There's A Problem With 'Monster Hunter: World' Review Scores, But Fixing It Is Tough
There's A Problem With 'Monster Hunter: World' Review Scores, But Fixing It Is Tough
Dave Thier , Contributor I write about video games and technology. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Credit: Capcom
Monster Hunter: World
Reviews for Monster Hunter: World are out, and things are looking up for Capcom and its quixotic series. The game now sits at an impressive 91 on Metacritic, with a couple of perfect scores thrown in there for good measure. Those are the sort of scores that have people booting up consoles and heading out to Gamestop. I wonder, however, if all of them will find the game that scores promised them when they start playing. Some will surely, instead, find an obtuse, slow-to-start grind that doesn't explain itself well or generate much momentum for hours of play. They might wonder why every review they read gave such a lofty score, and they'd be right to wonder.
Most sites follow a familiar pattern with established franchises that have dedicated fan bases, whether it's Dark Souls, Civilization, Monster Hunter or Assassin's Creed. The game comes up for review, and we go to our reviewer pool and grab the Monster Hunter person to take up the review -- someone that's played the other games, someone that knows the series. It's only natural to lean into that idea -- someone might say: "Hey Dave, do you want to do do the Monster Hunter: World review?"
And I'll say: "No thanks, I really don't know anything about that series." I have to imagine a similar conversation happens at all sorts of places.
It's a natural response to go with your expertise, and being knowledgeable is an important part of our jobs as critics. But I wonder if it's always the right way to go about reviewing these games. There's a notable lack of diversity at most of the major reviewing sites: reviews of this game are written by fans and evaluated from the perspective of someone already inside the franchise. What you end up missing is a new player's perspective on the title, and I don't mean a fan that qualifies their praise of the game by approximating a newcomer's lens on the thing, because that's an admirable but ultimately difficult goal. I mean a genuine newcomer reviewing the game: picking it up and playing it until they finish it -- or run out of steam -- and then saying what they think about it.
Credit: Capcom
Monster Hunter: World
I mentioned expertise, but part of our jobs is to be knowledgeable about video games writ large and to apply that knowledge to a range of situations. Reviewing new games would be impossible if we only wrote about franchises we were familiar with, after all. I wonder what would happen if Monster Hunter: World were an entirely new IP -- would people be so forgiving of its excesses, or its lack of onboarding? Would people ask for better communication or less grinding? If we were to look at this as just another game and evaluate it with the same criteria we would any other game, we might end up with lower scores. Or we might not! In general I just don't think game journalism as an industry asks those questions of franchises like this one often enough.
An example: Forbes' Ollie Barder criticized people for comparing the game to Dark Souls, but Dark Souls is a useful reference point for many people and the combat clearly falls into the same broad category. It doesn't matter which series came first because we're here now in 2018. An expert might scoff at a comparison that might be useful and important to most other people. It could happen with positive things, too: a fan might just see a Palico as a standard part of the game, but someone like me sees it as a fantastically charming and surprising addition to title like this.
The fan perspective is important here, and longtime Monster Hunter players need someone to play the game and tell them whether or not it's a good Monster Hunter game, what's changed, and whether it's worth their time. But as with other series, I worry that that's the only perspective that's being represented in the mainstream conversation. Capcom is clearly making a push for a bigger audience by releasing on PS4 and Xbox One, and someone who just sees the ads and wants to swing at a giant lizard with a giant hammer deserves to know if this is going to be the breezy hack and slash the marketing can make it look like.
Review scores are a tricky business because of the industry-wide power of the review aggregator Metacritic. While some excesses like Metacritic-tied developer bonuses seem to be more a thing of the past, a game's score on the site is still a giant part of its commercial success. And so I understand the impulse to make sure you're serious about handing out a lower score -- not to say that you don't do it when it's warranted, just to make sure it's warranted when you do it. But ultimately our job here is to inform the wider gaming public about whether or not they'll want to buy a game, and I wonder if we're doing that as well as we can be by mostly assigning experts to write these reviews.
The idea that something can be a good game or not a good game is always a ludicrous concept, true trainwrecks aside. Some people might love Super Meat Boy, others might call it too hard and stop playing in moments. I love Stardew Valley, but plenty others would call it boring. Some people essentially only play Madden, but if someone comes at that game without a deep knowledge of football they'll be more lost than a new player in EVE Online. "Core" gamers, like the establishment in any medium, want there to be a universal standard for quality, but the idea a false idol. Some people would call Ulysses a terrible book, and they'd be right for themselves and the majority of other people. The only way to address that problem is with a strong diversity in viewpoints, and that's not something I always see in a cross-section of larger reviewing sites.
The obvious answer, at least on a small scale, would be for me to review this game myself, which -- working on it! Maybe not for a scored review because I'm not sure I've got the time or the inclination to finish it right now -- another issue -- but expect more impressions, certainly.
-------------------------------
There used to be a big discussion, around here, on video game reviews and metacritic. This article is an interesting perspective.
