reviewers shitting on games because of micro transactions ruins their integrity

[Erebus]

I disagree. Shitting on a game for microtransactions is not being done because it's "trendy" as in it's the cool thing to do. It's trending because it's being implemented in more games and people do not like it. Not one bit. It's justified in F2P games but not in full priced games.

Prey on the normies in mobile to your heart's content but keep that shit out of actual gaming. .

[PriestTroit]

Except BO4's doesn't have a pay-to-win monetization model, as admitted by the creator of the video when he says the gameplay hasn't been altered. The reasoning for the deletion was, I think, specifically because newly added reticles were introduced as micro transactions. It's hyper reactions like deleting a positive review or unfairly shitting on a game that leads to the deterioration of a reviewer's integrity. Sure, you could make the argument that it would be a sign of integrity by doing so if you have a policy of never reviewing any game with micro transactions, but that severely limits the scope of games you can review and you'll miss out on some very good ones.

To me it's akin to giving an unfair rating to a game because it has a political slant in it, even if it was a very good game. It's the start of the path to becoming like certain online game news websites that'll give reviews which are totally opposite from what the actual players think. Kinda like how Rotten Tomatos is these days.

[isturbo1984]

A lot to unpack here. Without getting too much into the topic of publishers adding in MTXs after release to escape criticism, it is an unlofty practice. And I do think that modern reviews should retroactively counter it. If game makers are going to add it in their games a month later, I see no reason to update a review and a score later too, dropping a game's meta-critic by 10 points or so. The problem is, they don't. Reason because, is that a lot of reviewers are pulling their reviews.--Which is not the same thing as giving a game a 0.

That said, I would say I see no reason why any reviewer would pull their review when they can easily update their original review with an excerpt and a modified score. But after thinking about it for a second, I think the reason they choose to do this is because of what I just touched up on.--Pulling a review does not make the score go down, while at the same time, a reviewer can keep his or her "integrity." Meaning the alternative is they give Black Ops 4 a bad review and poof--no more free review copies from Activision. Which is a BIG reason why the game got a goddamn 85 to begin with. Publishers bribe websites with access and they bribe small-time youtubers and bloggers with review copies.

Btw, good thread. We need more topics with actual meat in them, not just shitposts comprised of lazy links.

[SnarkyJay]

I'm not an active participant when it comes to microtransactions. I have never purchased one, even in free to play games. There is just something about them that turns me off. With this being said, I don't have a problem with them, unless the game is broken if you don't spend money. An example of this is Battlefront 2. It had definite pay to win mechanics, and was so predatory that the IP holder, Disney, had to step in. In cases like that, I am against microtransactions. I don't know enough about CoD multiplayer to comment on whether a $1 red dot sight is game breaking or not. I would think not, but as someone who has only played CoD multiplayer for a total of about an hour, I can't really say. As to the guy deleting his review, that's his right as a content creator. I don't necessarily agree with his decision though. I would probably add an addendum to the original video, or post a short follow up with an annotation in the original video linking to the new content. This way, I could get my opinion out without having to nuke the original review. I understand why some people are completely against microtransactions, because when you pay $60 for a game, you expect to get the full experience, and when a publisher starts asking for more money on top of your original purchase, it can be aggravating.

[Damian Cunliffe]

Nah deleting a review isn't the same as giving the game a 0/10. It's saying "This game might be good but I'm withdrawing my review in protest at the cancerous microtransactions."

[monnef]

Outright deleting the review, which in my opinion is basically reverting your review score to a 0/10

I don't know, I don't perceive a deletion of a review (generally) same as giving it 0/10, more like "I am not rating it". Also since rating is highly subjective, there might be cases when reducing rating so drastically doesn't equal to not having integrity, not being consistent. Actually deleting the review might be considered as having integrity - you don't want to mislead anybody by outdated invalid review. Different people value different aspects of games differently, so it might be alright. Of course only if you communicate what values are important for you and you are scoring games fairly in this sense (so if one game which has bad monetization and other game is bad in a similar way, you should subtract same amount of points from score).

I totally can see how ratings could drastically change for example if game didn't have monetization at launch and later was added pay to win monetization model.