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So here is a thing. Do people trust video game reviews, previews, game stories in general? I thought about it and I kind of don't. When I want to know the scoop on what a game is, I tend to head to youtube for a lets play. I think it's because the journalism I see about games feel way too much like advertising. It really doesn't help when it ends up being used as actual advertising. Like how 'Shadow of Mordor is advertising how it won so many best preview awards. Why is there even a thing like a reward for preview?

So what do people think? Am I just completely wrong, or dose it even matter?

If it's one of those smaller, lesser known reviewers that posts their videos through Youtube, I can trust them. Usually, the reviews are more in-depth and more entertaining, as well as hearing the opinion of someone who's a gamer instead of someone who works for gaming journalism.

What do you think the people at GamerGate are all crying about (among other things)

The only reviewer I trust in any way is Game Informer, and only because as a bunch they seem to have this sly "yeah we know our business is kind of fethed but look we're doing what we can" kind of thing going on. Generally when they review a game I feel confident that the reviewer is trying to give a review and not an ad piece.

I watch Zero Punctuation, but Yahtzee said years ago people only like his videos when he's tearing games apart, so he always gives bad reviews now, even for the games he likes (though he usually says something to tell you he likes it).

Yahtzee and Spoony and the like are not really reviewers, they are entertainers with a character. To trust them for review information is pretty unwise.

Eh. I use them to check on stuff I am usually interested in already. It's the same as you do with movie reviews, you follow the specific people you trust and have the same taste. But they work well as advertising games that I would have not known about, so I am generally happy with them.

But I remember my first game review (non Nintendo Power) that directly influenced a purchase: A five star review of the original Command & Conquer. I loved the cut scenes (such hammy acting), the game play (Tanks can run over Infantry! Different weapons work better on different units!), and the graphics (units scaled against each other! ). While the magazine went OOP, it opened a new world for me.

 LordofHats wrote:
What do you think the people at GamerGate are all crying about (among other things)

The only reviewer I trust in any way is Game Informer, and only because as a bunch they seem to have this sly "yeah we know our business is kind of fethed but look we're doing what we can" kind of thing going on. Generally when they review a game I feel confident that the reviewer is trying to give a review and not an ad piece.

I watch Zero Punctuation, but Yahtzee said years ago people only like his videos when he's tearing games apart, so he always gives bad reviews now, even for the games he likes (though he usually says something to tell you he likes it).

Ya this is actually my way of maybe addressing a part of GG without all the other gack that surrounds it.

I do kind of use the ZP reviews, but at the same time they are meant as entertainment not a review. You know they are funny rather then a serous examination. Extra punctuation is more were he puts neat ideas though.

Indeed. Normally though I find the best reviews are players. I go to gaming forums and look to see what people are complaining about, complimenting etc. I don't even do preorders anymore. Aliens: Colonial Marines was the last time (special exception though for Pokemon). It's usually pretty easy to sort though a forum and find the people who just complain to complain/fanbois and those with legitimate complaints and compliments.

nomotog wrote:
So here is a thing. Do people trust video game reviews, previews, game stories in general? I thought about it and I kind of don't. When I want to know the scoop on what a game is, I tend to head to youtube for a lets play. I think it's because the journalism I see about games feel way too much like advertising. It really doesn't help when it ends up being used as actual advertising. Like how 'Shadow of Mordor is advertising how it won so many best preview awards. Why is there even a thing like a reward for preview?

So what do people think? Am I just completely wrong, or dose it even matter?

Nope haven't trusted em for over a decade...

While yatzee and Spoony may do it for entertainment, your still more likely to get an more honest review than from so called actual "game journalists"

I read ControlAltDel, and I watch Le Joueur du Grenier, which is kind of the French Angry Video Game Nerd. Kind of.

nomotog wrote:
So here is a thing. Do people trust video game reviews, previews, game stories in general? I thought about it and I kind of don't. When I want to know the scoop on what a game is, I tend to head to youtube for a lets play. I think it's because the journalism I see about games feel way too much like advertising. It really doesn't help when it ends up being used as actual advertising. Like how 'Shadow of Mordor is advertising how it won so many best preview awards. Why is there even a thing like a reward for preview?

