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Do you people regularly change ratings for past reviews you've done because your opinion has changed about them? Sometimes I do, because some games are slow burners, whereas some lose their charm fast. What about you?
CashmereCat- 03/10/2015 01:22 AM
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author=SaileriusProbably!
What, can you really write multiple reviews of the same game?
It seems like it is possible
You can submit more that one review for a game, not sure if Soli would accept it though.
I've amended reviews when the game had a fault or problem that was then fixed, in fact I'm currently waiting on confirmation of a bug fix for one before I'll go in and change the review to reflect that.
I've amended reviews when the game had a fault or problem that was then fixed, in fact I'm currently waiting on confirmation of a bug fix for one before I'll go in and change the review to reflect that.
author=kentona
That kind of seems dumb. Your review and score were your opinion at that moment of time.
So you have to write a whole new review every time your opinion about a game minorly changes? What if your points still stand, but your overall impression of the game has changed. I know for one that people are usually a lot more excited about how good a game is just after they've played it, but if they wait a while, then they might change their mind. I'm saying this because I have a couple of 4.5* games in my review pack that I consider to be worse than 4* games, so I feel to change them retroactively to reflect how I feel about them now. Or is it better to write an entirely new review for all the games affected?
You can edit your review, adding part about why your opinion changed.
I wouldn't change anything, tho. I would rather write a back-looking comment or an article on games which changed over the period of time.
I wouldn't change anything, tho. I would rather write a back-looking comment or an article on games which changed over the period of time.
There's been a few reviews where part of the thought-process was to come back to the game. Mostly in regards to uncompleted games after they become complete. Of course, I've never gotten around to replaying any of those games for various reasons.
author=CashmereCatauthor=kentonaSo you have to write a whole new review every time your opinion about a game minorly changes? What if your points still stand, but your overall impression of the game has changed. I know for one that people are usually a lot more excited about how good a game is just after they've played it, but if they wait a while, then they might change their mind. I'm saying this because I have a couple of 4.5* games in my review pack that I consider to be worse than 4* games, so I feel to change them retroactively to reflect how I feel about them now. Or is it better to write an entirely new review for all the games affected?
That kind of seems dumb. Your review and score were your opinion at that moment of time.
Yeah, that sounds dumb. At the time of the review, you put down in words and in scores how you felt. Second-guessing yourself well after the fact and retroactively changing the content or score seems fickle. What's done is done and you have to own it, and endeavour to do differently next time.
If your opinion changed so much then, yeah, I would think it would be better to write an entirely new review for all of the games affected.
author=slash
I've gone back and nudged reviews after the fact, usually a half-star up.
I didn't realize our memberbase was so fickle. I might have to restrict the ability to edit accepted reviews.
author=CashmereCatauthor=kentonaSo you have to write a whole new review every time your opinion about a game minorly changes? What if your points still stand, but your overall impression of the game has changed. I know for one that people are usually a lot more excited about how good a game is just after they've played it, but if they wait a while, then they might change their mind. I'm saying this because I have a couple of 4.5* games in my review pack that I consider to be worse than 4* games, so I feel to change them retroactively to reflect how I feel about them now. Or is it better to write an entirely new review for all the games affected?
That kind of seems dumb. Your review and score were your opinion at that moment of time.
I'd write a new review if, say, I did one on a demo in it's early release and after the completed game enough has changed to warrant it. I'd also go back and change my demo review to N/A so that the full game review would be the one that counts.
SO hold off on that edit ability plox kentona. It's useful to be able to look back on a review, edit it to fit a new demo and recalculate the score to fit the new release instead of having the same thing. Also, it's not fair to have more than one review that scores multiple times - allowing people to change the old review to N/A and the new one to a proper score should be allowed.
