I’ve been hearing talks of Metacritic removing user reviews that it deems “invalid” or review bombing! Some gamers see this as manipulation in favor for games that have been attacked, while others view it as the right thing to do, to curb the negative and unhelpful reviews which could sway someone away from playing a game. In this case, we’re talking about the latest bombing, Last of Us Part 2!
Lets be real here, when you have gamers rushing in minutes after a game’s release to review bomb it, that in of itself is a problem. Yet, measuring who has or hasn’t played the game is something that is difficult to measure. Unlike Steam where you can see how many hours someone has put into a game, Metacritic relies on good faith alone when users choose to review, which has led to what we see today. In the Last of Us 2 case, Metacritic basically had no choice but to take some form of action as it was getting borderline ridiculous. It’s a move that will be perceived to be a power move to take away the voices of the gamer but it’s necessary move to clear the flutter of fake reviews from the authenticate ones.
I feel like one way to solves this mess to offer a link up with PlayStation/Xbox/Nintendo API so that players who decide to drop a review will need to verify their ownership! Otherwise, Metacritic will have to push back access to its site by a week, to ensure that the reviews that will come in are by those that have played the games. It’s an extreme but would help solve this petty, childish mess! I think they had to do it! They can’t leave those metacritics user reviews up as they don’t paint an honest view of the game. And it would discredit their website as a consequence.
