Oh, boy.
If you follow my game reviews on Post Arcade, you might have seen the comment sections on my Super Smash Bros. U and Bayonetta 2 reviews. Whoosh! Now that’s some spicy criticism.
Anyone looking at that kind of comment section is likely to have a vein burst out of their forehead, but as a journalist you learn how to turn down your anger settings pretty quickly.
Granted there are some comments that point out factual and grammatical errors in my reviews. There are also comments that criticize my arguments and I totally understand that there will always be a difference of opinions on a review.
I want to say right now, I get what you’re saying about my review. I respectfully stand behind my arguments. However, what I don’t agree with are the personal attacks.
“You shouldn’t be writing game reviews”, “What kind of website allows articles like these to go up?”, and so on are often the kinds of temperature-rising comments you’ll see if you click the links above.
However, Criticism is something you just have to learn how to deal with. You can let it destroy you and attack the commenters back, or you can choose to listen to them and digest what they’re saying like I am now. Be reflective, not reactive.
So here’s five tips on how to protect your sanity from them and yourself.
Find constructive criticism
In every comment sections, there are people who will deconstruct your work and give you feedback. While at first you might think they’re just nitpicking, these people are actually trying to help you.
Sometimes people will tell you straight up that there is something wrong with your review and they might even give you another way of looking at your arguments. These kinds of comments are great because they invite a dialogue should you choose to comment back.
Most won’t go beyond the headline, the numbered scored, and the opening paragraphs. They will write their initial gut reaction and who can blame them for doing that? The headline, lede, and opening paragraphs of any story are arguably the most important parts of any article. However, those who read beyond that point show they have a vested interest in reading your stuff, which is great.
A lot of people out there are bad at taking criticism. I’m one of them. When someone tells me what to do or tells me what to think, I shut down and keep doing what I’m doing. I’ve had to change that recently with my current job and have learned the importance of understanding constructive criticism.
Looking at a comments section for this kind of criticism is important. Give their arguments a chance and don’t lose your head thinking they’re being overly harsh on you. Listen to these people and try to take in what they’re saying.
Double check your facts
I can be a sloppy writer. Yup, I’ll admit it.
Sometimes my reviews have grammatical and factual errors. Hey, I’m only human. In my Smash Bros. review, for instance, I put in a line about playing online. I never had a chance to play online and what I was writing about was the multiplayer. A correction at the bottom shows we owned up to that mistake.
Writing and research always go hand in hand no matter what. You’ve got to know the subject matter you’re covering like the back of your own hand if you’re going to write a critical piece.
Read your work! Check your spelling! Fact check! It’ll save you a lot of headaches.
However, there’s a difference between receiving criticism over a bad opinion and over a mistake, and people find it a lot easier to go after how you misused a word rather than writing a 5-paragraph long response to your arguments.
A review is inherently an argumentative piece, so you have to be sure that your claims can be backed up with fact. I’m not saying that you need to get into ridiculous things like frame data or you need to prove you spent 100+ hours with the game, but you should be able to defend your article if someone pushed you in real life.
Turn it off
Turn it off like a light switch, just go click.
Seriously, turn it off. Don’t check comments, don’t check Twitter, and don’t check Facebook. It’s the easiest thing to do in order to avoid the aggravation of bad comments. It’s one of the reasons I deliberately do not have a dataplan. I want to switch off once in a while.
Well maybe this is the defeatist choice, but we suffer from enough negativity on a daily basis to warrant being able to write without having to worry about people insulting you.
Of course, you can’t ignore real commentary from people, friends, or your editor, but people who are trying to get your back up online through calling you names… them you can ignore. People who have valid criticism you should listen to.
Even on reviews that have the most sound arguments, where the research has bee done, and an unfeasible amount of time put into them, the comments will always, always devolve into, “You are a bad writer”. Even on this website, there are people who comment without providing you with a real reason why they think you’re an awful person.
However, turn on the positivity.
There are people who like my articles and say nice things, and I love you guys for that! I won’t turn you guys off <3, but my advice to fellow writers is to make reading comments a conscious choice. Ask yourself, with all the stress you probably experience on a daily basis, do you really need any more? I guarantee that you will not feel better having read them.
