About a week ago, we announced
plans to begin reviewing games and game-related goods. We collected reader feedback and we're ready to share the
details of how we'll handle reviews. This post will be updated periodically as we change how we write reviews, so check
back here if you've got questions about our process.
We'll write official reviews based on our experience with the retail version of a game or product.
In the review, we’ll try to answer the following questions:
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How does it look?
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How does it feel?
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How does it sound?
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Is multiplayer a part of it, and if so, how well is it implemented?
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Is the story compelling, well written, and evocative?
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How innovative or derivative is it?
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How fun or boring is it?
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Is it quality software or full of defects?
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Is the user interface well-designed?
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Is the game accessible to casual players, or is it only for the hardcore gamer?
Not all of these components are important to every game. Sound is less important for mobile titles that gamers typically play in noisy environments or while listening to MP3 players. Multiplayer support is unimportant for simple titles like Minesweeper. We’ll use our judgment.
We’ll still do first impressions of things, and we’ll still review demos at E3, TGS and at other special events, but these new, ”official” reviews will result in a numerical score that will likely be used at places like MetaCritic.com, RottenTomatoes.com, and GameRankings.com.
Scores will range from 0 to 10 in increments of .5, and will be calibrated roughly along the lines of an academic scale. A “70” is the minimum passing score (equal to a D-). A 95 or 100 are outstanding scores. We expect most games will end up in the 60 to 85 range.
We can’t afford to play every game to the end before rendering a score. Some games are unfinishable (World of Warcraft, for instance), and some games are so awful that we’d surely be investigated by OSHA if we were to require anything beyond five minutes of play time. It really depends on the game. As some readers noted, one can develop a great feel for a racing game much more quickly than one can understand a real time strategy game. We will therefore disclose exactly how long we played a game prior to rendering a review. We’re not going to pretend that we played it all the way through. We’ll simply promise that we will give every product a fair chance and we’ll disclose exactly how long we spent with it.
Finally, we’ll be capping our reviews at a thousand words. That’s shorter than your typical hardcore review, but we feel that very few readers actually want to slog through thousands of words. We’ll keep our reviews punchy and to the point. We’ll focus on the important stuff.
In the end, you’ll find that you agree with us sometimes and disagree with us sometimes. That’s how opinions work. If you’ve got a point (or counterpoint) to make, post it in the comments and we’ll get a nice discussion going.
Frequently anticipated questions-
Q: I represent a company and we’d like our product reviewed. How do we get it to you?
A: Please send us details of your product via our tip form. If you don’t hear back from us, there’s a chance that your email was zapped by a spam filter or some other glitch, so try again. We’ll make an effort to respond to every proposal with either a “sorry, we just don’t have the bandwidth to review that right now” or a “Please send it to the following address!”
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Q: What happens to products you review after you’re done reviewing them?
A: None of the Joystiq bloggers keep products we review. We either send it back to the company (if the company wants it back) or we give it away to readers via Joyswag giveaways. We get rid of 100% of reviewed products. We will not be indebted to any company. We want to be free to render brutally honest reviews, and gifts of any sort interfere with a writer’s ability to do that.
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Q: What products are you reviewing, exactly?
Games and hardware (Sony PS2, Sony PSP, Sony PS3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Revolution, PC, Mac), clothing, accessories, books, movies, music.
Other questions? Let us know!