So what do people think? Am I just completely wrong, or dose it even matter?

Of course not. Trusting, well anything, is stupid, especially mags that "review" things. Its the same in every sport or hobby.

"Trust Nothing. Believe No One." first words from my first professor in law school.

Advertising pretending to be journalism isn't something only the gaming industry does.

Probably has some NSFW language:

nomotog wrote:
So here is a thing. Do people trust video game reviews, previews, game stories in general? I thought about it and I kind of don't. When I want to know the scoop on what a game is, I tend to head to youtube for a lets play. I think it's because the journalism I see about games feel way too much like advertising. It really doesn't help when it ends up being used as actual advertising. Like how 'Shadow of Mordor is advertising how it won so many best preview awards. Why is there even a thing like a reward for preview?

So what do people think? Am I just completely wrong, or dose it even matter?

video game journalism died 20+ years ago. Has been 100% advertisement since.

When magazines look like clones, text is interchangable, opions are "its all good" etc pp, then we just have copy&paste jobs of the 'official line' of the companies publishing the video games.
Was a bit different in the first decades of gaming. Names got bigger, critics smaller.

 Frazzled wrote:
"Trust Nothing. Believe No One." first words from my first professor in law school.

And did you believe him?

 LordofHats wrote:
What do you think the people at GamerGate are all crying about

Absolutely nothing.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
"Trust Nothing. Believe No One." first words from my first professor in law school.

And did you believe him?

Of course not!

Ahtman is correct. In the shooting world there is a bit of a scandal as all the gun magazines spelled out how the new Remington pistol was the greatest thing since flintlocks. This included reviews that came out the same week Remington had to put out a recall on all the pistols with replacement because they were uniformly doing things like not locking the breech (aka could kill the guy operating it...OOPS!). Advertisers advertising in the same mag have inordinate influence. car mags are the same. motorcycle mags are the same.

 LordofHats wrote:
Indeed. Normally though I find the best reviews are players. I go to gaming forums and look to see what people are complaining about, complimenting etc. I don't even do preorders anymore. Aliens: Colonial Marines was the last time (special exception though for Pokemon). It's usually pretty easy to sort though a forum and find the people who just complain to complain/fanbois and those with legitimate complaints and compliments.

I usually bug people on dakka or on my steam friends list to ask about a game, myself.

One of my tactics has just been to play everything. If you have a console, you can simply rent any game that looks like it has neat box art. Then you rent the games with the bad box art after you run out.

A lot of people have said some very pertinent (level headed) things recently on this topic, and I doubt there is much I can add.

A friend of mine (full disclosure) who is an aspiring game journo even wrote something wrote something recently about this.

Enjoyment of a video game is a pretty subjective experience anyway. The philosophy I used to run with was to find a reviewer I generally agreed with, and mainly see what they had to say. These days though I mainly trust personal friends, and forum buzz more than review sites (reviews are still useful, you just need to know how to read between the lines).

So in short (it sounds like the people here agree)

Never trust journalist and companies like Metacritic.

If you really want review, rely on smaller individuals. I personally like Total Biscuit and Angry Joe for game reviews. Cinema Snob (and his friends) for movie reviews.

Neither. I am my own critic.
I do take some advice from TB (as his tastes are somewhat similar to mine), but he is certainly not gospel.

"Trust"? Lolno.

In my opinion, really trusting a preview or even a review of a game is a silly way to approach the subject. And this doesn't even have anything to do with the issue of professional reviewing portals being "held hostage" by the industry by way of withholding copies unless they receive positive coverage, as this would be easy to avoid by simply migrating to one of the many non-professional portals or a website where game reviews are just a side column. No, it is more a question of personal preferences:

You cannot have someone else judge a game for you. There's a high chance that other person will have a different taste, will look for different things and ignore stuff that you might consider problematic. It is impossible to know for sure how you'd feel unless you play it yourself. The best you could do is get a rough idea of the product, which means reading about the plot and game mechanics or looking at screenshots and videos.

