Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Negative media reviews. Bad reputation?

Not a fan of reviewing EA, but it seems there is a consensus for a bad reputation.

it seems that most of the complaints here in the forum were also endorsed by the general media.

It seems that Larian has a lot of work to reverse BG3 reputation.

IGN 7/10

https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-review

Gamespot 6/10

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/baldurs-gate-3-review/1900-6417601/

Well, 22k reviews on steam and 'Very Positive'. This is the only kind of reviews I trust.

I don't even know why they are reviewing the early access when they usually only review fully released games.

Mainstream media and some midsize reviews are in consensus.

So it is a "specialized feedback" and not also not a "vocal minority".

The IGN review is kinda fair. The gamespot review I don't know... it sounds like he did the whole run only with shadowheart lol

Went through both articles quickly, they seem to highlight different issues to those brought up here. Some of them contradict each other , others agree.

We'll see ^^

Those reviews will be 10/10 when the game releases regardless of the changes based on forums.

They did a review with one of the bg2 designers back in the day :P Great times.

French media : jeuxvideo.com 14/20

I don't find strange to test a 60€ EA if... they consider it is an EA.
But I guess everyone agree to say that the game is promising and I'm sure it's gonna be a 18/20 at release whatever happens during EA^^

A critical review is better than a fan review. Praising unfinished product at this stage would be rather untrue.

For what is worth, Hades EA scored 8.8

https://youtu.be/run2ctuEjbY?t=220

It's the exact opposite for me. I don't automatically trust pro reviews, but I do automatically distrust and reject average Joe reviews like Steam reviews. They have zero value to me (for everything, not just games). Having said that, I also agree that reviewing an EA is not quite fair. Providing feedback, including hard, cold, no holds barred feedback, is both appropriate and necessary. But I don't see the value of saying "7/10" for an EA game.

Man, I genuinely disliked that Gamespot (p)review, even on the praises.

It boils down to "Technical glitches, your companions are too mean, I don't understand the mechanics and fights are too hard. Where's my easy mode?".

And on the positive side: "There's a lot of DOS 2 here".

Wow.

Watch the IGN review for Path of Exile, and then tell me again why I should take these big outlets seriously?
They're a meme for a reason.

With that said I think it says something that people think a 7 is a bad score.
Especially for EA.
It's why I can't take numerical scores seriously either they're so useless.

Edit: Also, not only is IGN infamous for plagiarism.
But also just downright stupidity where they've literally reviewed the wrong game altogether and in the RE2 Remake for example where they didn't understand that there were different scenarios and they just played a single A route and then reviewed it based on that.





Kinda, if a game is really poorly received on Steam tho there's usually severe technical problems or the devs did something really bad.
Not saying that people don't reviewbomb ofc they do, but usally there's some widespread legitimate problems if it has a poor rating which acts as a good warning.

I haven't play Hades myself but heard many good opinions about it. Remember it was EA of indie game, which cost 1/3 of BG3 price and has no burden of it's predecessors. Easier to live up expectations, when there are none. I found the line from Bulgakov's "The Master and Margerita" “I like to sit low, it is not so dangerous to fall from low.” most accurate.
I have play BG3 EA, and while, I must admit, I really enjoyed it, there is still much to work on. And that's good! More room for improvements, resting on your laurels is last thing needed. Keep up keeping up, like classics says.

The "bad points" of the Gamespot "review"

"Plenty of glitches and bugs remain, including numerous crashes to desktop

Conversations and cinematic scenes are particularly rough and impede both the enjoyment and legibility of the story

There's a strange snarkiness to much of the writing that leaves few likeable characters

The difficulty in general is uneven, forcing an over-reliance on quicksaving and quickloading"

2 points about technical issues, which are EXPECTED in EA, one personal dislike about the writing style, which I instead like as it reminds me of the Belgariad/Mallorean, and of course the last, most ridiculous one "IT IS DUR DIFFICULT TEH HORROR".

Is this an example of a review to trust?

As Swen said in one of his GDC talks, the closer the game is to 9.0 in mainstream media the better are the sales. Even decimals.

Of course, it is EA, but it is concerning for Larian. Initial sales are based on hype, but if they want to sell more they have to deliver a solid product.

In gamespot poll, 57% is waiting for the final version.




It is the same media that gave DOS2 a 10/10 and has been marketing BG3. So their opinion matters and is influential.

Alanah Pearce who's a former IGN journalist talked about game journalism a while back and she mentioned that reviews basically don't affect sales at all and I've seen a lot of articles about this before based on research on game reviews and sales.
IGN for example has a lot of sponsor deals but they don't really get that many views on their reviews in the grand scheme of things and they're also a walking meme.
They're more of a marketing arm of the game industry, it's more about exposure.
And very few make their purchase decisions based on these reviews, it's very rare that anyone is swayed one way or the other.

It's also worth noting that AAA games tend to get 9's a lot more often too which are obviously going to sell more, it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and IGN mostly reviews big titles.
If game reviews did affect sales to any noticable effect then game publishers would be a lot scummier about it and actively try and pay off and pressure reviewers but it doesn't really happen it's more of a myth.
And the people that even visit these sites and especially engage with them is a very tiny group of people, even less when you account for actual target demographics for specific games.

Of course it is not an exact science and there are no meta-analyses, but:


https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014...reviews-lead-to-stronger-sales-on-steam/

Swen also at timestamp 25:00 (I believe he mentions later too).

https://youtu.be/c-4gxB9ulHk?t=1500

Honestly I consider "professional" reviewers to be in the same league as the average joe over on steam. It's all personal opinions and maybe one of them will align with yours but they're not any more reliable than anyone else.

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.