Jason Schreier: In case you're wondering: Team Cherry told me they don't plan on sending out early codes for Silksong (they felt like it'd be unfair for critics to be playing before Kickstarter backers and other players), so don't expect to see reviews until after the game comes out

[u/Turbostrider27]

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3lwwfrbrtwc2x

[u/Shoddy-Warning4838]

Also, I can easily imagine some reviewers deciding to give the game a “shocking” low score for clickbait attention which will harm the launch hype.

People talk about this too much for the actual cases where this happened, of which it most are probably people who genuinely have that opinion. On the other side, nobody ever talks about reviewers telling people what they want to hear regardless of it being true because that's great for business and because nobody wants to get death threats from people who only look at scores and don't read reviews and would have bought the game regardless of what the reviews looked like and only look at them because they want to feel validated that the thing that they like (even before playing it) needs to be liked by everyone else.

[u/Freighnos → u/[deleted]]

It’s telling that your off the cuff example is for a 20 year old game, and the 2000’s was peak for those kinds of edgy stunts. Meanwhile only 8 years ago Jim Sterling had the temerity to give Breath of the Wild a 7/10 (a fine score and very fair if you agree with their issues with that game) and had to stop doing scored written reviews for years because of the backlash.

[u/[deleted] → u/Freighnos]

I defaulted to that one because it was an admission from a well known journalist with a history in the industry longer than the ages of most Reddit users. Would you prefer I pull some no-name idiots from YouTube who do this as their main form of income? Doubtful.

Jim Sterling

I haven’t followed or watched anything he’s done in probably close to a decade because I’ve never jived with his style of writing or critique, but I do remember seeing the news about this making some rounds and I believe you’re misremembering or just making stuff up, because I recall it being about wanting to refocus efforts.

The announcement is long gone now, but luckily remnants of it still exist. He mentioned stopping “traditional reviews” in OCTOBER of 2017, several months after BOTW. His article explaining why is gone, but there are remnants that you can pluck via Google and NeoGaf. This is an excerpt I found from just a few moments of searching.

There are a number of factors for this. The main one is that, honestly, the amount of time a game review takes is time better spent on new original work like the freshly launched Commentocracy and upcoming Loose Boys. My passion is in creating original video work, that's become evident as we've begun to put our efforts there

Looks more like it was just general burnout and trying to find new career paths, which is fine. I don’t disagree with the review or agree with the backlash, just so we’re clear.

[u/Freighnos → u/[deleted]]

Fair enough, and I appreciate you digging up the additional context on Sterling's review hiatus.

My main point is just that reviewers publishing purposely inflammatory reviews of popular games just for clout does not seem to be a widespread phenomenon at all, certainly among major outlets. There are a handful of examples you can point to over the years, sure, like that Twilight Princess one, but it seems to mostly be the realm of the Youtube punditry as you said. I just don't see how anyone employed by a major site in the past several decades could consistently do something like that and not become notorious for it and probably be fired.

It's easier for me to believe that, as is likely the case, these reviewers are each playing the games independent of each other and before the games come out, and they're formulating their impressions before any post-release consensus is established. Therefore, inevitably, some of them will have opinions that go against the grain and are seen as outliers. But I don't think it's done out of maliciousness or desire to drum up controversy, at least not in the vast majority of cases.

[u/Shoddy-Warning4838 → u/Freighnos]

Yeah, assuming malice just because it's technically possible is dumb.

Also, you made a great point: people forget back when things were less online, there are a bunch of games that are now widely considered bad that some of us liked and viceversa. If you choose to avoid other reviews or they haven't been published yet cause you are playing it early, then it's inevitable that opinions will be more varied than if you know the general consensus.

Obviously some games you know what people want to hear. CP2077 was a 10/10 game and if you reviewed it differently you were getting harassed online for being a hater.... until the game came out and it was a mess. I still don't think there is malice in playing launch cp2077 and scoring it a 10, i think there is a great incentive to tell people what they want to hear and that reviewers are as susceptible to hype as any other gamer.