Never one to beat around the bush when discussing the games industry’s most topical events, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has given his own two cents in regards to how he feels about game reviews.
In a wide-reaching interview with GameSpot about Project Scorpio, the advent of 4K gaming and Microsoft’s competitors, Spencer was asked whether he was satisfied with the reception the Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive ReCore had received upon release, to which he responded:
On the reviews, honestly I thought some of the reviews were a little harsh in terms of their view on the game. I didn’t try to tell anybody that it was a ten. I think we knew, as with any games, that there are certain things… if we started from the beginning and we knew what we’d get, there’s a couple of things we would’ve done slightly differently.
Spencer makes no effort to hide the fact that ReCore suffered from various performance issues upon release, especially in regards to loading times, and while developers Comcept and Armature Studios have since released a patch to address those problems, the damage may have already been done in terms of sales.
It’s not just ReCore that Spencer feels was judged unfairly, though. Citing Forza Horizon 3 as an example, Spencer feels that some reviewers perhaps judge titles poorly purely as click-bait rather than provide an honest opinion.
We’re very proud of how the game ended up. And I think seven, eight, nine, like anywhere in there is fine. Three or four… I mean somebody gave Forza Horizon 3 a four. I think there’s certain reviews that are written more to get clicked on than they are to actually accurately reflect the quality of the game, and that kind of bums me out.
While such provocative attempts at generating traffic no doubt exist on the internet, reviews are, after all, an informed opinion from one individual. And let’s face it, if a game is good, the general consensus more often than not reflects that fact.