I don’t often watch PewDiePie, but it might be worth it to watch this video and this one too.
Remember, nothing is ever 100% positive
This next point goes out to both sides, the writers and the commenters. In critical writing and in responses to said writing, nothing will go 100 per cent your way. Human beings aren’t easily swayed by arguments, so the best thing to do is realize that no one wins when a flame war starts.
It’s the reason why I don’t go onto the comment section to lambaste people for their thoughts. I respect their opinions and I don’t want to make anyone feel bad by arguing back at them.
You might think of the old adage, “If you have nothing good to say, say nothing”. That doesn’t really apply here because people have things to say. People should be critical of the media they consume and both sides have the right to protect their audiences.
I’m writing the piece for a public who wants to know if it’s worth it to make the purchase. Consumers in Canada are on the fence about spending $299.99 + $64.99 on a console and a game. My score reflects that it is good, but may not be worth throwing down an entire week’s of pay for this during the Holiday season.
They have a right to know what I think. At the same time, commenters have the right to say what they want in response of that, but both sides have to realize that neither are likely to be swayed through ad hominem attacks. There’s always room for reasonable arguments.
Stay creative
From my experience writing about games, it seems people hate being told stories in reviews. They like a step-by-step look into the details rather than a first-hand account of playing the game and the emotions that are created during that experience. They like something solid, tangible, and devoid of emotion or subjective opinion.
To that I say, bah!
It’s all too often I go on a gaming sites knowing exactly what I’m about to read. The article’s measured tone won’t take any risks. It’ll go through the pros and cons. It will be so bland that you’ll end up skipping to the end just to see the score. It won’t stir any emotions, it won’t be out of the status quo, and it’ll go totally unnoticed. It does its best to appease people even if there are glaring issues in the game.
That’s what I noticed after reading and watching Kotaku, GameSpot, GameTrailers, IGN, Giant Bomb, Nintendo Power, and Destructoid reviews. Dare to be different. It takes a lot of courage, but you’ll end up writing something that will at least feel like you tried to add something of yourself into it… even if you end up getting attacked for it.
Of course, reviewers should still include the details people want to know, but there’s nothing wrong with cleverly dropping in that information within your writing.
Don’t let people get you down, either. I know not everyone will find my kind of writing their cup of tea, but once upon a time there was something called New Games Journalism. Although the movement is essentially dead, I haven’t given up on it quite yet.
***
Back in university, I had what remains the most stressful experience of my life. I can’t go into too much detail, but a writer who was working for me at the time was approached, scrutinized, and lambasted by a group of people over an article.
They wanted my writer to bow to their will and to stop trying to get published. I wanted to make sure my writer’s voice would be heard. The end result – other than a knot the size of a lemon in my stomach – was a published piece. The experience exposed the inherent racism embedded in the group.
The point being, standing your ground and defending yourself is very hard to do. It requires argumentation and reasoning; anger and will. On the Internet, it’s almost impossible to express these things without devolving into name calling.
Behind every attack on your character is another human being behind a keyboard. Whether they’re a high school student or an octogenarian, everyone has an opinion. As a journalist, you have to understand that your work is going to be in the spotlight and will scrutinized by people of all kinds. No matter how well argued a review might be, someone will take issue with you for reason they believe.
No matter how right you think you are as the writer, you have to willing to admit when you’re wrong and take criticism when you need to take it. It’s a hard pill to swallow and finding good criticism is hard. The best idea is to find critics around you. Find it in people you can talk to like writers in your life or people who play video games.
