nightcraw1er.488: In terms of your suggestion, who is going to pay for all that? GOG can’t even get release thread links right, and make a point of never fixing anything other than galaxy. So who is going to police this? How are you going to interview to see if their “opinion” is valid. Who is it for anyone to say someone else’s opinion, regardless of how they come to it, is? Are you going to chase down industry “experts” or youlubers who are obviously brought and paid for?

AB2012: In theory people should indeed judge games on their own merit. In practise, we live in a time where cheesy cash-grabs of "minimum effort remasters + remove the old game from sale purely to quadruple the price of a 20 year old game" seem to be becoming the new trend, and obviously the new game hardly exists in a vacuum.

Crosmando: Is it true they censored Miranda's ass in the ME remasters?

Elefuntitus: If you write a review for any sequel or remake and your opinion is solely based on your experience with previous games in the franchise I am going to mark your review as not helpful and not read it . There are so many people who get so attached to the idea of what a previous rendition of a game meant to them, they are completely blind to some of the good qualities of new games. The amount of times I've read: these new devs don't understand what made [old] great; a mere cash grab at nostalgia; just play the original instead - is cliche trite at this point. I'm not saying cash grabs don't exist or the spirit of the original game isn't sometimes carried over, but I think you should know that there has been at least thirty years between you and your favourite game, in which, teams have turned over, game design has changed and your inability to see the flaws of your favourite game have been entrenched in your mind. I'm quite tired of people taking poorly developed games as a personal insult. You are a person beyond this game that has meant so much to you, and there were flaws to that game when it came out and was often patched to a more playable state than it was at release as well. This is particularly relevant when I come across a review of a game that was written a short time after a sequel or a remake was released, and it doesn't take into account any of the development that has occurred after launch. Devs shouldn't be in a criticism free space but if I was in their position I often would completely disregard any opinion that starts with, I've been a fan of this series since the beginning but this game...

TLDR
I think your review is worthless if your thesis hangs on nostalgia, and you should stop acting like you are being personally attacked if a game fails to live up to your expectations.

BrianSim: ^ Definitely this too. You want a reduction in "this game is massively buggy" release day reviews? Forget about shooting the messenger and start re-incentivising the concept of making a good first impression BEFORE you get paid by banning the extremely anti-consumer combination of pre-orders + review embargoes where "professional" game reviewers are literally getting paid to HIDE problems with games pre-release whilst the publisher pockets the pre-order money on the back of false media representation... (Puts on "fake surprised face" when post release the negative amateur reviews made by people not under embargo turn out to paint quite a different picture than the paid for industry over-hype 'suggested'...)

Time4Tea: This +1000. If game publishers release a game that is a buggy mess whilst claiming it is finished and charging full price for it, they should be rightfully punished. But unfortunately many fan boys/girls seem to be willing to overlook almost anything and throw them their pre-order money anyway. Sad.

Zimerius: The only addition i would like to see, to the personal review is to prevent people from sharing a review based on less then 10 or maybe even 30 hours of play.

Zimerius: Sad seems to be a poor qualifier. Take a series such as total war for example, Every new title brings with it almost the same launch issues as could be seen by its predecessors. From lackluster ai behavior towards incomprehensible design choices, most will be routed out over the years that follow, together with both loads of DLC and FLC.

How can you call someone who's used to such a design system sad in any way? And what does this have to do with bad or worse written reviews?

Zimerius: The only addition i would like to see, to the personal review is to prevent people from sharing a review based on less then 10 or maybe even 30 hours of play. In that way you will probably root out the whole, i can't play the game so i hate it variant and probably kill some other minor bugs too

Breja: Seriously people, you have to deal with the fact that no one is going to remove all the reviews you find unhelpfull for you. You actually have to use your brains and do for yourself the work of disregarding reviews that don't meet whatever criteria you set.