Previews/Reviews still have their use for looking up the aforementioned things, but please at least look at 2-3 different sites just to reduce the chance of missing something. The rest is quite simply a question of trial and error. If you have a studio that consistently publishes bad PC ports, writes boring characters, or otherwise has stuff in its games you don't like, you'll simply stop buying from them (or at least wait until their newest title gets cheaper until you risk another look).

Taste is subjective - this needs to be kept in mind. If I had listened to review sites, I would not have had as much fun with D3 as I did, which was ripped apart primarily due to being "always online" (which does not bother me at all). On the other hand, if I had listened to dakka, I would have never experienced ME3, which is still one of my favourite games ever.
If someone thinks something is interesting: cool, check it out! But do not "trust" them blindly, regardless of who it is. Well, unless you are sure their preferences are similar to yours, I suppose. The best impression, I think, is those Let's Play videos, where you get to watch unfiltered game content and can judge for yourself how you'd feel playing it. Just gotta tune out the uploader's possible bias whenever you notice it.

It's the same with movies and music.

LordofHats wrote:What do you think the people at GamerGate are all crying about (among other things)

From what I've read, the tyranny and injustice of the all-powerful female gender that seeks world domination so that it can get rid of all the men.

Not following any of them. As recent news showed, gaming journalism is utter trash anyway and even before, I only looked at metacritic online and usually stuck to "offline" friends of ours.

The only real gaming site I go to is IGN, and in all honesty I look more at their TV/Movie sub-sections than their gaming sections. I glance at the gaming-related headlines just to gather the news, but I don't go there reviews and I certainly don't go there for their "10 reasons why this unfinished game we saw for 20 minutes at E3 will CURE CANCER!" bull gak hype pieces.

If I want to find out what a game is really like, I wait 'til TB or Joe have a go at it.

I typically stick to smaller, independent YouTube reviewers, but that's about it. I'll read articles from IGN or Game Informer, but I don't take it very seriously.

If I want serious reviews, I stick Bro Team Pill

The AVClub's Gameological Society is pretty good, mainly because the AVClub, in general, is commentary,critique and review of pop culture. With GS, you get a reviewer who does more than talk about the graphics and the controls, you get someone who is going to critique a game because of the story its telling (or trying to tell), the way its trying to tell that story, and basically a more in-depth critique of the game than you will find anywhere else.

*Plus* the AVClub commentariat is about the best you will find on any pop-culture related site anywhere. Especially if Cookie Monster (the real one, not the knock-offs or the various pretenders) posts. If Cookie Monster posts on an article, you will be doing yourself a favor by sitting down and spending some time reading it because, although Cookie Monster does talk a bit differently, his analysis of topics is trenchant and erudite,

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If I want to find out what a game is really like, I wait 'til TB or Joe have a go at it.

Hear hear. They're very open about their biases and give solid coverage allowing you to come to your own opinion about whether you think you'll like the game or not. There's a very good reason the steam curator follower list looks like this:

Steam curators:
1. Totalbiscuit: 130K
2. PC Gamer: 42K
3. Jim Stirling: 29K
4. RPS: 18K
5. Just Good PC Games: 17K
6. Nerd Boxset: 17K
7. Kotaku: 15K

 Yonan wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If I want to find out what a game is really like, I wait 'til TB or Joe have a go at it.

Hear hear. They're very open about their biases and give solid coverage allowing you to come to your own opinion about whether you think you'll like the game or not. There's a very good reason the steam curator follower list looks like this:

Steam curators:
1. Totalbiscuit: 130K
2. PC Gamer: 42K
3. Jim Stirling: 29K
4. RPS: 18K
5. Just Good PC Games: 17K
6. Nerd Boxset: 17K
7. Kotaku: 15K

any one else suspicious how high pc gamer is ?

No. PC Gamer has been around for a long time, and being a magazine focused on PC, that an internet venue like YouTube would find them with a lot of subscribers doesn't surprise me.

I used to buy the odd PC Gamer mag so if I didn't have some trusted reviewers already I probably would have defaulted to them - I wouldn't put it past a lot of more casual gamers to follow that trend. I have nfi how good their content is in the last 10 years or so though.

 Yonan wrote:
Steam curators:
1. Totalbiscuit: 130K
...
7. Kotaku: 15K

Ain't that a shame...