You’d be surprised how reasonable people can be when they’re away from their keyboards. Like me! *Throws keyboard out of the window*
VR Goggles 
While I agree that there is a need for constructive criticism, said constructive criticism needs to be deserved to be received. In other words, people will only take the effort to criticize in a positive and constructive way when the person spoken to can be taken seriously. In many people’s opinion, you crossed a line with your smash bros. review. It’s a fine line, the line between well written content and, as people seem to qualify it, ‘trash’. People view you as having crossed that fine line, and now actually do qualify your review as trash. You admit to being a sloppy writer. That is a bad thing to have when writing about things people care about. So let’s sum up what we have here. A sloppy writer, that writes about the online (it’s fine) but has to correct that statement and change it to ‘multiplayer’. You lost a lot of credibility here. Either you did not play the game at all, played it superficially, or lied about what you played intensively. None of these make you very qualified to write a review about an important release. Then there is the lack of language skills such as the use of the word ‘nonplussed’. Then there are the contradictions: claiming the game is not quite the same but later claiming it has nog changed. THEN there is the out of context use of a quote. I could go on. But the worst is the fact that you believe your personal background is of importance to a professional review. People might want to see less of you, and more of the game. Be humble and thorough in doing your job.
IMO: All in all, you really should not have written the reaction above. You should have reconsidered your profession. It is however not to late to do so. But think about this, your career is already stained. Where can you go from here? Write another review? It’s not going to go well with a lot of people if it’s another controversial one. On the other hand, if you DO do your research next time and make a decent review, your site will not get the traffic you so desperately want. Please consider and reconsider.
Thanks.
This article details how arguments are not valid without constructive criticism in response to people criticizing a review written by the author that contained absolutely zero detail or constructive criticism. Likewise, we all need to double-check our facts, something that, again, he was criticized for not doing, but according to him is extremely important. What an asinine, arrogant, response article this is.
Here’s some better advice for Matt, don’t ‘turn off’ your comments because then you are going to keep writing garbage. He didn’t ‘dare to be different’ in his SSB or Bayonetta reviews, instead opting to not apply any of the tenets outlined in this article to his journalism.
Bonus hypocritical quote:
“But you should be able to defend your article if someone pushed you in real life.”
>>> SO HE DID BY WRITING THIS?
Thanks for your comment! I think the point of the article is helping people look at comment sections in a different kind of light rather than taking a lot of what’s said personally. For instance, in your comment of this article you regard its content as asinine and arrogant. A few years ago I would have cussed you out for that or just not approved your comment, but I really want to have an open discussion, especially on my personal site. Double checking facts is a definite must for any writer out there and certainly taking people’s advice on that.
But I think anyone should be able to defend themselves online. Like with my thoughts on the comments, as a writer you need to use reason in your response and not use personal attacks to do criticize someone’s article. You need to be able to take the insults hurled at you, but how you need to be and I’ll quote from my article, “reflective, not reactive.” Thanks again for your comment!
Hi Matthew! I want you to check out this Super Smash review by GameXplain:
I don’t even know where to begin but I encourage you to go to all your friends and family (at least 25 people, the more the better), and show them your review and show them the GameXplain review. I feel like this will be a perfect opportunity for a reality check and some self-growth. Take care!
I think I might have replied to this elsewhere, but I’ve taken a look and the review! I definitely see just how into the details he gets and I might even try to model a few paragraphs in reviews after his stuff. I’ll also try to get people to take a look, but according to most of the commentary, maybe I won’t get my monstrous father to read it 😛 (Only joking of course! He’s a super nice dude!)
I respect the opinions you have on the game, but I think if the score is going to be reflected on a site like metacritic it should be done in a more subjective way. The points you brought up were valid, yes, however they were personally specific for you. People read reviews to gauge their own interest and create a confirmation of their expectations. In other words they have preconceived “opinions.”
When a review docks a game’s value based on the reviewers personal “opinion” it conflicts with how readers feel (and what they expect). People don’t like to feel wrong and this creates an online firestorm. They impulsively lash out and that’s when the decrease in humane thinking occurs.
People want to know if a game is bad. However, it would have helped to have concrete examples rather than referring to your past feelings. A review should be balanced in the pros and cons. Both should be elaborated on so that the reader can be informed. Is that not the point of journalism?
Please do not take these words as criticism, but rather a suggestion. I hope that it could help you on future reviews and articles alike. Best regards in your future. I would love to hear back from you. Good luck!
So someone points out your flawed journalism, and you felt like you had to express your feelings in a review article, directly referring to one person who had a valid critique of your personal issues that was blatantly addressed in your reviews. You label things as bad or good without even addressing why.
