Add Game Review's To PSNP

[Ac3dUd3-]

As the title suggests, I think it would be a good idea to incorporate game reviews on the site. It could bring more traffic, perhaps have it split in subsections of written reviews and video reviews.

 

Was thinking a new tab in the navigation bar at the top, or perhaps a new category in the forums. The reviews would be subject to the higher standards of Trophy Guides themselves so it can filter out the 5 second reviews and show some professionalism. I know there are a lot of content creators and writers who would love to have a place for them to have their reviews on a large platform like PSNP. Why have people come to psnp for guides/forums only to have them go somewhere else for reviews when it can all be in the same place.

 

What are the communities/staff thoughts?

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Ac3dUd3-

[Crispy_Oglop]

I like the idea but there are a few unknowns off the top of my head:

 

How would approving/moderating them work?

Who would approve/moderate them?

What review criteria would be in place to ensure that people know how they should be structured? Eg. a composition/style guide?

How would we prevent any keyboard dummies from review bombing a particular game?

Would it be rating system based, or just general review opinions?

Edited August 7, 2021 by Crispy_Oglop

[DrBloodmoney]

I like writing reviews on my own Trophy Checklist thread, and I think I try to be professional in the quality of the writing and in my approach…

 

…but I wouldn’t want to have any connection to any ‘official’ site endorsement, as I would not be comfortable with anyone editing my reviews, or questioning/ modifying the opinions within them.

 

In the end, reviews are much more subjective than guides - and given the propensity of vitriolic attacks on reviewers that offer opinions on games from people who disagree, I can’t imagine any site user being comfortable opening themselves up to receiving that kind of attack on a grand, site-wide scale - it would be a thankless task.

 

I’d imagine anyone who did, would most likely end up just writing bland, milquetoast reviews designed to avoid any backlash.

Edited August 7, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

Nothing speaks less to the quality of a game than an official review

[DaivRules]

I support and like the idea of official featured PSNP reviews, but only if there is some journalistic professionalism. There are a lot of quality reviews already written in the forums that would easily translate to some great content.

 

There would be a lot of questions to answer before it were ready to proceed, but I think it could be cool. 
 

 

[Ac3dUd3-]

34 minutes ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

I like the idea but there are a few unknowns off the top of my head:

 

How would approving/moderating them work?

Who would approve/moderate them?

What review criteria would be in place to ensure that people know how they should be structured? Eg. a composition/style guide?

How would we prevent any keyboard dummies from review bombing a particular game?

Would it be rating system based, or just general review opinions?

 

27 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I like writing reviews on my own Trophy Checklist thread, and I think I try to be professional in the quality of the writing and in my approach…

 

…but I wouldn’t want to have any connection to any ‘official’ site endorsement, as I would not be comfortable with anyone editing my reviews, or questioning/ modifying the opinions within them.

 

In the end, reviews are much more subjective than guides - and given the propensity of vitriolic attacks on reviewers that offer opinions on games from people who disagree, I can’t imagine any site user being comfortable opening themselves up to receiving that kind of attack on a grand, site-wide scale - it would be a thankless task.

 

I’d imagine anyone who did, would most likely end up just writing bland, milquetoast reviews designed to avoid any backlash.

 

19 minutes ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

Nothing speaks less to the quality of a game than an official review

 

Prob should have clarified, my thought process would be not to have any as "psnp official" reviews,rather let anyone who wants to make one write and upload it, much the same as how the guides are where there are 2 per game and it needs to be better quality to knock off the first 2. Like guides just have 5 star ratings and the author can see the view count, favourites etc.

 

As for who manages it etc that would likely be a sly answer only, perhaps a review team who approves reviews if they meet the criteria. If this ever came to fruition im sure there would be discussions on specifics,right now it's just a concept

Edited August 7, 2021 by Ac3dUd3-

[DaivRules]

1 minute ago, Ac3dUd3- said:

 

 

 

Prob should have clarified, my thought process would be not to have any as "psnp official" reviews,rather let anyone who wants to make one write and upload it, much the same as how the guides are where there are 2 per game and it needs to be better quality to knock off the first 2.

 

As for who manages it etc that would likely be a sly answer only, perhaps a review team who approves reviews if they meet the criteria. If this ever came to fruition im sure there would be discussions on specifics,right now it's just a concept

If there is PSNP staff vetting reviews, then they become de facto official reviews.

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Just now, Ac3dUd3- said:

Prob should have clarified, my thought process would be not to have any as "psnp official" reviews,rather let anyone who wants to make one write and upload it, much the same as how the guides are where there are 2 per game and it needs to be better quality to knock off the first 2.

 

As for who manages it etc that would likely be a sly answer only, perhaps a review team who approves reviews if they meet the criteria. If this ever came to fruition im sure there would be discussions on specifics,right now it's just a concept

 

I could see the benefit of... basically just a section of the forums that is dedicated to reviews, and breaks down to 'per game' sections like the game forums do.

 

That I could imagine being quite smart - if each game had a 'pinned' link to that game's review sub-forum, that would mean people could jump to it, and see a bunch of reviews from different people?

