It's no secret that there seems to be this constant "war" between Ludophiles and Reviewers/Journalist. There's probably a billion different reasons for this but one of the ones I have noticed is the sentiment that a negative review hosted by IGN or whatever the latest Youtuber is has the ability to negatively influence people's perception of a game and thus can/will lead to to people not buying the game and sales for the game being bad. This especially becomes a "problem" when the review makes incorrect judgments (maybe they didn't know a mechanic existed or missed out on something important) or when the person "played the game wrong" leading people to think that the game got an undeserved poor score and now a bunch of potential customers have been put off by misinformation. The God Hand review by IGN is probably the most infamous example. It's not just customers though, there's a bunch of horror stories over the years about developers not getting a raise unless the game meets a certain metacritic or sequels potentially being canned because of poor reception, it all comes down to this notion that Niche Ned has no real voice and that the masses and execs are using big reviews sites and channels to make important decisions. And is this even a bad thing if true?
I personally can't remember the last time I really used a review to make any judgement calls on what I do or don't play so personally I'd say they have no sway over me. But i definitely do see (especially here) a fascination with metacritic scores to the point that people will sit on the edge of their seat waiting for the embargo's to drop. I'm not sure how much of this actually translates to sales or if people just need something to bicker about though. But on the subject of developers I can understand if they did use reviews to make certain decisions simply because I can't imagine there being any reasonable way to wading through massive amounts of opinions and figuring out what is and isn't warranted.
I personally can't remember the last time I really used a review to make any judgement calls on what I do or don't play so personally I'd say they have no sway over me. But i definitely do see (especially here) a fascination with metacritic scores to the point that people will sit on the edge of their seat waiting for the embargo's to drop. I'm not sure how much of this actually translates to sales or if people just need something to bicker about though. But on the subject of developers I can understand if they did use reviews to make certain decisions simply because I can't imagine there being any reasonable way to wading through massive amounts of opinions and figuring out what is and isn't warranted.