So you do this:
“I don’t like this.
Instead of:
“I don’t like this. BECAUSE HERE’S WHY _Insert an actual reason here_”
Complaining or praising a game is not a review, you need actual tangible information or evidence to support your reasoning on why something is good or bad. Otherwise your reviews are just a mess based off of gut feelings and complete ignorance.
And now your evaluating yourself via article, addressing that you couldn’t handle the pressure of the criticism from a comments board because a lot of it was actual truth then blind rage. Explain in detail on what you need to change, towards the end, you pretty much say that you don’t care ultimately contradicting what the entire beginning of the article was about, improving yourself. Then at the very end you state that you should be listening to criticism after explaining in a few lengthy paragraphs that you don’t care about the actual good criticism people were addressing to you. There is a large amount of mix messages here.
From my perspective, you are a bad writer, it only takes less then 30 minutes to read this and the 2 other articles you posted to realize that. Your stubborn because you don’t want to change, even though you understand your faults and what it takes to change for the better. Yet, you have the audacity to write this petty article which doesn’t even resolve your own problems because of arrogance.
Now take your own advice and listen to people’s criticisms. Re-read your previous work that angered people, consider re-writing it with older criticism in mind and actually explain why you are saying something is good or bad. Reviewers come back to update/change their reviews all the time because their opinions change, or that they needed to better address something. You admit that you are sloppy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go back and fix the mess you made for yourself.
So that is my two cents, feel free to take it anyway you like.
I was going to write a comment, but I think this guy said it better. ^
I will just add that even though much of the Internet doesn’t express what their displeasure in a very clear and civilized manner, that’s does not mean there is no rational reason for it. Truth is you brought even the harshest most ignorant criticisms on yourself the moment you made your work public. Idinidentifying the source of the masses displeasure would be far more beneficial for you and your readers.
Thanks for your reply! Definitely have heard quite a bit more criticism over my work, but I still see this as a learning experience. I’ve been through controversy before over articles, but this Smash on is entirely different as the game has probably one of the most biggest and most vibrant fan bases out there. I can’t even imagine how bad the comments would have been if I started writing about the Melee/Brawl controversy. Also in response to Jay Won, yes, most people wouldn’t write an article like this, but I try to use my website as a means of communicating with people out there and I’ve heard some good commentary from people, so that makes me happy 🙂
Read this review that gave the same score, I honestly found this review criticizing the game while keeping interesting.
You do the same with story mode which is agreeable, but you include so many inconsistencies between the original reviews and the reply afterwards. The misunderstood quotes, the failed attempt in grabbing with the father story, awkward N64 reference, and bad commentary/criticism that made me really disregard your review compared to this one.
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/super-smash-bros-finds-more-tricks-wii-u/
Thanks for your comment, Calvin! I’m a Kill Screen reader too, even have a subscription with them, and really enjoy their interesting take on review style. I took a read of the review too! Enjoyed how he went into detail about the game’s music and the information you can find about Nintendo’s history if you dig down into the details. Thanks again for the link! Will keep his writing style in mind for my next review!
I couldn’t even get halfway through this post before giving up; it is rife with mistakes. Typos and poor grammar is frankly unacceptable from a journalist, particularly in an article that defends their previously (poorly written) work. I read all the comments under the Smash Bros U review and I didn’t see anything hostile.
I would seriously consider the advice offered – you’re not a game critic and perhaps you should not be writing reviews. There is a generally accepted format for video game reviews and the readers expect justification for your statements. WHY was something disappointing? WHAT was good about something else? HOW many hours did you spend with the game? I assume not many. People were upset by the haphazard approach you took in the review, not the actual score. If you knock marks off the score then you should have explained properly (without bias) why you did so.
As a journalist you should be checking your facts before posting anything. Commenting on features that are unavailable (online play) was a standout. Also, you say Smash is virtually identical to the 3DS version between statements that describe significant differences between them! You also make the big mistake of judging Smash in relation to your nostalgia-tainted memories of playing an older title. Games should be reviewed as they are presented. Some comparison with older titles in the series is fine, but it should not be through your hazy memories.