 

I guess that could work - TBH, there is probably a lot of content that could be copied into such a section right now - all contained in various users Trophy Checklists, Status Updates, and - of course - the 'Most Recent Platinum' thread, which has become a hotbed of interesting reviews in recent years.

 

I could dig that - I mean, I have something like 150 reviews that are long and in depth enough to probably constitute going in such a forum 

I would only object to such a thing if some staff member was going to try and edit my reviews content-wise (though a spelling check could probably help at times ?)

[DaivRules]

6 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I would only object to such a thing if some staff member was going to try and edit my reviews content-wise (though a spelling check could probably help at times )

I’m not sure what you think is so controversial in your writing, but I have yet to see any of your content that wouldn’t pass by any editor with maybe a sentence structure note or two. 
 

[MonaSaxPayne]

why? this isn't a review site

 

there are other dedicated sites u can go to for that kind of content if u wish to see it

 

ppl mainly come here to track trophies, and within recent years, use guides while they play

 

its one of the reason I believe .org has lost massive popularity during the last few years.. they stopped catering content/innovation to their core audience and started pandering to all sorts of other nonsense and most users left 

 

 

[Crispy_Oglop]

I think the site itself would need to make sure there is a clear differentiation between a review from someone articulating a controversial opinion and someone articulating inappropriate and objectively bad material. But I guess that could be covered by the site ToS.

Edit - Basically - Godspeed in moderating all of The Last of Us 2 reviews.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Crispy_Oglop

[DrBloodmoney]

4 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

I’m not sure what you think is so controversial in your writing, but I have yet to see any of your content that wouldn’t pass by any editor with maybe a sentence structure note or two. 

 

I appreciate that - and take it as a compliment, as I generally try to be very fair and unbiased - but that's not really my point.

 

My point is that I personally would not be comfortable writing any opinion - regardless of how 'controversial' I or anyone thought it was -  if knew that opinion was subject to oversight or review prior to posting.

 

[Crispy_Oglop]

4 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I appreciate that - and take it as a compliment, as I generally try to be very fair and unbiased - but that's not really my point.

 

My point is that I personally would not be comfortable writing any opinion - regardless of how 'controversial' I or anyone thought it was -  if knew that opinion was subject to oversight or review prior to posting.

 

 

The process could be reversed then - having it so that folks can report reviews based on review guidelines. I'm all for people giving good or bad opinions about their gaming experiences, but we would still need something in place to scrub toxic or inappropriate language/material etc.

 

In fairness it's the exact same thing as what you are pushing back against, the difference is when it happens.

[dieselmanchild]

Dawg that’s what DrBloodMoney’s Super Scientific trophy reviews are for!

 

Nah for real though, I don’t mind the idea. PSNP is one of my first stops when doing “research” on a game that I think I might be interested in, and having reviews linked through here would save me a couple extra trips to Google and YouTube. So why not.

 

If we couldn’t do official reviews, I would even settle for a simple player review/opinions thread in each forum, kind of similar to the stickied estimated time to platinum & difficulty threads from playstationtrophies.org. I always read through those 2 threads when I’m looking at a game I might be interested in as the aggregated opinions and ratings are usually the most accurate way to get a sense of what you will be dealing with.
 

I usually take more stock in an intelligent and thoughtful opinion from a fellow gamer than I do one of these professional game journalists anyways - it’s a lot easier to cut through the bullshit.

[johncnstntn__]

Nice idea on a wrong site. You can find people here simply complaining about the game because the trophy list is too hard or too easy for a AAA game. Picking from a nice review from all of this would be a huge work. Maybe we can start with voting on categories like; difficulty, gameplay, play time etc. That would be a nice start imo.

Edited August 7, 2021 by johncnstntn__

[Helyx]

Seen this happen before and it never lived up to its potential.

 

At this point, PSNP is struggling to have features implemented for its main focus (our trophy profiles). After that, PSNP needs trophy guides, not reviews.

[DrBloodmoney]

6 minutes ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

 

The process could be reversed then - having it so that folks can report reviews based on review guidelines. I'm all for people giving good or bad opinions about their gaming experiences, but we would still need something in place to scrub toxic or inappropriate language/material etc.

 

In fairness it's the exact same thing as what you are pushing back against, the difference is when it happens.

 

Absolutely - the general site rules on conduct need to be in place - of course!

 

I am all for moderation of inappropriate / toxic behaviour etc.

 

Just not of actual content or opinion, which would - I have to assume - be a requirement if PSNP did go down the route of having some kind of 'officially endorsed' reviews. 

 

In the end, as long as content was unmodified, the whole idea gets my two-thumbs-up - but I reckon a lot of moderation would be required in the responses threads...

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Guest]

More problems in flame wars than it being worth it.

There’s a never-ending amount of sites for game reviews, and if you care about the trophy aspect, you should just check a trophy guide, or the threads in the subforums  to get a general idea.

[DrBloodmoney]

16 minutes ago, dovah said:

Post an amateur review thread on each game page along with the other threads about the game. Which could be discussed and questions asked by anyone, and no extra moderation or censorship required.

