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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7414882" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>All so true...</p><p></p><p>There is a HUGE problem with reviews <em>of almost anything</em> really, and that problem is that people indeed write a review of something when it is WAY TOO EARLY to do so. The consequence is that most reviews are premature rants or raves.</p><p></p><p>With games, I am totally with you that you should really not write a review unless you've actually played it. But guess what? In RPGing people write reviews before even <strong>reading</strong> the damn thing! The merely browse a new book and feel the urge to go tell the world their own largely unqualified opinion.</p><p></p><p>In case of a computer game, IMHO the game should actually even be played <em>to the end of it</em> (if applicable) so that in the review you can evaluate whether the game was satisfying to the end or repetitive, whether the difficulty slope was nice rather than too flat or too steep.</p><p></p><p>After all, you wouldn't write a review of a <strong>novel</strong> or a <strong>movie</strong> after reading only the first few pages right? Books and movies are actually among the few kinds of stuff that leads to good and useful reviews, even tho naturally they are often highly subjective, but at least people tend to read a whole book or watch a whole movie before talking about it.</p><p></p><p>We have also plenty of reviews of consumers products, for example on Amazon. They suffer from similar problems, so if you buy let's say a tablet or mobile phone, almost everyone who writes a review does it on the purchase day, compelled by their desire of sharing their first impression... they need to tell the world how cool their new gadget is and they are so happy, or otherwise share their rage of having bought a piece of junk. So the readers miss out all the information on how well the gadget holds up on the long term, for example does it break easily, does it stop working after a short while, does the battery die and need replacement? And on the other hand, how many ragers' comments of "it doesn't work" are the result of them not even reading the instructions?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7414882, member: 1465"] All so true... There is a HUGE problem with reviews [I]of almost anything[/I] really, and that problem is that people indeed write a review of something when it is WAY TOO EARLY to do so. The consequence is that most reviews are premature rants or raves. With games, I am totally with you that you should really not write a review unless you've actually played it. But guess what? In RPGing people write reviews before even [B]reading[/B] the damn thing! The merely browse a new book and feel the urge to go tell the world their own largely unqualified opinion. In case of a computer game, IMHO the game should actually even be played [I]to the end of it[/I] (if applicable) so that in the review you can evaluate whether the game was satisfying to the end or repetitive, whether the difficulty slope was nice rather than too flat or too steep. After all, you wouldn't write a review of a [B]novel[/B] or a [B]movie[/B] after reading only the first few pages right? Books and movies are actually among the few kinds of stuff that leads to good and useful reviews, even tho naturally they are often highly subjective, but at least people tend to read a whole book or watch a whole movie before talking about it. We have also plenty of reviews of consumers products, for example on Amazon. They suffer from similar problems, so if you buy let's say a tablet or mobile phone, almost everyone who writes a review does it on the purchase day, compelled by their desire of sharing their first impression... they need to tell the world how cool their new gadget is and they are so happy, or otherwise share their rage of having bought a piece of junk. So the readers miss out all the information on how well the gadget holds up on the long term, for example does it break easily, does it stop working after a short while, does the battery die and need replacement? And on the other hand, how many ragers' comments of "it doesn't work" are the result of them not even reading the instructions? [/QUOTE]
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