This brings me to my final point. A game review should be a critical evaluation of gameplay and presentation backed with facts, with some (small !!) personal commentary provided for flavour. To put it bluntly, nobody wants your autobiography forced on them when reading a video game review.
I hope you take this post as it was intended: honest and constructive criticism of your work.
You gave remember me a 9.5…. seriously your the worst reviewer I’ve ever seen please find another profession.
I thought Remember Me was pretty good, buggy as hell and a train wreck in terms of combat. However, I found the presentation and the story to be one of the most mind-bending of the year. I don’t think we have enough games that try to do radical science fiction, for which I applaud the developers for taking a leap of faith in their product. There were certainly issues, but for me they weren’t enough to detract from a high score for originality, a trait I adore in video games.
Try Virtue’s Last Reward if you haven’t. It’s a mind-bending science-fiction thriller with great puzzle elements.
Will check it out :), I actually just got a PS TV and can download the game on that, yay for a relatively inexpensive PSVita
You talked about your daddy the entire time…
There’s a difference between constructive criticism and just plain not knowing what you’re talking about.
I feel like the majority of this comment thread is reiterating what people said on the Super Smash Bros. U review: My writing needs to improve. I’ll certainly take that into consideration and proofread my work more than I already do. I also watch GameXplain once in a while and will take a look at the review above.
I think the most controversial part of my review is pointing out the game’s lack of story. I feel like the Subspace Emissary mode was an awesome addition to Brawl and really wanted that to return. People said that fighting games don’t have story, but Super Smash Bros. is more than just a fighting game. It includes characters who have some of the deepest stories out there. And they’re all in one place! Why not give us a story about how they all arrived on the same stage? Why not make Master Core a villain rather than just a secret boss? Why not take this chance and do something differently?
Definitely have all your friends and family take a look at both your review and GameXplain’s review.
The most controversial part of your review was the format of the review itself. As for the story, people will always debate about features and details and it’s commonly accepted if you disagree. A game review is typically a personal impression. It’s impossible to filer out bias. That said if the highs and lows of your experience are not clearly presented and explained to the reader it becomes impossible to take seriously.
The gaming community is vicious, but hopefully we can serve as motivation for you to step your game up. Good luck. 🙂
Thanks guy :), I’ve definitely taken some lessons from the formatting questions people have raised. I’ll try to include the pros and cons more often in reviews going forward as I’ve got a few in the hopper I’m working on. I also wouldn’t say the gaming community is vicious, but, rather, passionate and I’ll try to use some of that passion.
Also does anyone have any comments on the advice given in the post here? Anyone who has commented on this article above must have experienced this kind of criticism in their lives before, so why not post a few strategies of your own on how to work through a tough comment section 🙂
Nobody wants to talk about “how to deal with a rough comment section,” but if you do want to talk about it, here’s one you missed:
Never write an article like this as a response.
tough comment sections aren’t random hazards that just happen. a good strategy to avoid this sort of backlash [which was fully deserved] would be to write better articles.
Thanks for your comment, Matteo! Perhaps the lesson for some reviewers is to have a checklist of all the points they need to cover in order to make the most comprehensive review possible. That could be a good strategy to use, as well. Also as the article says above, Check Spelling! Check Facts! Check Grammar!
Matt,
You’re literally not listening to anything people are posting. I just read through this whole comment section, and no one said anything about having a problem about you complaining about a lack of story (even though it’s silly to expect a giant story mode in a fighting game. Brawl was the exception, not the rule). People had a problem with you letting your personal life affect your rating. You continue to make it about points no one is talking about and referencing things no cares about, instead of focusing on the actual criticism. I’m not going to attack you and tell you to choose another profession, but this review, and the subsequent, unnecessary rationale for the review are extremely unprofessional, and a major disappointment.
Thanks for your comment and am doing my best to listen in on the comments here too. I guess I just wish people did have more to say about the actual critical points of the review as I touched on with the points about the story. That was the focus, not the story I wrote up at the top, but perhaps my qualms about the story should have been a little higher up or I could have spent a few paragraphs putting a few details into the issues with the gameplay, 8-man brawl, Smash Tour, and the controls. Thanks again for your comment!
