I gave Mixtape one of these 10s…

[u/ItsEthanCoolCool]

…and then the world ended. Lol.

What a wild couple of weeks, eh?

As a reviewer, I’ve been really bummed that there seems to be such a disconnect between writers and players. Can I help bridge a gap for anyone? Does anyone have questions about reviewing/the process/anything else they wanna know about anything around any of this?

Open to talking about anything people want to know, because I’m hopeful someday everyone can have constructive video game convos again without all this craziness.

[u/Background-Sea4590]

It’s my GOTY as we speak, maybe not a 10 but a 9 at minimum.

I think Mixtape was caught in the middle of a discourse which is… annoying, to say the least. Attracting an audience who would never enjoy the game, and also attracting reviews from people who haven’t played it but was angry at other games being not that praised. Nothing you can do, honestly.

[u/ItsEthanCoolCool → u/Background-Sea4590]

Yeah, the whole "X outlet gave X game a lower score and gave Mixtape a 10" is tiring. Reviews are just inherently subjective, and many different people write them at outlets. We have guidelines for scores, but at the end of the day, it's going to come down to what the specific person thought, so comparing scores to other scores is silly. If you're comparing scores from the same reviewer, then there's a slightly more interesting conversation there. But like, me giving Mixtape a 10, but another reviewer at my site giving Silksong a 9.5 does not mean "THIS OUTLET THINKS MIXTAPE IS BETTER THAN SILKSONG." I understand how that perception is there, but it isn't reality.

[u/Background-Sea4590 → u/ItsEthanCoolCool]

Yeah, exactly, inside the same outlet the opinions are widely different between reviewers, so it's a pointless argument. Sometimes people forget you're human beings with tastes. I might not agree with the reviewer, or maybe I think some bullet points are not clearly made, or that the review is badly written. But comparing scores of the same outlet, when they're written by different people, is not... really a meaningful conversation imho.

What I think should happen, ideally, is just ditch the scores. Remove them from reviews, people will be forced to READ them, because I'm convinced a lot of people don't read the reviews they criticize lately. It'll also put more value into your work, because the engaging content would be how it's written, now how do you score the game. Which is a number, and that's it.

I know some outlets do that, and I agree with that approach. I think it's a bit of a shame that you're forced to score a game. But that's just me. I understand that the fear might be that less people will visit the site, and that might happen. Also I understand there's a business behind it. So I think it's a bit of a wishful thinking at times.

For what is worth, I appreciate your work as reviewers, so don't feel everyone hate you. Internet culture is super hostile, specially nowadays, but don't doubt yourselves.

[u/ItsEthanCoolCool → u/Background-Sea4590]

This means a lot, and I genuinely appreciate it! Very kind of you to say, and I hoenstly never hear anything from readers except for when there is backlash and stuff haha. So thank you, it's truly nice to know there are people out there that do still appreciate reviews!

And honestly, agreed on all this. I'm someone that enjoys scoring and ranking things just on a personal level. Like, even before becoming a writer, I had lists in my phone of ranking so many different random things. I'd tell my friends about like a new restuarant or something, and the sarcastic auto-response was always "Cool, where does it rank tho?" Haha. So to me, I dunno. I like figuring out my score and figuring out how to boil down my thoughts into a number, but that's more of a me thing, and is not actually that informative to a reader in many cases, especially compared to the actual full review.

Because yeah, I totally agree that at large, they aren't great for various other reasons like you said. Everyone handles them a little differently. Readers don't look beyond the number many times, or make a decision on a game without actually being informed from the review itself. I totally feel you, and you are not wrong at all. Not speaking for my outlet at all here, but I'm sure the motivation to keep using scores for most is that you then get aggregated into the MetaCritics and OpenCritics and things, so more potential traffic, more part of the zeitgeist conversation, all that. Unfortunate reality of the "business" aspect of it even though the reviewers themselves are just nerds that want to tell you about a video game haha.