There's A Problem With 'Monster Hunter: World' Review Scores, But Fixing It Is Tough
Dave Thier , Contributor I write about video games and technology. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Monster Hunter: World
Reviews for Monster Hunter: World are out, and things are looking up for Capcom and its quixotic series. The game now sits at an impressive 91 on Metacritic, with a couple of perfect scores thrown in there for good measure. Those are the sort of scores that have people booting up consoles and heading out to Gamestop. I wonder, however, if all of them will find the game that scores promised them when they start playing. Some will surely, instead, find an obtuse, slow-to-start grind that doesn't explain itself well or generate much momentum for hours of play. They might wonder why every review they read gave such a lofty score, and they'd be right to wonder.
Most sites follow a familiar pattern with established franchises that have dedicated fan bases, whether it's Dark Souls, Civilization, Monster Hunter or Assassin's Creed. The game comes up for review, and we go to our reviewer pool and grab the Monster Hunter person to take up the review -- someone that's played the other games, someone that knows the series. It's only natural to lean into that idea -- someone might say: "Hey Dave, do you want to do do the Monster Hunter: World review?"
And I'll say: "No thanks, I really don't know anything about that series." I have to imagine a similar conversation happens at all sorts of places.
It's a natural response to go with your expertise, and being knowledgeable is an important part of our jobs as critics. But I wonder if it's always the right way to go about reviewing these games. There's a notable lack of diversity at most of the major reviewing sites: reviews of this game are written by fans and evaluated from the perspective of someone already inside the franchise. What you end up missing is a new player's perspective on the title, and I don't mean a fan that qualifies their praise of the game by approximating a newcomer's lens on the thing, because that's an admirable but ultimately difficult goal. I mean a genuine newcomer reviewing the game: picking it up and playing it until they finish it -- or run out of steam -- and then saying what they think about it.
Monster Hunter: World
I mentioned expertise, but part of our jobs is to be knowledgeable about video games writ large and to apply that knowledge to a range of situations. Reviewing new games would be impossible if we only wrote about franchises we were familiar with, after all. I wonder what would happen if Monster Hunter: World were an entirely new IP -- would people be so forgiving of its excesses, or its lack of onboarding? Would people ask for better communication or less grinding? If we were to look at this as just another game and evaluate it with the same criteria we would any other game, we might end up with lower scores. Or we might not! In general I just don't think game journalism as an industry asks those questions of franchises like this one often enough.
An example: Forbes' Ollie Barder criticized people for comparing the game to Dark Souls, but Dark Souls is a useful reference point for many people and the combat clearly falls into the same broad category. It doesn't matter which series came first because we're here now in 2018. An expert might scoff at a comparison that might be useful and important to most other people. It could happen with positive things, too: a fan might just see a Palico as a standard part of the game, but someone like me sees it as a fantastically charming and surprising addition to title like this.
The fan perspective is important here, and longtime Monster Hunter players need someone to play the game and tell them whether or not it's a good Monster Hunter game, what's changed, and whether it's worth their time. But as with other series, I worry that that's the only perspective that's being represented in the mainstream conversation. Capcom is clearly making a push for a bigger audience by releasing on PS4 and Xbox One, and someone who just sees the ads and wants to swing at a giant lizard with a giant hammer deserves to know if this is going to be the breezy hack and slash the marketing can make it look like.
Review scores are a tricky business because of the industry-wide power of the review aggregator Metacritic. While some excesses like Metacritic-tied developer bonuses seem to be more a thing of the past, a game's score on the site is still a giant part of its commercial success. And so I understand the impulse to make sure you're serious about handing out a lower score -- not to say that you don't do it when it's warranted, just to make sure it's warranted when you do it. But ultimately our job here is to inform the wider gaming public about whether or not they'll want to buy a game, and I wonder if we're doing that as well as we can be by mostly assigning experts to write these reviews.
The idea that something can be a good game or not a good game is always a ludicrous concept, true trainwrecks aside. Some people might love Super Meat Boy, others might call it too hard and stop playing in moments. I love Stardew Valley, but plenty others would call it boring. Some people essentially only play Madden, but if someone comes at that game without a deep knowledge of football they'll be more lost than a new player in EVE Online. "Core" gamers, like the establishment in any medium, want there to be a universal standard for quality, but the idea a false idol. Some people would call Ulysses a terrible book, and they'd be right for themselves and the majority of other people. The only way to address that problem is with a strong diversity in viewpoints, and that's not something I always see in a cross-section of larger reviewing sites.
The obvious answer, at least on a small scale, would be for me to review this game myself, which -- working on it! Maybe not for a scored review because I'm not sure I've got the time or the inclination to finish it right now -- another issue -- but expect more impressions, certainly.
-------------------------------
There used to be a big discussion, around here, on video game reviews and metacritic. This article is an interesting perspective.
are people really complaining about a lack of instant gratification?
