On MOP, we don’t do formal reviews; we’ve spent the last 10 years arguing that MMORPGs change so dramatically from year to year that the standard launch review is kinda pointless, and no MMO should really be stuck with its launch grade years later. (Sometimes they get better; sometimes they get worse!) So we don’t sweat the numbers and grades.
But mainstream games take reviews so seriously that Metacritic, which aggregates reviewer and player scores, has become a marker for staff bonuses at some companies. So this past week, when Metacritic confirmed it will be adding a new 36-hour waiting period for user reviews, it summoned age-old arguments about these types of reviews: How long should you wait before issuing an opinion, how much of a game do you need to play to know a game is good or bad, and do you actually base your purchases on reviews?
I want to home in on that last one for today’s Daily Grind because it’s a topic that recently came up in our own work chats, as one writer said bad reviews on a certain game had made it hard for him to convince his gaming crew to try it out. Do you rely on reviews for your MMO purchases? Do you use them in conjunction with other things, like Reddit chatter or hands-on streams? Or do you ignore all that and just buy games to give them a clean and fair look?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
