I said that HL would get average reviews at best because it was gonna be a janky game, and that there would be two camps in the user reviews: reactionaries who barely play the game so they can stick it to the LGBT community, and the other camp who will play the game and just admit that it’s not super good.
I was wrong on the fact that the reviews would be average; the press loved this game – I underestimated how much they loved the HP franchise. But I was right that the game was criticised for some jankiness.
Anyway our own co-admin @ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml was right about it when he told me that the game would get an 85 on metacritic – it’s sitting in at 84!
I was thinking about this. The main problem is that within the video game journalism and reviewing industry there ia a fundamental conflict of interest. They have to try to make big games look good otherwise the industry that fuels their livelihood will be in jeapordy which will in turn jeapodise their own sources of income. When it comes to things like technical performance, websites like IGN never criticise those fairly. You are more likely to find honest criticisms on those from niche reviewers like Digital Foundry.
Wouldn’t they be able to just use ads, donations and - god forbid - stuff like patreon and subscriptions to make up for the lost corporate backing?
Also, how do they still maintain credibility (after giving bogus reviews and gameplays) among the general public? Clearly there still are people that read IGN, given how they still haven’t went under.
They are owned by a publicly traded company. They cannot refuse corporate banking.