I came to read your review, because it differed from the others. I was hoping for alot more detail. I’m going to ignore you from now on, because your getting the attention you want from creating controversy.
I don’t think you’re a bad person, or even a particularly bad writer, for that matter. You did write a bad review, though. A review should never be about your particular proclivities or baggage, but about informing others about the quality of the game’s mechanics and style. I don’t feel like you fulfilled that particular obligation to your readers.
Strategies for working through tough comments and criticisms? Sure.
1) Never take it personally. The worst that can be said is that your work was shoddy, but you should never internalize that.
2) IF the criticisms are genuine, learn from them and grow as a reviewer. Some people will hate you for not giving a perfect score to something they love, but when everyone is saying the same thing, that should tell you something.
3) Social media can poison one’s life. Know when to shut it off. I think you have that part down.
Thanks for your response, Michael. I’ll definitely keep your points in mind and will certainly not internalize any of the criticism I’ve faced. I do see this as a learning experience and am definitely more conscious now of the audience’s expectations. I’m going to do my best to grow on what I’ve learned over the last day and will also try to include more technical information in reviews going forward.
Shit happens. The point is, you’re willing to accept criticism and grow as a writer. I respect that. Making mistakes is how we learn.
Also, people on the internet exaggerate everything. Molehills into mountains, as they say. The effect of this is magnified when it is some big brand like Smash that hundreds of thousands of people are passionate about.
Your review is weird, and doesn’t offer enough detail on actual gameplay. Come on man, get over yourself. If you can’t take criticism, then maybe writing things you want people to read an comment on is not a great idea. I was on the fence about the game, but I had to go read other reviews. Find someone you can take constructive criticism from, and have them compare your review to a few others.
Thanks for your comment! I think taking criticism poorly is something universal and certainly not an easy thing to take it well, but part of the article is about learning how to see commentary in a different light. I’m trying to glean what I can from people and realizing that perhaps there are things that need to change in terms of my writing. I’m going to be in contact with a few other writers I know, including some other game critics, to see what they think about my review’s content. I hope to grow from this and thanks again for commenting!
Just wanted to post some words of encouragement. Writing is a tough business–it exposes you and your work to all kinds of attack. Some if it is warranted, some of it not, but usually it’s never delivered with any kind of grace. Best thing I can say is: know your audience. Then, decide for yourself the extent to which you are willing and able to adjust your writing to suit the tastes of your audience. It seems like you’ve already given that issue some thought, so keep at it! Best of luck to you and your career.
http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2msfq4/lol_what_the_this_reviewer_needs_to_deal_with_his/
Laughed at a few of the clever comments on the thread lol, but again learned something from every comment and in the top comment people do get into how much story means to them even in fighting games. Have to say the new Smash Bros. does have a lot of content hidden in the trophies though.
HOW TO DEAL WITH A ROUGH COMMENT SECTION:
Step 1: Learn how to actually write a review.
Step 2: Done!
Thanks for your comment, Aiat! Am doing my best to learn from the comments here, but there might be a few more steps involved in the process of digesting everything here.
I would really suggest you do not spend any time during a review writing about your personal experience. You only have to much space to work with and it seems like a waste to use it like that. In my opinion the review should be written in a neutral way, that way it wont come out as being biased. I have no problem with your score on SMB, I came to read your review because I did want to see your reasons for giving this an 8, but quite frankly I did not really understood much. One thing I much stress again, how you personally feel about the game does not matter to the reader, in one place you said maybe the reason you were not really enjoying the game that much was because you were getting old. honestly if that is how you feel, you should have not written the review in the first place.
The only thing that maters is how effectively you can convey the reasons for your score. If this was a blog post I wouldn’t mind, but this is a review. As you said, it should help someone to decide on spending 60 bucks, which is a lot!
