Following on from Simon Parkin’s mostly positive, well written review of Uncharted 3 which was mildly critical and awarded the game an 8 out of 10, the internet exploded. Clearly as a platform exclusive it was always going to be messy, but its shocking to see just how partisan and tribal the commenters get when you offend “their” console or game. It’s especially shocking as almost none of the commenters have played the game.
I myself commented as follows:
I find it amazing that in the comments people say that they only come to Eurogamer for the community and they now hate the journalism of the writers. Comments threads like this don’t represent the kind of community anyone should be proud of. Simon’s review was fair, well argued and above all else, an honest opinion. That’s the kind of thing that would make me want to come to a review site, even if I disagreed with the reviewers opinion.
This comment thread meanwhile is an embarrassment. Obviously it’s not all bad and many good points are made, but at the same time there are so many thoroughly ignorant comments made that show a complete lack of understanding of how the games industry, journalism and the world works.
Next time you are about to write something about a game score, just stop yourself. Chances are you are about to say something profoundly stupid.
Is that fair? Harsh? Well to give you an idea of how bad the thread is, here’s the 5 stupidest comments posted after the review:
5. Third year journalism student fails to understand that advertising exists, calls in to question the quality of his own education:
So EG, are you seriously telling me you haven’t sold out and BF3 gaining at least a 9/10 or higher from you has absolutely nothing to do with the absolute eye raping advertising EA paid you to do? Your site has lost all credibility in my eyes and the only reason I’m still reading it is the witty banter from the forum members. You’re a shadow of the site I used to frequent over 6 years ago.
I’m a third year journalism student and I’ve read a lot on how companies pay off certain publications for favourable coverage. So you’re not kidding me with your crap anymore. Anybody else that still expects EG to deliver news completely unbiassed should think again. They’re just another sell out.
4. Commentor contributes nothing to the discussion with irrelevant point on another (much worse) publications opinion:
IGN gave it 10. Quite a difference in scores. I personally can’t wait for it.
3. Apparently this gamer has already handed out game of the year awards for 2011, including those he hasn’t yet played
First they go and redesign the site to make it look like a big cluster**** of garbage, then they go and give Uncharted 3, the best game of 2011, 8/10
Keep digging that grave Eurogamer, you have officially lost the plot
2. Man claims game “isn’t an 8”, despite the fact that an 8 is an arbitrary measure of appreciation based on opinion and not an actual entity.
There goes all the respect I had for this site. I’ve seen 22 scores and this is the only one lower than 9. I’m going to trust all the other reviews when they say it’s better than UC2, that being the case how you can you possibly justify this score? This site gave brink an 8 for fuck’s sake!
I’m actually sad because this used to be my favorite mainstream site but there is no excuse for this, this game isn’t an 8, it just isn’t.
1. Demands are made that reviewer stops reviewing games, instead reviews self
Simon Parkin you are an idiot, you have no idea what uncharted is about or what the game is trying to bring to gamers, instead you made up your own personal concept of what unchareted should be and brought them to the table and mark down the game because of this. Please stop reviewing games and go review yourself.
As well as the above moments of supreme stupidity there are a great many puzzling aspects of gamers opinions in evidence throughout the thread. There is a lot of concern over the score of Uncharted 3 being brought down on metacritic. Many of the commentors say this is unfair on the developer. Again, this is almost all gamers who have not yet played the game. Its amazing though how the relatively small and independent game review site is being recast as the bully while the massive marketing budget and push by the platform holder doesn’t seem to stop the gamers viewing their massive cross media franchise as being the little guy who needs defending. That’s some effective brain-washing/marketing magic right there!
Eurogamer is a good site, and the quality of writing is generally high. Its telling though that over at GiantBomb there is a whole article on the reaction to the Eurogamer review, and in the comments there you can tell that there’s barely contained mirth. Meanwhile, even David Jaffe has come out in support of the review. The truth is that comments threads like this on games review are embarrassing for the Eurogamer community and embarrassing for gamers as a whole. Instead of pouring bile on the reviewers for writing well structured but critical reviews, perhaps the community should look at itself. Perhaps, as one commentor said, they should “review” themselves. At this moment, I think they would be lucky to get a 2 out of 10.