75 on all platforms by professional reviewers, but people who actually paid money for it rated it on average below 5. You see it more with EA games, of course. But this is why I would rather take the review of an average Joe serious. And I did play Rivals, and it was terrible.
Admiral Chief on the mend
August 28, 2015 at 13:09
Only 36 comments?
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 28, 2015 at 13:27
You’re the only one who says the same thing over and over! ;P
Brady miaau
August 28, 2015 at 13:33
Also, topic not as hot as some other topics AND this week may have caused some site visitation shyness
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 28, 2015 at 13:44
It really has man. I was barely on Lagz this week myself. Mostly because I was too busy, but the few chances I had to pop in, I couldn’t 🙁