MEA scores higher than GTA5 and the dangers of online reviews

Bethesda actually tried to charge for mods on steam. I think it might have been in 2015 IIRC. It was around may if memory serves me. The whole thing was a disaster of epic proportions. Non modders attacking modders. Modder pulling their stuff in protest to the attempt to monetize mods. I would say less than 1% actually charged for them. Gabe Newell (steam creator) ended up posting on reddit because of the epic shitstorm. He was actually pretty cool and trying to understand what the issue was because I guess in other games paying modders had been rather successful. I always thought it was an attempt to monetize it for upcoming games to make a killing. Then they announce at E3 that fallout 4 was coming. I even said that due to timing for the action being so odd (there was nothing new, and skyrim had been out for ages already) that they must have a game coming out soon. Nobody believed me. I thought TES VI *maybe* but  wondered about fallout since Elder scrolls online was still very new. Everyone called me crazy on fallout and even that a big release was coming. Now I'm like a magic 8 ball around here. But  it was all 'business'. If you understand business practices and how companies run in general you can predict what is on the horizon.  They tried to monetize because they wanted to make some  extra bank for fallout 4 mods which they brought to consoles or tried to anyway. I bet had it been successful they would have made a killing and I'm 100% sure that if they had been we'd be getting another TES much sooner. (edit to add that this is why I am 100% sure DLC for MEA is in the pipeline and MEA2 will be a thing).

TES owes its longevity to mods for certain. TES is a very popular franchise, but a huge part why skyrim was so successful was because Oblivion was being played and discovered or rediscovered all the way up until skyrim was released. I doubt skyrim would be nearly as  popular or successful had it not been for modders. I always say that it is the smart gaming company that makes an SP that can be modded (pc version). TW3 proved that one right. These companies need to get their heads out of their asses. There is huge bank in allowing gamers to create, adapt and change their game world in ways that are important to them. Maybe not in charging for mods but in the sales, free advertising and longevity you get from them.

Well, what's good and what's bad is 100% subjective and/or perspective. There is no universal 'good' or  'bad'. There are societal agreements among groups of people about what is good or bad. And even that is a largely fluid thing as cultures change with the times and people evolve in their beliefs. Liking or not liking something is only about you. But people mistake opinions for facts and even take it as a personal affront where others don't agree with their opinion as if it is a judgement against them or something. Different strokes for different folks. In the end none of it every really matters.

I don't see a need to rephrase that first sentence, although I suppose it does need a bit more clarification. I am referring to quantifiable, objective problems (e.g. a game that crashes every 20 minutes, or frequently corrupts save files), not subjective things that other people dislike about something you love. As for the second sentence, I agree that there is too much emphasis placed on people's opinions, but when you are talking about something subjective, like a game, it's natural to encounter some very strong opinions that directly oppose your own.

And.... that's your opinion.

See what I did there?

There would still be the inarticulate ones who vote their hate with no words. But the score would improve dramatically especially since those vote were probably under 3

Mathematically speaking, if there weren't a bunch of hating trolls bringing the average way down, even with a lot of  6/7, there are plenty of above 8 to counter balance for them. In fact, I'm sure there are plenty of 10 peppered through there the same way preorders all have 5 star ratings, thousands of  them before march 21. An accurate score would probably put it around high 70s. Those 1-4 ratings which are generally undeserved do take a wrecking ball to it.

That first page of metacritic is a shining example: www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect-andromeda/user-reviews

It's a sea of  0,1,2,3 - a bunch of people voting their hate. This game is not that bad unless you cannot even play it. Frankly it looks like lots of trolling accounts and probably the whole gamergate squad signed up just to spread the hate.

That's how R* make their money it's game that allow you to go around killing everyone in sight and banging hookers which is all a idoits are really looking for but it has something for people looking for moe as well. Like look at GTA4 in terms of story it's the most mature GTA game but people hate it(I personally loved it's story) because it's all over the top gun fights and big explosions instead it told a story of a immagrant trying to make it in America and having result to crime. Just look at way Trevor is so popular because everything he does is just over the top and includes a lot of killing. Even tho there is a lot of depth to Trevor as a character most people don't see it. 

Let it go. MEA's score is the critical one, not user's. And that's not changing. It is what it is. Accept it, and move on. This score subject is already getting lame, and obviously motivated by the frustration of disagreeing with the consensus out there. It's okay. Let's just stop beating this dead horse. It's okay to enjoy, I really did, but when it can barely match the quality of some other​ games out there, you know there's a problem. Mass Effect always​ have been in the top of its league, not anymore.

You're obviously bothered by the score. Again, let it go. It's really not the world's wonder. I know, hard to accept it. And if you have the time, will and money to watch and play hot smoking garbage out there, then good for you. Enjoy it.

lol I don't even know what the score is!

So, hi! 5 pages later, huh? Nice to see I sparked a discussion, however a little disappointed in some of the vitriol.

So I understand that there are different circumstances in each game for the low scores. And I do agree that customers need to make it known how they feel about certain things, because in the end the game is for the players and so player empowerment is important.

However, my point here was that the review scores of this highly acclaimed and successful game GTA5 have been lowered not because of any dislike of content of the game or issues with the game itself (glitches, animations, etc) but instead are because a single mod tool was disabled. Not all mods or anything, just a single mod tool (which has far reaching consequences for some popular mods). But customers interested in the game could see the score and say "Wow, people don't like this game. I shouldn't buy it." In reality, that is not the case for GTA5, and thus the review scores are not indicative of game quality or player experience.

For MEA, there were assuredly issues. Glitches, corrupted save files, animation issues, etc. And of course these should be factored into review scores, as well as people's feelings on story, characters, etc. However, reasonable people who played the game should not, for the most part, give the game a zero or a one. Those scores are so low as to be absurd. And looking at Metacritic people posting those scores often say something about how SJW's or EA or whoever did something they don't like so they will never play the game. So many of the reviews came from people who never played at all and just had a beef with LGBTQ content or that the setting was different or that there was no Shep or that Bioware still had not apologized for ME3 endings. So because of the overwhelming hate from the community of players who didn't even play the game, the scores are ridiculously low.

These are both examples of review scores being used as a weapon against something (LGBTQ content, elimination of mod tool, etc) and are NOT being used as they should be: to give valid praises and criticisms of the game that someone has actually played. Should MEA get a 10? No. Should it get a zero? Hell no! And to anyone who thinks it does deserve a zero, you need to go play Superman 64 to see what an actual zero plays.

Phew. That's a lot of a pissed off PC players. That's not the crowd I would ever want to fuck with.