And yeah, people could use it badly but then people could easily post more than one 4 star review per game if someone else makes the score for the game drop or something too. Best to just keep an eye out and trust that people won't. (And make examples of anyone who tries.)
author=kentona
I didn't realize our memberbase was so fickle. I might have to restrict the ability to edit accepted reviews.
Please don't. I've used it in the past to make small emends and to add information relevant to the review. One that springs to mind for me is Soul Sunder, the mapping in the first village needed some work, I mentioned it in my review and it was fixed on the next release so I added a coda to the review stating that the developer had done so, if you remove that ability to change then the review would lose its relevance.
In relation to the demo/completed issue I normally indicate at the top of the review, though sometimes at the conclusion, that the review is dealing with a demo, or a contest build or some form of restricted game experience. So the potential player knows what version I am opining about. In the case of a demo if I replayed the completed game at some later point and found that my opinion differed markedly, I would delete my original review and submit a new one, anything else would be sidestepping the approval process. As yet that hasn't happened.
I do however have a game in my list that had a crash bug which meant I couldn't continue and the review reflects that, the dev has since fixed it, I'm told, and has asked me continue with the new build and look at my review. When I do, I'll need to weigh how much additional information is contained in the remaining portion of the game and if it changes my basic opinion in any way other than giving me a conclusion to the game. If it does not I will probably simply return to the original review, add a paragraph about the ending, remove the 'this has a game breaking bug' warning and tweak my score if necessary to reflect the changes in the game. All of which I believe serves the interest of not only the dev but potential players, which is the point of a review.
The thing I would never do is tweak a score to reflect a change in my MOOD, as that is never relevant in my scoring anyway.
OK yeah the last thing I would want to do is have a status about changing the SCORE of a review make someone remove the ability to edit the CONTENT of a review. That would be bad.
But I would still like to argue that changing a score for a game based on improvements/changing the game is not a bad thing either. For example, if a demo was crap, but then they improved it vastly in the next release, is it OK to edit your review to reflect the changes, and edit the score at the same time?
I know that it may be viewed as "fickle" to change the score of a game. But honestly, humans are pretty fickle in general, and I think that's a good thing. Opinions change, and I think you should be able to change reviews and ratings to reflect that. A whole new review would be confusing. Imagine having two reviews by the same person for a game. That'd be confusing to someone reading. "Which one is the relevant one?" Well, of course, they'd look at the review with the most recent date, but even so, both reviews would count for the final score of the game, which is totally erroneous.
Another example, what if a developer changes the game, uploads a new demo, and asks you to update your review? But you don't feel like playing their game, so I think that the right thing to do would be to make your starred review (if it was in fact starred) a non-starred review, because keeping it at 2 stars, or whatever, when they've changed the game to possibly be a 4.5 star game is unfair.
Would we have to write a new review for every single demo that's released? That sounds ridiculous to me. So no, I don't think it's "dumb" or even necessarily "fickle" to reserve the right to be able to edit reviews, and even change the ratings of such reviews. I would say it is perhaps fickle to edit the ratings at will without changing the reviews themselves to reflect those changes. But other than that, the ability to edit reviews and ratings is needed I think, and is by no means fickle.
But I would still like to argue that changing a score for a game based on improvements/changing the game is not a bad thing either. For example, if a demo was crap, but then they improved it vastly in the next release, is it OK to edit your review to reflect the changes, and edit the score at the same time?
I know that it may be viewed as "fickle" to change the score of a game. But honestly, humans are pretty fickle in general, and I think that's a good thing. Opinions change, and I think you should be able to change reviews and ratings to reflect that. A whole new review would be confusing. Imagine having two reviews by the same person for a game. That'd be confusing to someone reading. "Which one is the relevant one?" Well, of course, they'd look at the review with the most recent date, but even so, both reviews would count for the final score of the game, which is totally erroneous.
Another example, what if a developer changes the game, uploads a new demo, and asks you to update your review? But you don't feel like playing their game, so I think that the right thing to do would be to make your starred review (if it was in fact starred) a non-starred review, because keeping it at 2 stars, or whatever, when they've changed the game to possibly be a 4.5 star game is unfair.
