Bioware employees creating fake DA2 reviews on metacritic

[Red Hawk]

Or maybe the gamers are letting their pre-conceived notions of what the game should be, or how the RPG elements should be implemented, cloud their judgment and make them overreact while professional game critics don't let such petty nitpicking cloud their reviews.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Or maybe the gamers are letting their pre-conceived notions of what the game should be, or how the RPG elements should be implemented, cloud their judgment and make them overreact while professional game critics don't let such petty nitpicking cloud their reviews.

You mean professional game advertisers.

 

[Red Hawk]

Oh, very clever. Make a smart remark and the points I bring up suddenly mean nothing!:thumbsup:

 

[coldmeat]

Anyone who played the demo for 15-20mins should have known the game was crap.

took me 5

 

[Dumac]

Oh, very clever. Make a smart remark and the points I bring up suddenly mean nothing!:thumbsup:

There were no points. You just spouted ill-conceived insults and try to pass them off as an argument. Equivalent:

Or maybe the critics are letting money cloud their judgment while users don't let such petty motives cloud their reviews.

 

[NYHoustonman]

There were no points. You just spouted ill-conceived insults and try to pass them off as an argument. Equivalent:

Or maybe the critics are letting money cloud their judgment while users don't let such petty motives cloud their reviews.

No, he was pretty much right. User scores for many games these days are laughable, and to suggest they're worth anything in a case like this is ridiculous - if anything, user reviews are *more* petty. If a game has invasive DRM, you damn well can't go off of user reviews; in this case we have people giving the game a '1' because they don't like certain aspects compared to Origins. Nobody's being honest.

I'm personally enjoying the game right now, although it's not worth $60 and doesn't live up to the original (thus the critic average of ~80%, which seems fair).

 

[Dumac]

No, he was pretty much right. User scores for many games these days are laughable, and to suggest they're worth anything in a case like this is ridiculous - if anything, user reviews are *more* petty. If a game has invasive DRM, you damn well can't go off of user reviews; in this case we have people giving the game a '1' because they don't like certain aspects compared to Origins. Nobody's being honest.

I'm personally enjoying the game right now, although it's not worth $60 and doesn't live up to the original (thus the critic average of ~80%, which seems fair).

No more ridiculous than critic reviews, which average a 9 for a mediocre game.

 

[Carcass]

Do the user reviews on Metacritic use a 'weighted average' system like IMDB? Surely this would diminish the effect of stat padding of these sorts?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I can imagine working as a programmer at Bioware and half-joking coming up with a plan with other staff members to write glowing reviews on Metacritic, the fact they didn't use anonymous handles suggests even further that it was harmless and in good fun. Get a grip.

To me it suggests that they are Internet amateurs. All of the studios probably do this. If I owned a business or had a financial interest in a product I would do it, but you'd never be able to tell that I had such a bias.

Bioware reminds me a little bit of Epic Games. They made some great products until the lure of console dollars pulled them away from a focus on PC gaming.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Just because a game you didn't like, or several games you didn't like, got good reviews doesn't mean the critics were bought off.

Thinking video game critics aren't bought off and regularly so is about as naive as you can get, and EA is the company famous for doing so (See the whole deal with Kane and Lynch)(not that they're the only ones).

 

[CottonRabbit]

To me it suggests that they are Internet amateurs. All of the studios probably do this. If I owned a business or had a financial interest in a product I would do it, but you'd never be able to tell that I had such a bias.

Bioware reminds me a little bit of Epic Games. They made some great products until the lure of console dollars pulled them away from a focus on PC gaming.

And you think Bioware/EA are Internet amateurs? I'm siding with the skeptics on this one.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

And you think Bioware/EA are Internet amateurs? I'm siding with the skeptics on this one.

Atleast one of them was some manager... so yea I wouldn't be surprised at this, but really reviewing your own game isn't as bad as the blantant reviewer payoffs.

 

[wanderer27]

As the saying goes . . . .

It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but only five minutes to destroy it.


.

 

[skace]

As the saying goes . . . .
It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but only five minutes for EA to destroy it.

I know, right?