 

I think they would need to have separate threads for each one - I could imagine them becoming extremely disorganised and unwieldy very quickly for some games - imagine if 4 or 5 different fairly comprehensive reviews went up quickly (for some games, that would be a virtual certainty) and then every comment would be quoting each one to know which one they were responding to...

 

It would be a real pretzel-knot to try and read!

Edited August 7, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[DaivRules]

12 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I think they would need to have separate threads for each one - I could imagine them becoming extremely disorganised and unwieldy very quickly for some games - imagine if 4 or 5 different fairly comprehensive reviews went up quickly (for some games, that would be a virtual certainty) and then every comment would be quoting each one to know which one they were responding to...

 

It would be a real pretzel-knot to try and read!

That did happen with the last God of War, each person wanted to have a more inflammatory review than the last, then someone posted a link to some random persons review of the game. 
 

There is nothing stopping from people writing their own reviews of games in any games sub-forum now if it’s really just going to be a free-for-all of review writing. I don’t think there’s an elegant way to wrangle all of them into a Guides section if that all it’s going to be though. 

[ExHaseo]

This is a cool idea, but I think it would take a lot away from the community if it were implemented.

 

People already essentially post reviews, they just do it in different threads. Like the recent plat thread, or in various events. Having an official review section would have a lot of people post there instead of in these other forums, leading to possibly less activity and engagement.

 

In my experience on other gaming forums, when there's any kind of "official" review, people start to take it as gospel as well. It leads to a homogenization of thoughts in the community and discourages real discussion and different opinions. Anytime someone disagrees with something or just doesn't like something, they tend to be attacked and told things like, "The review says X, so you're wrong." Which just breeds toxicity. There's already a degree of that here and I don't think anything should be added that could make it worse.

 

It would also take more work from the staff. They're already doing a lot and I don't think stacking more on their plate is a great idea for something that could just turn into a toxic mess. I also don't know how difficult this kind of thing would be to implement for every game. It's certainly a cool idea, but in execution I don't think it would work out very well. 

[DrBloodmoney]

6 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

That did happen with the last God of War, each person wanted to have a more inflammatory review than the last, then someone posted a link to some random persons review of the game. 
 

There is nothing stopping from people writing their own reviews of games in any games sub-forum now if it’s really just going to be a free-for-all of review writing. I don’t think there’s an elegant way to wrangle all of them into a Guides section if that all it’s going to be though. 

 

I guess I tend to agree - the idea is nice in principle, but when you get right down to the nitty-gritty, it would likely become so unwieldy and subject to nonsense, that folks would go back to doing them in their own threads anyways.

 

The whole point of reviews, really, is that you need to know the person reviewing the game a little - you need to know their tastes, and how they align with your own, to really get anything meaningful from a review.

 

It's like professional reviews - my favourite film critic is Kermode, yet I'd say I actually agree with him less than 50% of the time ?

That's not the important thing though - because you follow the same person for a long time, and get to know their tastes, then even a review you disagree with has some value to you.

A review in a void is pretty meaningless for something subjective like a film or a book or a game.

 

As such, most folks tend to just find someone reviewing here who's style they like, and who they know the inherent biases and tastes of,  and follow their specific threads.

That's certainly what I do!

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[MMDE]

People have probably already seen some of my "any good?" threads, and they work as sort of a mini review for people considering getting the game wondering if it's a good idea or not.

 

I don't want "scores" for the games in these reviews, just text reviews from a trophy hunter standpoint. Giving people an idea what the game is like, especially from a trophy hunter perspective. May need to get most of the trophies in the game before you can write a review or something.

 

Difficulty and estimated time scores could be useful though, idk.

Edited August 7, 2021 by MMDE

[Ac3dUd3-]

There are a few comments here that this isnt a review site or worried about abuse of reviews etc.

 

My response is that as some have said, people already make reviews in the form of their checklists or video reviews and post them in the forums already, all this would do would give a specific section for it and to highlight it.

 

As for not being a review site, there is no reason we cant be, psnp has slowly evolved since the beginning so I don't see any negatives for it when it half exists already. There can be multiple people making reviews for the same game, no one is forced to make one so there could be not biased reviews which are extremely rare, or reviews with user bias in them which is the most common, people will read/watch those reviews because they like the person. If people don't like the review then they just simply don't read it.

 

If the concept is successful enough perhaps there could even be voting on best reviews in a similar vein to guide of the year and you get a winner badge or something which could entice more people to write some

 

[DrBloodmoney]

5 hours ago, Ac3dUd3- said:

As for not being a review site, there is no reason we cant be

 

This I totally agree with - I can't possibly comprehend the mindset that drives comments like "That's not what this site is..."

 

I mean, here are some other things this site is not designed to be primarily:

 

A Wrestling site

An Anime Site

A Movie Discussion site

A Music Site

A TV Show site

A Censorship complaints site

A Sports site

A Financials site

An Art sharing site

 

...yet every one of those things exists within the community as its own thing with its own forum subsection or lengthly thread, and not one of those sections has in any way 'diluted' the primary focus of the site as it exists now.