INCENTIVES FOR REVIEWING COMMERCIAL GAMES.

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Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
For the sake of doing the commercial market a favor and to encourage others to take these kinds of things seriously, should we implement a makerscore boost for reviewing commercial games? Like 100 or something instead of the usual 50? People need to know what they're getting into before they buy as opposed to freely download for obvious reasons and we should be encouraging others to give an honest take on some of the better or worse products out there.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
I think, before coming up with any kind of special reward system for these games, we should address why there is a lack of incentive to begin with.

Most reviewers of commercial games, at least from general observation, come from those who aren't familiar faces in the community. I'm not even sure who seeks to play commercial games that much here, considering that free-to-play/amateur-level games are the focus.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I would say the opposite. Commercial games have a much higher chance of forging, paying for, or getting their friends to write reviews of their games, and it's a much bigger problem if they do. If anything, we should be making it extremely hard for people to write reviews of commercial games, even as far as requiring background checks.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
It should be pretty obvious who's doing it as a favor or who's showing up just to write a review for their friend's game, and those should be denied immediately (remember we have a queue for these things). This really shouldn't prove to be a problem.

My concern is for the expansion of the community we already have. We all know makerscore is practically currency around here so let's give people more of a reason to engage with these commercial games than they would otherwise. And seeing as the legitimacy of these reviews should be prioritized over others given the circumstances, I think a higher payout for higher scrutiny is an even trade. We should tackle a longstanding issue and demand more of our reviewers than the base 300 words for 50 makerscore.

If not for the sheer benefit of the commercial gaming community, having a spotlight shone on those taking advantage of the system should inspire more diligence.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
My personal opinion is we shouldn't be offering any additional incentive for reviewing commercial games over other games. I'm open to people's opinions on this if everyone disagrees but this doesn't sound like something anyone is clamoring for.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
But makerscore isn't money. We don't need people reviewing commercial games just to get more makerscore. It's a delicate situation. I know I wouldn't want something reviewing a game I'm selling more harshly or more in depth for more makerscore.

I agree with LockeZ and Soli. I think commercial games actually need less attention in that department. I see it hurting more than helping.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=InfectionFiles
We don't need people reviewing commercial games just to get more makerscore. It's a delicate situation. I know I wouldn't want something reviewing a game I'm selling more harshly or more in depth for more makerscore.

I think this can be boiled down to:

author=InfectionFiles
I wouldn't want something reviewing a game I'm selling

The question is: why? Do you have something to hide? For the sake of actual ethics in gaming journalism *instantly ducks out of view of shoes and/or bullets*, shouldn't this sort of thing take priority over all else?

People have a right to an informed purchase*. The only way they'll know is if someone steps in and tells them and the last person they can trust is the person trying to sell them something, namely the game dev. We've got the benefit of having the voice of actual people who aren't getting paid off for high scoring, ass-kissing reviews.

author=Solitayre
My personal opinion is we shouldn't be offering any additional incentive for reviewing commercial games over other games.

I'd like to hear your in-depth reasons why.

*Also valid, a wikipedia article on the concept of the "informed consumer".
Hmm. I think the lack of MS incentive is unlikely to help them get reviews, even if they could greatly benefit from reviews imho.
People are unlikely to invest money if they have no idea what they are really getting into. And for a commercial release, they are still as much trying to improve as anyone else here. Even if other sites have more traffic, I think they very much deserve to have their game examined and reviewed. I agree with Corfaisus here.
This is a hobbyist community. There are plenty of hobbyists trying to advance from that, however, and giving them a fair starting help would be lovely. (not to mention guidance for potential interested people as well).

What makes it so rare is for one that most games here are free and most people here aren't searching for games to buy around here. It's just not as readily available. Furthermore, many commercial games do not have demos available and the download elsewhere, so it is impossible to add reviews for many of them.

I was actually given a review copy for "Ominous!" since I reviewed the team's other available game here (it was neat!). And I could sadly not write/add an actual review for it because of this download issue. So I sent detailed feedback instead (and asked if they wanted me to put it up elsewhere).
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Kylaila
Furthermore, many commercial games do not have demos available and the download elsewhere, so it is impossible to add reviews for many of them.

This can be solved by requiring all completed commercial projects to have a link to their store page uploaded to their download section, bypassing the need for an on-site game download. This would also give them an idea of how many people are taking a genuine interest in their game via this site alone as opposed to other sites where the number of times a link has been clicked is hidden information.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
I'd have nothing to hide. I'm working on a commercial game right now and I'm doing the best of my ability to make it enjoyable and universal for everyone.
It's more the quality of reviews around here and the vindictive spite that would wbecause I wouldn't mind a "professional" reviewer reviewing my game but not just someone off the street that didn't like it but played and reviewed it anyways.
Especially if more of X is involved.

