Swen isn't a game journalist, and I also think that Steam reviews are different because of what I said before.
Steam reviews are just a thumbs up or thumbs down, and people use that to communicate if there is something wrong with the game.
If a game has a mixed score that's a lot more of a warning than if a game gets a 7 or a 6 from IGN because usually that means that there's significant technical issues.
I don't care about reviews but if I see that a game has a mixed or heck even mostly positive score then that makes me second guess and I'll look into it further before buying.
Monster Hunter World is a good example of this, back when I bought it on Steam it had a mixed score because of connectivity issues.
So it made me second guess and research the game more but ultimately I did buy it, but I didn't buy it right away because of that and with other games I've put off buying something because of it.
I also think that people in general trust users more than media outlets, users aren't perfect and there's a lot of dumb reviewings but generally speaking they tend to get cancelled out.
Edit: Also Steam reviews are in your face in the store.
An IGN review is something you have to either seek out yourself or stumble upon on Youtube.
Game journalists are not market experts, I am sure Swen has better insight than them.
Overall, casual players are influenced by review be it Steam or mainstream reviews.
I mean neither is Swen.
You were talking about mainstream reviews I never said anything about Steam until after and he was also talking about metacritic.
Like I said, Steam reviews are totally different.
When you go to the store page it's in your face and people just take tens of thousands of people more seriously than an IGN journalist.
A game getting a 7 from IGN doesn't say much, most people understand that.
A game having mixed or negative reviews on Steam on the other hand just turns on more alarm bells in peoples heads because that's thousands of actual customers and not a person who got it for free working on a website barely anyone takes seriously.
Not to mention that the game has been received positively on Steam too to begin with so it doesn't help your argument.
Swen is also a game developer working on a single game he's not a game journalist that reviews and has insight on hundreds of games.
The video is also from 2015 and he's quoting a friend that said something about it at some point who even knows who and when.
The perception of game journalism has changed drastically and I have no clue how those numbers are even measured. Like how do they even know that there is a correlation there?
IGN on their Baldur's Gate 3 video review currently has 1.7k upvotes and 1.2k downvotes and 140k views.
That's pretty awful tbh, but it's quite indicative too of how seriously people take IGN reviews, game journalism has a crap reputation and even their own readers are aware of that.
The biggest thing that these sites do to help game devs sell more copies is marketing, interviews, articles, ads etc for exposure.
Making people aware that the game exists.
It's the same with movies too, movie reviewers used to be more respected and taken more seriously.
But how many countless movies have been awfully received by movie reviewers but been massively successful vise versa?
Yeah, Steam reviewers are more indicative of a games reputation than freaking IGN and Gamespot.
But the game has been received well on Steam so...
It's silly to say that the game has a bad reputation then.
Edit: Also casual players aka the general masses don't even read game websites.
But casual players will be exposed to Steam reviewers just by the mere fact that they're right there on the store page which again.
Positive.
