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Games Entertainment

GameFAQs Nuking Negative Reader Reviews? 67

Posted by Zonk from the stranger-things-have-happened dept.
jvm writes "Are negative reader reviews of the Sony PlayStation Portable (like this one) being yanked from GameFAQs? Some have certainly been removed, and Kyle Orland of the Video Game Ombudsman investigates: one of the reviews which was taken down, an interview with the author of the review, and a subsequent anonymous email purportedly by the person who took the review down. The review's author then responds that the justifications are questionable. Accompanying this is a discussion of the handling of reader-submitted reviews." Update: 04/16 04:53 GMT by Z : Many thanks to CJayC for setting the record straight in the comments below.
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GameFAQs Nuking Negative Reader Reviews? More

GameFAQs Nuking Negative Reader Reviews?

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  • That's like IMDB (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Friday April 15, 2005 @01:20AM (#12241689) Homepage Journal
    Any comment that is negative of the film is dropped. The same appears to go for books and games on Amazon.

    It's pretty obvious too, I mean the number of positive reviews for Jean-Claude Van Damme can be counted on zero hands and yet imdb always appears to have at least 10 people saying his latest flop was the greatest movie ever.

    • Re:That's like IMDB (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 )
      Are you sure? IMDB has as many braindead reviews as every other site on the net, imho - if anything, i think they drop the ones with insults and "l33t" talk, which is fine; it is their website after all. Same with Amazon.

      Anyway, i preffer Rottentomatoes.com [rottentomatoes.com] for accurate reviews, even though i use IMDB for specific information too - soundtracks, cast lists and so.

      You can find pretty harsh reviews on JCVD movies if you browse them :)
    • There's many people who think Jean-Claude Van Damme is cool and all his movies rock. They didn't like Usual Suspects or Memento because they didn't get ...
      Anyway, IMDB has plenty of negative reviews, maybe they just cut out the ones with offensive stuff.
      • After looking at JCVD's last 5 movies, I have to admit that you're right. He's been trying to do "serious" films which has royally pissed off his fans and has just demonstrated to the rest of us what we already knew: he can't act. There are negative reviews on IMDB but you have to go digging for them as the ones that get "voted up" are dominated by their fans.
      • Hey, I liked Memento and The Usual Suspects is one of my favorite movies.

        I also like most of Van Damme movies. But they have to be approached with the right frame of mind. The same one that you need to watch Steven Segal movies.

        Neither actor can act squat, but at least their movies are honest. They don't pretend to be anything other than braindead entertainment. Lots of bullets, broken bones, chases and explosions. And a paper thin plot to go from one scene to the next. Like a porno. But without th
        • True, there's different flavors and liking one doesn't mean you don't like the other.
          Sometimes you want to see a good story and class acting, another day you just want to watch some explosions and have a laugh over cheesy lines and bad acting.
    • Except that only people who like Jean-Claude Van Damme movies would bother going to IMDB to write about them.
    • Parent is unfortunately correct. It hasn't always been like that but IMDB sold out completely in the last two years.

      They started by artificially delaying the average rating from showing up,

      then the reviews that appear on the front page started being excessively positive even for really crappy movies (we're talking 6-7 reviews in a row with ratings of 9-10 for movies that average 5-6 scores)

      then they increased the minimum number of words you need to type in a review to unreasonable levels (which gr

  • CNET Ownership (Score:5, Interesting)

    by poppen_fresh ( 65995 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @01:21AM (#12241696)
    A few years ago, when gamefaqs announced they were acquired by CNET and later gamespot, I was worried they might begin having "influence" over the site.

    Seems like it's starting to happen.

    • Re:CNET Ownership (Score:1, Redundant)

      by jayhawk88 ( 160512 )
      Hmm, let's see, which do you think is the most likely explanation:

      1. One of the many volunteer editors/moderators on GameFAQ's made a poor judgement call with regards to one review.

      2. CNET, in conjunction with Sony, started a vast conspiracy several years ago by purchasing GameFAQ's. Depsite the fact that the PSP was barely in the design stage of production, Sony knew that it must silence one particular persons negative opinion against this mystery product, and so set the wheels in motion. Ignoring a

  • Unfair Censoring (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wiser87 ( 742455 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @01:54AM (#12241843) Homepage
    Personally, I think that the review was excellent. It was very professional and stayed on subject. I've seen quite a few reviews get accepted that were mostly praising system A and bashing on system B. What's happening here just looks like someone getting overprotective of a system they really like and feels that anyone who disagrees shouldn't be allowed to post a review.