Canuck_Cat: I used games from GOG to show its relevancy here, but it'd applicable to all medium platforms. And it'd be entirely volunteer-based like academia; professors and researchers peer review articles on their own free time to help advance the community's understanding. Policing the reviews would be left to players as always based on helpful or not helpful rating, similar to their citation system. The panel can be composed of whoever are relevant players or reviewers in their communities. If there are individuals who are compromised, there would be a check in the panel to remove those people. Canuck_Cat: The idea was to give more value to the ratings and reviews to better streamline consumer decision-making. After spending 30 minutes deciding whether or not I should get the game, it'd be much easier if I can better rely on a set of accurate data and a game's store page. If the system was designed well, it'd theoretically be able to tell you the game is bad without you needing to self-check it. Otherwise, what's the point of these user reviews if large enough sample size can compromise the score with disingenuous info?

If there's a better way to remove inaccurate reviews from circulation, please let me know.

Zimerius: The only addition i would like to see, to the personal review is to prevent people from sharing a review based on less then 10 or maybe even 30 hours of play.

AB2012: Trying to tie "game-time recorded" to being "permitted" to review a game doesn't work at all because:-

1. There's a huge difference between a 45min walking sim vs a 100hr RPG.

2. Quantity still doesn't = quality. I've seen reviews by people with 80hrs in a game waffling on about their personal politics that literally have nothing to do with the game. And I've seen "short and to the point" reviews that have concisely nailed down everything wrong with a game in under an hour. Some games are so broken it becomes apparent in the first 5mins what the issues are (you hardly need 30hrs in Big Rigs to be regarded as a "true reviewer" to call out the obvious). So you end up with people refunding in under 2hrs being unable to say why they refunded it. And people who force played 10-30hrs to be "permitted" to leave a review having to answer troll questions like "If you don't like it, why didn't you refund it before 10 hours?..."

3. Anyone can fake game-time anyway by leaving a game on the main menu screen idling in the background. "Game time played" as Steam & GOG record it isn't "gameplay" at all, it's .exe run time.

4. The flip-side of 4 is you'll discriminate against client-free users (because every game on their account will show 0.0hrs played, even if they have 1,000hrs offline gameplay).

At the end of the day Breja (post #51) is right, you'll never please everyone and their own idea of what a "perfect review" will be. The best thing is to simply have a lot of reviews that will statistically be more likely to contain useful information on average.

AB2012: I think people grasp the difference between a Total Conversion ...
...
still be "a shower of roses"...

Elefuntitus: I mostly play old games, so no there's no bias against them. I simply oppose the mentality that people get into that any change is inherently worse. I just find there are a lot of lies in the reviews and some have kept me from playing games, because outside of watching videos, which sometimes can be difficult to find for a niche game, player reviews are one of the only sources someone can go to for an impression of the game pre-purchase.

In general I just think it would be nice if people judged a game on its own merits and not on their, often, idealized experience with other games in the franchise. Some of the most well regarded games of the past, Jagged Alliance 2 or AOW are good examples, were basically unknown games at their launches. This mentality of always looking at old games as the standard is a form of confirmation bias, that I can safely bet, prevents many people from getting into newer games.

And I think this race that a lot of people have to shit all over a game if it's buggy at launch is more harmful than helpful. I know asking for rationality on the internet is a fool's errand, but there are like ten games that I can think of that were buggy at launch but people love them today. Criticise a game for its flaws, but people that are saying a game is a total failure because it has a different approach than previous renditions are just closed minded.

Breja: You do realise there are many games that are not even 10 hours long as a whole, right? And who is going to play a game they don't like for 30 hours?

Seriously people, you have to deal with the fact that no one is going to remove all the reviews you find unhelpfull for you. You actually have to use your brains and do for yourself the work of disregarding reviews that don't meet whatever criteria you set.

Elefuntitus: Criticise a game for its flaws, but people that are saying a game is a total failure because it has a different approach than previous renditions are just closed minded.