 

[nageov3t]

While it's dishonest for them to do that, it's not like the Metacritic user rating was anywhere near accurate. I'm sure Metacritic was just bombed by a bunch of angry hardcore RPG fans who give 0s when a fair critic would give a 7.

agreed.

I think a lot of people were expecting basically a 40-hour long expansion back to Dragon Age Origins.

on its own, DA2 is fine. it definitely has its flaws, but it's playable.

I'd reserve a score of 0 for a game that's so fucked you can't even get the DVD out of the package.

 

[Red Storm]

Do you guys really think it's Bioware employees who did it? If they were to stoop to something that low, they would have at least used random names that don't point right at them. This is just troll work, looking for a story.

 

[exar333]

agreed.

I think a lot of people were expecting basically a 40-hour long expansion back to Dragon Age Origins.

on its own, DA2 is fine. it definitely has its flaws, but it's playable.

I'd reserve a score of 0 for a game that's so fucked you can't even get the DVD out of the package.

Imagine if the DA2 game came out first, and the DA:O engine was the sequel. The first game would have done well, and the second would have done even better with awesome reviews. That is what happens when a sequel is far superior to the original.

 

[exar333]

I hope this wasn't actually Bioware who posted the reviews...Unless it can be confirmed, I will have to be skeptical on this one to keep myself sane.

 

[nageov3t]

Imagine if the DA2 game came out first, and the DA:O engine was the sequel. The first game would have done well, and the second would have done even better with awesome reviews. That is what happens when a sequel is far superior to the original.

or websites would have been flooded with "omg, what did they do to my action game? why is this so tactical and slow? 000000000000000"

 

[Kabob]

That's just sad.

 

[paperfist]

Bioware reminds me a little bit of Epic Games. They made some great products until the lure of console dollars pulled them away from a focus on PC gaming.

Just curious, but do the console gamers feel the same way about DA2 as the PC gamers?

It's interesting that Firaxis/2K took the same approach with Civ 5 or at least their stories parallel a lot.

Storied dev follows up with sequel to a famed game. They gin the game up in the media, media sings high praises. Game launched on PC and fans hate it (mostly), feel like they've been sold out to consoles. Company does PR maneuvers to save face while more bad tidbits emerge.

How does the story end?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

game ratings are nonsense. so many "great" games that are not. we need badly system where gamers rate games not-for-profit.

yeah, IMBD's rating system for movies is generally pretty solid IMO.

Average movies are pretty much always around the 50% mark while only the creme of the crop will be rated higher than 80%.

Metacritic and RottenTomatos really are only good for judging whether or not a movie (or video game) is worth a shot before the public has had a chance to make a collective opinion on it. And in this case it also shows how flawed they can be.

 

[thujone]

I hope this wasn't actually Bioware who posted the reviews...Unless it can be confirmed, I will have to be skeptical on this one to keep myself sane.

EA essentially confirmed that they did this.

http://kotaku.com/#!5782097/dragon-...etacritic-ea-bets-obama-voted-for-himself-too

To that point, Kotaku turned to EA, whose senior public relations manager offered us the following statement:

"Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

i'd half way expect someone to find confirmation of them paying for glowing reviews on this one ala kane and lynch after an admission like this.

 

[exar333]

EA essentially confirmed that they did this.

http://kotaku.com/#!5782097/dragon-...etacritic-ea-bets-obama-voted-for-himself-too






i'd half way expect someone to find confirmation of them paying for glowing reviews on this one ala kane and lynch after an admission like this.

Sad Panda.

 

[nageov3t]

Just curious, but do the console gamers feel the same way about DA2 as the PC gamers?

I played Dragon Age: Origins on the PC. I enjoyed it enough to play through the entire game + expansion and bought some of the DLC packages, but not so much that I played through it multiple times; it was probably an 8/10 for me.

after hearing about "omg consolization" for DA2, I figured if the same was designed for consoles, I may as well just buy it for my xbox. I don't know if it's me or the fact that I'm playing it on a console, but I seem to be enjoying it a lot more than people who are playing it on the PC. I'd probably rate it a 7/10 -- above average -- taking away points for the reused dungeons (though even with varied dungeons, DA:O felt a lot more like a dungeon crawler slog to me sometimes) and the lack of an awesome overarching story.