  • This is good news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15, 2005 @02:00AM (#12241868)
    ... in a way.
    It's better to have this reported than not at all. I'm grateful that someone commented on it because one-sided reviews are the reason I mainly avoid sites like Gamespot and IGN. They can easily be bought out, and I've been getting the real dirt on all the games I'm interested in from Gamefaqs for years, specifically because of it's consumer base feedback.

    Hopefully this doesn't go on much longer or I can find some other way to get honest opinions instead of bullshit. This is just another sign that they're floating the industry as far as it will go on fluff, before bailing out as it sinks like Atari in 1983.

  • Uh... wow. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Incoherent07 ( 695470 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @02:03AM (#12241881)
    Just take a look at the "anonymous email" link. I may be a Nintendo fan, but this is just silly. The person writing the email purports that there are "high standards" for a GameFAQs review (go look at the reviews for any new game... 95% 10/10 with no real comment, 1 hater who gives it a 4/10 with even less comment, and the rest somewhere in between), and seems to miss the point that this is reviewing a game _system_, and thus all the components of the system are in play: games both current and near-future, other abilities, form factor, battery life...

    1. In the review, he states that because of the lack of memory available for MP3s, that it doesn't stack up to the iPod as an MP3 player. This seems perfectly obvious to any rational person, and the review doesn't seem to make it a major point of contention, just a point that it's jack of all trades, master of none.

    The response: We removed your review because it compared the PSP to an iPod. Quote: "For starters, this is the first and foremost reason why the review was removed."

    2. Here's some damaging "false information" for you... The PSP costs $250, not $300. 2GB and 4GB Memory Sticks don't exist yet. And you shouldn't add the cost of additional hardware like Memory Sticks to the cost of the system.

    One of those three is a minor point. The second is in the PSP's favor to even mention. The third doesn't even apply to the review.

    3. "As a small side note, the mention of slim pickings for movies available is laughable at best. Did people blame the Ps2 when DVDs were a new breed of entertainment? No, they blame the movie studios and DVD release corporations."

    Okay, so the lack of games argument is now moot on every system ever made, because it's the publishers' fault for not putting the game out for the new medium. Wanna bet that they aren't enforcing this on other systems?

    I'm not even going to bother with the rest. There's a repeated implication that there is a bar of quality that must be met to get a review posted on GameFAQs. I can say unequivocally that this implication is false. Here's an example. [gamefaqs.com] Now I want you to look at those reviews and tell me that every single one of them justified the score they gave.
    • Yeah it is a bunch of crap. The review isn't that bad, it was made by someone who owns the machine, and it is generally accurate.

      But to be honest it isn't nearly as good as this review of the DS. [gamefaqs.com]

      High standards? Factual information? HAHAHAHAHAHAH! My sides!
    • Totaly agree , the review did not deserve censorship , however i feel gamefaqs sponsers may disagree.
      The quality of Gamefaqs reader reviews has never been universaly great , some of them were just awfull whilst others were rather good, and i can honestly say that this review was amongst the better .So why did it get pulled..

      1:) perhaps it was a mistake and the person misread it
      2:) do sony have any Large ad campaigns on gamespot

      We all know that games-sites(not naming any specific examples like gamespy or g
      • I personaly like to read a few positive and a few negative reviews (some by fanbois and some by system haters also help to give me balanced view)

        But how do you decide who's telling the truth? Both of those groups have decided they have some personal stake in a console's sucess or failure, which makes them strongly biased at best.
    • It should have at least been edited.
      • If you actually read further down in the comments, the reviewer had said "You'll basically be paying 300 dollars to play a puzzle game."

        When I went to the store to buy my PSP, the total charged to my card for the value pack and Lumines was $311. He was not wrong, the editor just can't read.

  • There's no conspiracy here... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @02:03AM (#12241882)
    ..the guy who removed the review (which was a good one IMHO), explained [blogspot.com] why he took it down. It might be nitpicking, or perhaps he did it without putting much thinking into it, but it hardly seems like he's on Sonys' payroll.