Sure, obviously I think it's a good idea to weed out trash or being open window policy/transparent on what your game has to offer but I'd hate to see people's effort that goes beyond a free to play indie game be trashed and never touched because someone doesn't like the thing.
Aye, that's a good point and I think very fair. They can be all over the board.
Being the way it is, the download requirement is not there, so this gives the dev the choice (if they know about it), to not have any reviews added. I am fine with that and think it's alright that way.
So while I think Corfaisus' idea would be really neat (I stumbled across so many "completed" pages without any downloads, ugh), I also know there are cases where it may be better as it is.

Either way, I am not sure if MS incentive would help it, but it could be a little bit iffy to implement it properly if rmn chose to change that. A number of games here are falsely tagged commercial, or were done for the indie game maker contest or similar with the actual games being readily available and never made into any sold project.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=InfectionFiles
It's more the quality of reviews around here and the vindictive spite that would wbecause I wouldn't mind a "professional" reviewer reviewing my game but not just someone off the street that didn't like it but played and reviewed it anyways.
Especially if more of X is involved.

Sure, obviously I think it's a good idea to weed out trash or being open window policy/transparent on what your game has to offer but I'd hate to see people's effort that goes beyond a free to play indie game be trashed and never touched because someone doesn't like the thing.

That's why I tackled this on my followup post:

author=Corfaisus
We should tackle a longstanding issue and demand more of our reviewers than the base 300 words for 50 makerscore.

What I mean by this is actually writing proper reviews on all that the game has to offer as though they were writing an actual paper to be graded. "I think the graphics are custom, but they're used really well." doesn't say enough about the game. "I found the platforming kind of sluggish." doesn't do the trick, either. Tell us exactly why these things are good/bad.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
If we want to talk about review standards, that's a conversation I'm willing to have, but I don't think holding reviewers to professional standards helps anyone.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
I think reviews should all be treated the same, having commercial reviews be worth more MS is like saying commercial games are above other games in the website, which will cause issues.

Having an incentive to review a commercial game IS a form of bribe in itself, since you're getting more out of it than you usually do.

Also, whatever does "professional game review" stands for?

I've seen in-depth, detailed, great reviews on this site written by ""amateurs"" and awful, rushed reviews written by ""professionals"" on other sites.

Reviews are reviews, they change according to who writes them.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Sated can't go a week without berating me for how awful the review standards are here but I'd be hesitant to make the barrier any higher than it is. Reviews are a form of feedback for games and I'm loathe to take tools away from people.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
There are also reviews on this site which I don't agree with or that I believe to be badly written.
The same can be said for reviews all over the internet, "professional" or "amateur" (my point being it's the same everywhere).

I would like to only see better reviews, obviously.
However, how to go about that is tricky business.
The idea doesn't sound too bad to me. In principle I'm all for anything improving the quality of reviews. But we've seen this countless times. No matter how much people insist the system is working as intended. When some rando can be given a pass hating on your game and giving it a low score, to give them even more MS after that would seem like rewarding bad behavior.

I don't think the solution has anything to do with "profesional standards" whatever that means. (Usually, these sort of discussion seem to hang in the balance between perceived hobbyism vs elitism. Let's not do that here for the umpteenth time). I think it suffices with making sure reviews actually have content, instead on settling on some arbitrary word count, or some vague mantra...

The "reviews are just opinion anyway" or the "these are my experiences playing the game" approaches are not fit for this goal. I don't care about your feelings and/or your political/ideological leanings. Not that you can't make room for those things in a review, but I care more about information. This is specially true when talking about commercial games. I want to know if a game is worth my hard-earned, almost non-existant money. And in order to make an important decision like that, I need to be informed broadly.

There are many reviews on the site that fit this criteria, so it's not like we amateurs can't do it. I understand that this is a place for learning, and everyone needs to start somewhere, and all that jazz. But we really need to get our act together.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
author=alterego
(...) No matter how much people insist the system is working as intended. When some rando can be given a pass hating on your game and giving it a low score, to give them more even more MS after that would seem like rewarding bad behavior. (...)

^This also rings true to me.

EDIT: typo.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
I'm definitely not in favor of policing what opinions people are allowed to have.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
There's just a lot more riding on a commercial game, that's all. They need to be held in a higher standard because that's someone's possible livelihood rather than just a hobby. If a game is good it will be played because of word of mouth over a few negative nancys. But there's also no downside to downloading a free game. When money gets involved things have to change a little bit I would imagine.

And I'm not saying bad reviews of commercial games shouldn't be accepted but I agree with Corf by saying that they have to be in-depth and break the minimal border set on reviews. If someone is giving a few paragraphs then it probably isn't up to par and is either overly glowing or possibly negative without anything to back up further claims.
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