Would we have to write a new review for every single demo that's released? That sounds ridiculous to me. So no, I don't think it's "dumb" or even necessarily "fickle" to reserve the right to be able to edit reviews, and even change the ratings of such reviews. I would say it is perhaps fickle to edit the ratings at will without changing the reviews themselves to reflect those changes. But other than that, the ability to edit reviews and ratings is needed I think, and is by no means fickle.
Yes, changing a score because of changes to a game is completely justified and indeed I believe advantageous to all concerned, but the intention of the original post was to champion the changing of score due to later comparison and that I believe you should not do. Whilst I may not agree with the terminology of 'fickle' I do agree with the sentiment. And I believe the comment was made in relation to the original idea.
Every game is a microcosm unto itself, a separate entity that has no relation to anything else and should be judged as such. You should try to divorce yourself from previous experience as much as possible when reviewing a game to ensure you are as fair as you can be to the product in front of you. It's not easy by any means, we are a comparative species, but to make a judgement call on a game because it either compares better or worse to another game to which is had no connection does both games a disservice. The only change to that guideline is games that are made as sequels to each other, as they are by their very nature meant to be compared.
I don't always manage to do this, and at times I find it a true struggle, but I try as best as I am able to do so. If I go back and look at the reviews I did early on, in all likelihood I was a little generous, as I was still ironing out the kinks in my scoring system. In truth I have since played games that were better presented, but I would never go back and change the scores on those earlier reviews due to a flaw in my ability to score them dispassionately. That is hardly the game makers error it is solely mine, and I must indeed 'own it'.
Every game is a microcosm unto itself, a separate entity that has no relation to anything else and should be judged as such. You should try to divorce yourself from previous experience as much as possible when reviewing a game to ensure you are as fair as you can be to the product in front of you. It's not easy by any means, we are a comparative species, but to make a judgement call on a game because it either compares better or worse to another game to which is had no connection does both games a disservice. The only change to that guideline is games that are made as sequels to each other, as they are by their very nature meant to be compared.
I don't always manage to do this, and at times I find it a true struggle, but I try as best as I am able to do so. If I go back and look at the reviews I did early on, in all likelihood I was a little generous, as I was still ironing out the kinks in my scoring system. In truth I have since played games that were better presented, but I would never go back and change the scores on those earlier reviews due to a flaw in my ability to score them dispassionately. That is hardly the game makers error it is solely mine, and I must indeed 'own it'.
Oh yeah. Forgot about that. I've been a bit moody today which is probably why I was a bit defensive. But yeah, I'm like that, I want to adjust the ratings so that they compare well to each other. I don't like ratings if they don't reflect your true feelings towards the game. I mean yeah, sure, it could be a person's view at the time, but I'd rather people change it so it's accurate towards how they feel about the game and whether they'd recommend it right now. I mean, speaking from the point of view of a developer or a player, I'd rather that reviewers update their scores if they change their minds. But I won't from now on, just to be respectful to everyone else because they're not me and they don't have the same opinions as me.
Besides, making a new review after a while and a bunch of improvements isn't fair if you can't change the old one to N/A, because then the game is getting the detriment of the old review as well as the new one. That is, if a game has three reviews, 1/2/2 then it has a rating of about 1.5 stars. Now, say the game is just finished with a lot of improvements. The person who gave it 1 star in demo stage then writes a new review for it, giving it 4 stars.
If they can change their previous review to N/A, the game is then rated 2.5 stars, reflecting the huge change in it. But if they can't and add the new review, the star rating is then still 2 stars due to the 'weight' of the review system.
If they can change their previous review to N/A, the game is then rated 2.5 stars, reflecting the huge change in it. But if they can't and add the new review, the star rating is then still 2 stars due to the 'weight' of the review system.
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