    In any case, is his site, and he can decide what to screen and what not. Don't like it? There's a whole bunch of pages with user reviews out there aswell. No biggie.
    • Not that i disagre with you totaly , but one thing.
      The "if you dont like it move somewhere else " Is a rather specious argument.
      It is his site , and yes he is free to take pay offs if he did , or as may be the case and it was an honest decision to remove it ,then he is free to do that.
      However we as readers have a right to complain and to make it known that we dislike this decision and have strong suspicions about it.
      We as Readers complain because we enjoy a site and don't want to leave it .We would rather t
      • I have always appreciated honest reviews. And this was by all means a great one. The only thing I didn't agree with is the future lineup complain. How in the world do you rate something that doesn't exist yet?

        Sony has an obligation to put resources in the PS2 as well as PSP. Nintendo always had a spectacular Gameboy lineup, because all the resources jumped off the gamecube ship long ago.

    • In any case, is his site, and he can decide what to screen and what not.

      That in itself is wrong; GameFAQs is now owned by CNET, and chances are that the person who took down the review doesn't own any portion of it.

      The article above also included a link to a dissection of the letter, one that points out that a lot of the writer's "reasons" for taking down the review weren't really justifiable.

  • That's why i google (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dr.Opveter ( 806649 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @02:04AM (#12241883)
    I usually just google something like: product user review bad, to figure out if it might be a bad idea to buy the product i'm interested in
    In this case: http://www.google.com/search?q=sony+psp+user+revie w+bad [google.com]

    CNET had some negative reviews up here [cnet.com]
    First page is filled with score 1 out of 10.

  • Here's the comment I left: (Score:1, Interesting)

    by oGMo ( 379 )

    I left the following comment for the author.

    Maybe they just took it down because it was a crappy review. It is a crappily-written review; you realize that, right?

    Your examples all tend to be weak and opinionated without reason. Your example of Lumines, for instance... "value beyond trying to improve your high score". Let's take a game a few people might have played, like, say, Tetris. Not much replay value beyond trying to get more lines! This oversimplification can be applied to any game. RPGs, play

    • Actually, yes they do. Ever LOOKED at a game review page on GameFAQs?
    • Ahah, just the fact you're stating this review which mainly states facts with a good smattering of easily recognizable opinion is at the bottom of the barrel with the dredge that is the GameFAQs troll? "GameFAQs doesn't arbitrarily post anything they get" Ha! It's a review by a person, not a magazine. Of course it's going to have personal opinion in it. You should expect it, because if they don't have a personal opinion on the thing, why are they even bothering reviewing it? Plus, your "contradictions" ar
      • "It's a review by a person, not a magazine. Of course it's going to have personal opinion in it."

        You're implying that magazines don't have personal opinions. Please don't do that :)

        Interestingly, if you read Gamespot's Review Explanation page, it says their reviews are facts. And freedom is slavery and so forth.
      • I agree that it shouldn't have been pulled given the "standards" of gamefaqs. But really, you have to admit it is a horrible review. Of course, every review written is the opinion of whoever wrote it. But when you give a review, you are trying to express why you don't like it so that other get a feel for the system as well. The guy got one game on the system. But then he trashes the other game selections without even trying them. How is that useful information? If you want to be useful, just list th
    • I read the comment on the page before I saw it here, and I could have sworn that had "unjustifiably imperious slashdotter" written all over it.

  • This Just In... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ildon ( 413912 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @04:44AM (#12242373)
    Forum drama on GameFAQs! Next on slashdot: water is wet!

  • Shocker in Gloomtown! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DingerX ( 847589 ) on Friday April 15, 2005 @09:00AM (#12243386) Journal
    Okay, it is a poorly written review. And the author does appear fairly full of himself: he dismisses out-of-hand game genres as stuff he doesn't like, then, to top it all off, he manages to get his story on slashdot.
    I mean, heck, I dislike just about all portable games, but if I'm going to write a review (And no, I haven't and won't), at the very least I'll give some witty description of the suffering involved (like "the nauseating experience of scrolling under gobs of gaily-textured molasses" or something equally dumb, but at least evocative), rather than just "I don't like it".

    And it's not surprising that stuff gets canned, especially stuff suspected -- rightly or wrongly -- of being a troll. Heck, here on /., all you need is to slip in some criticism of Apple, Inc., or the Open Source movement, and you'll find that someone will moderate you a Troll. That's why trolls work: because some people have trouble distinguishing between criticism and provocation. Some of those are the forum idiots who get provoked by criticism; and some are the moderator idiots who see criticism as provocation.
    The lesson? If you're gonna slap out some criticism, even in a review that has some balance (as his does), do it with an eye to making the moderator snicker.
    And if you are gonna moderate something, never comment on your actions. An absolute monarch's actions are law, and above scrutiny. Besides, if you smite a review as a troll, it may not be; but the complaint "my review was smitten" that follows necessarily is a troll. Don't bite -- retreat into the mist of mystery and let the white noise of the intardnet do the rest, as the pointed debate on a thousand forums inexorably deteriorates towards yet another case of Godwin's Law.
    • Whether he was treated unfairly or not, he has every right to complain that his post was taken down.