This might sound like a threat, which I don`t mean it that way but I am coming into reviews posted on financial times to read your future reviews 😉
Thanks again for your comment, great to hear back from readers! I’ve been hearing that in a few comments about the objective voice most reviewers take when reviewing games. It’s definitely the best way to convey most points, but I don’t think it’s possible to escape how you personally feel about a game in your writing. As someone who has played the entire series from the N64 until this latest game, I’ve even been to a few tournaments here in Toronto, I feel like there’s a personal connection between Smash and I. Most people will say it’s not just a game, but a way of life. I don’t go that far, but it has changed me and the way I play video games. Me and my brothers got into a lot of fights when we were kids over the games and it’s one of the reasons I don’t play video games with them anymore. Think about that, I don’t play games with my brothers quite possibly because of Smash Brothers. Now if that isn’t a story, I don’t know what that is.
I hear you guys that perhaps those kinds of stories should be kept out of reviews. However, I think providing context in your relationship with a game is important. However, the review should include all of the pertinent information people are looking for like the pros and cons. So it’s an odd balance journalists have to strike when it comes to writing game reviews. Even for the most practiced hands like Roger Ebert, RIP man, his criticisms often saw him getting a lot of flak even though he conveyed all of the information required. Quite similarly Tim Rogers also wrote slightly unconventional reviews and was often panned for making them too long, too personal. But I’ve certainly gotten some insight into the needs of readers through this and I really do appreciate all of the comments! Thanks again Aiat!
How about a reform of your own review. This would send a clear message of your mistake and how you can actually take positive and constructive feedback from your readers. Having a scoring chart so you dont have unbalanced criteria from a review to an other would be an important start. It’s not important to state that clear to the reader, it’s for yourself. This would help you construct the review and the reader would no see disparity between the review (for example with the review of Remember me, in a chart the scoring would get to much extra point of a chart if it was made with a clear chart).
Your mistakes have give you right now a bigger public, it is a good moment to introduce a Chart, then clear the mistakes after that would be brillant show some humility to the reader.
If you were taking one of my journalism class, you would loose many points out, because of inconsistency between your critics.
Thanks for your comment! Post Arcade has a scoring chart, which you can see here: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/18/post-arcade-game-ratings-explained/?__lsa=aafd-22ec. Like most charts, the numbered scores are pretty static. I did find a lot of issues with the game not having a story, which was one of the best parts of Smash Bros. Brawl. Taking off points for them not including something that as it had been in previous games is a certainly a reason to dock some points. It’s a feature that simply didn’t return.
I think most of the problems – i.e. the factual mistakes – were addressed in the article. I have said before I’ll look into including some new information once I have a chance to play online for a bit. I won’t be taking away large chunks of the existing review and rewriting them, but I could add on new paragraphs to the piece in order to address the online aspects of the game. No promises though.
Btw, what journalism school do you teach at? I’m a semi-recent graduate from Ryerson and would love to connect with you if you’re allowing students to write game reviews. I had some teachers who did film and book reviews, but few who did video games.
Nice to know you actually care about reading and considering the comments. Funny you mentioned Ebert, he was my favorite movie reviewer. I guess you cant help but to inject some of your personal views and experience in the review to make it yours…writing a game review can be pretty tough, im sure you are more than aware of that. The only thing you should remember is to give enough arguments for your score :).
I don’t mean this as a threat, but your reviews are now among the very few reviews thar I will be checking out 😉
If we make enough mean comments here maybe he’ll write a blog post about the comments section on his blog post about mean comment sections
Thanks for your comment, ahole!
That was uncalled for, Mr. O’Mara. How very unprofessional to call visitors of your site aholes. What I would luke to know, are you going to set straight the mess that you made? As in, withdraw your smash review, rewrite it, or pull the score?
That’s his user name. Also, I’ll talk to my editor about putting in an update for the online modes as it seems that’s what people seem most concerned about. Have to say the multiplayer was seamless, so expecting the same quality when I go online. When the online goes live and after I put some hours into it, I’ll link an updated version in the article. Thanks for commenting!
ps4barnpony, before critiquing try to not to make spelling or grammar mistakes of your own, “what I would luke to know.” What I would like to know is when are you going to learn to spend quality time reading comments carefully and writing responses.
Pingback: Is it worth it to have a personal website? | VR Goggles