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The new MMORPG - Will it bring more biased/payed reviews?
andre369
Member UncommonPosts: 970
Most of those who will reply here, probably know that MMORPG.COM are working on and soon will be relaunching the site. This is all good, I look forward to it. But then I think of some of the articles that are posted on this site. A prime example can be continuing to hype Archage while it is blatantly a horrible mess of bad programming and easily hack able.
Although we did get some articles about how the game was messy and all that. But this was not until weeks or even months after the release. Running a MMORPG site, the visitors sort of expect real non biased reviews. Personally I go to certain YouTube channels for that, I cannot really trust any "review/early look" type of format on this site.
That being said, more and more people, as I do use ad block. There is a very limited websites I disable it on, because I know I can trust them to bring non biased content.
28 ads my browser says it has blocked, do I really want to load 28 ads on a site that already takes 5-10 seconds to load? You can answer that yourself..
So my worry is, if the new site, partnered with a YouTube network, will bring more non biased reviews? Or will we get more of "this game is awesome", then a month down the line, when the forum posts about X game being bad, we finally get a true look on X game..
I might be a little bit too negative, but then ask yourself, have you never thought that a review on this site has been influenced by ad revenue?
Comments
IMO, I think {Mod Edit}.
Money rules all, the site makes all of its money from game publishers.
Do you really need to ask the question you did?
I think I have proof that this site doesn't sell positive reviews:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/985/view/reviews/load/300
That's likely the most aggressively advertised game on this site in the last year, and it got them a 4/10.
It's likely that ad revenue combined with publisher requests will get this site to review a game. But that doesn't mean it will be a positive review.
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As for which games get coverage, if some coverage of a game gets lots of clicks and lots of attention, they'll give more coverage of the game. If a typical article about game X got ten times the hits and comments and so forth of average articles about other games and they didn't suspect some sort of cheating on the part of the publisher, they'd publish an article about game X at least once per week.
except those inflated polish and value scores bringing up the whole thing.
and I thought people just come to this site to do forum pvp ....
there are plenty of review sites, and most MMOs are f2p anyway .. so i don't see a huge value on MMO reviews.
This site and developers have the same interest in hyping games. The more a game is hyped the more page hits mmorpg.com gets and the more money they make. Which is likely why they allow fanboy trolling and ban and suspend posters who speak negatively about a game. They want games hyped. They want people checking daily. They want people believing each and every new game will be the one that changes their lives. It's all about money not about journalism or ethics. This is not a journalistic site its a site that wants to make as much money as possible and that means hyping games as high as they can.
But isn't that the state of the world. Everything is about taking peoples inflaming passions and emotions so companies can take peoples money. Making a quality useful product that benefits people is almost always a secondary concern to making as much money as possible. Truth almost loses out to marketing departments. This site is no different except that it takes advantage of a younger and much more gullible demographic who will always fall for the same lie game after game.
I'm glad you found a way to remind us about your F2P obsession.
If you're reading a review and you can't find the bias, then they've done a good job of disguising it or you just aren't very astute.
Everything a human being does, it does through the bias of their collective experiences. There's no such thing as unbiased and quite often if you think someone is not being biased, it's simply because you agree with them.
As far as paid reviews go, I'm doubtful that MMORPG is getting paid to review games.
First off, if it's ever discovered, then all credibility is lost and the site will go down like Brian William's helicopter. Second, it's usually quite obvious when a site is being paid to review stuff because they'll never really blast a product that stinks.
For instance, I'm fairly big into Sim Racing when I'm not playing MMO's and one of the more popular Sim Racing sites out there does product reviews of steering wheels, pedals, shifters, seats... you name it.
But they nearly always receive those products directly from the manufacturers, wink wink nudge nudge, and they almost never give anything a poor review. They use a 1-10 scale, but 99% of products score a 7 or better. You can spot the dollar signs from a mile away as they brush off the negatives and uptalk the positives of whatever they're reviewing.
Eh, reviews are just a small group's opinion at best, more likely it's just 1 person's opinion and at worst it's an opinion influenced by money. Given that they're essentially nicer-looking, better-written forum posts, I don't really find reviews from any site or magazine worth reading. You get a little objective info on the features, but the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's why we have forums and it shows how many people have rated the game. It allows you to make an intelligent decision. Noone is expected just to take a blanket answer with a blanket review number.
and I though i am reminding you about my forum pvp obsession ....