3 Comments

The game industry has evolved, a 70/30 split in a negative way. Reviews have not. Publishers are literally taking advantage of this by adding in unreviewed and game unbalancing microtransactions weeks after launch.

Keep up day one reviews, but yes do return to them with a second that is more retrospective. Riff on how early access reviews are done. Not saying to do this with every game.

You mention badging, how about a badge to say there have been substantial updates with a link to the game's forum on some websites for player insight.

Don't put stock in players doing their research on a game purchase long after release. That practice is not as common as you might think.

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As a bloke who got a letter published in Edge over 2 decades ago suggesting they drop review scores (they responded by suggesting silver scratch-off panels) I feel this topic will never get old - unlike me. I've now reversed my stance because I'm tired and lazy and constantly harassed by 2 smaller versions of myself so I don't want to deal with complexity or nuance unless absolutely required. I like a score at the end of a videogame review and once I've seen it, I will decide whether I'll read the rest of the review.

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Very cathartic and well-worded article. An ironic piece from Tinybuild given that Hello Neighbor is infamous for getting worse and worse with each early access build. If you go on the recent Steam reviews, there's a clear age divide between the positive and negative reviews. Namely, everyone praising it is a young kid. Kids are totally in their right to review games, especially a game like Hello Neighbor which is marketed towards them. But a kid's review obviously isn't going to be very articulate. But none of this matters anyway, because kids only buy games like this because their favourite YouTuber plays them! They don't even glance at the Metascore! Argh! I'm angry...

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