      This guy OWNS a PSP, and didn't like it. That opinion should be heard. I don't like it, but I don't own one. I would be a troll to write a rewiew of it.

      Besides, you tell me if his review was more or less fair than this review of the DS [gamefaqs.com].
    • The review isn't written any better or worse than your own comment DingerX. I found the review helpful because I've been hearing nothing but hype for the PSP and that review (the first negative one I've read) actually made me not want to buy it.

      The review didn't have a vindictive tone, the author seemed lucid and intelligent and I never once thought he was "full of himself".

      So not everyone shares your opinion. Should your remarks be downmodded into oblivion, or removed completely?
  • As a regular user of gamefaqs, I can say that the site is going to shit. The moderators are out of control, you can't post a god damn thing there anymore without getting marked up for trolling, then you look at what actually made it and its a bunch of worthless, retarded threads like "who would win - sam fisher or solid snake?".
    </rant>
  • You know you COULD expent the whole afternoon discussing why gamefaqs is cutting bad reviews ( on a product which is hated by all n fanboys nonetheless) or you could actually visit the site right here [gamefaqs.com] and check there actually are some bad reviews not being deleted?.

    your choice.
    • "... or you could actually visit the site right here and check there actually are some bad reviews not being deleted?" [sic]

      Ok, scanning for negative reviews.

      There weren't any. There was only one PSP review that was 6/10, and even that one said that the PSP was a "technological marvel" but too expensive. I guess there might have been more negative reviews when you posted the link, but it looks like GameFaqs deleted those too.

      So... back to discussion!
  • Any content posted to a web site can be removed if the owner of the web site wishes. If you don't like this, post crap to your own web site, or Usenet.

  • The official word. No, really. (Score:5, Informative)

    by CJayC ( 74131 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @12:16AM (#12252508) Homepage
    First of all, the review posted on the Video Game Ombudsman as "Chris Buzan's GameFAQs PSP Review", isn't. While it is indeed a part of the review he submitted, it's been edited down from what was actually posted (and subsequently removed) from GameFAQs.

    But more to the point, while some people think GameFAQs is operated by a faceless corporation known only in whispered tones as "CNET", in reality very little has changed from the days in which I ran the site all by myself. GameFAQs receives hundreds of codes, reviews, FAQs, and game saves from contributors every week, and they are all reviewed and approved or rejected by a staff of two, including myself. While we do check every submission that comes to us, we don't always get it right. This is precisely why we have a Contributor Problem report form, so any registered user can report anything we've posted that "slipped by" us.

    We review these complaints, determine if they're justified, and if we feel they are, we take appropriate action. That's how our system works, that's exactly how it worked in this case (both times the reviews were posted, they were subsequently reported by site visitors), and we probably remove eight or nine reviews a month out of the few hundred that are posted in this manner. These removals are not influenced by any advertiser or by management, but by our other users.

    Of course, since our users are the ones that report problems with reviews, it should come as no surprise that when a review with a low score is posted for a very popular game or system, it will draw more than its fair share of complaints. Likewise, a review scoring "11/10 Best Game Evar!!" won't draw that level of scrutiny, even if poorly written. This is a phenomenon not unique to GameFAQs, but to any community on the Internet or off; those who go against the norm will always receive more attention, and their flaws are much more likely to be pointed out.

    To sum up: Did we remove the reviews of Mr. Buzan and others bashing the PSP? Yes. Do we remove similar reviews bashing other systems and games on a regular basis? Yes. Is this whole thing blown way out of proportion? Oh, yes.

    Jeff "CJayC" Veasey
    Senior Editor, GameFAQs
  • I've never seen that review, and have been visiting the PSP section since it was first created not long after E3 2003, and marking reviews since the JPN launch. I did see a review much like that, but that has definitely been edited from the one I remember.

    Now, first off, I marked it for removal because A) I see no evidene that he actually owns a PSP. We see reviews like that all the time over there, and they get marked all the time. The sad thing is that I don't own a PSP and could've written a much more c

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