Opinion: How useful are user reviews for games?

It’s a system that’s as old as online retail itself, and it’s one that has informed the buying decisions of millions of consumers worldwide. Go to any of the big retail websites such as Amazon or Play and you’ll find it in operation: user ratings.

It’s unique to internet-driven services - the means to find out what fellow consumers feel about the item you’re eyeing, and to in turn proffer your own opinion as a discerning buyer.

But when it comes to the relatively specialised field of mobile gaming, are user ratings quite so useful? Or are they, to the contrary, thoroughly misleading?

This is particularly pertinent at a time when three emerging “next gen” mobile gaming platforms offer a significant user feedback element. The ever-snowballing iPhone Apps store, Nokia’s quietly expanding N-Gage service and the new kid on the block, Google’s Android Marketplace, are all interested in what you have to say.

The trouble is, they also want to know what the idiot over there thinks of their product. And if the internet has taught us one thing it’s that the idiots tend to shout loudest.

In a recent post on the All About N-Gage forum, the question was put to users of the service: “Is Something Going To Be Done About The "Game Reviews"?

Arena member David Kinsella went on to display a number of examples of far-from-helpful user reviews, such as this gem for Snakes Subsonic: “I love this game its great Good game. Add me if u want.”

As if this wince-inducing appraisal wasn’t enough, said user went on to award the game a mystifyingly disproportionate one out of five.

Kinsella also pointed out that the service had become something of a glorified dating service, with a number of posts equating to ‘add me if you’re a woman.’ It’s apparent that, in many cases, little or no time has been spent with the game under review.

Indeed, it’s Nokia’s continued allowance of user reviews without the pre-requisite of having bought the game that rankles with many users. Surely, if a user has paid good money for a game, he is far more likely to offer objective (not to mention relevant) feedback.

It’s a lesson that’s already been learned by Apple, who came in for some rare criticism from publishers for the very same thing soon after the release of the Apps store. Users would often offer glib, meaningless comments on games they had clearly never even touched.

All this changed towards the end of September 2008, when Apple quietly rolled out an update which tells you in no uncertain terms: “You must own this item to write a Customer Review” if you attempt to post an ill-qualified comment.

While this rectifies one particular problem, though, it does little to solve the inherent unreliability of a system where every Tom, Dick and Harry can add his ten cents.

User reviews are laudably democratic and empowering, but as wise man John Simon once said: “Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant.”

That’s not to say that you, discerning Pocket Gamer reader, are in any way ignorant. But for every insightful comment found on any given user review section, there tends to be at least as many examples amounting to little more than ‘DIS GAME SUX!!!’

The solution, as ever, is to seek balance. Naturally, as someone who gets paid for his critical verdict, I’m more likely to come down on the side of professional journalism being the be all and end all.

But there’s no doubting the value of an honest, concise viewpoint from someone who doesn't have to think about the various things that critics have to think about.

By applying your own acutely honed dross-filter, a combination of expert opinion backed up by the comments of discerning users, will more often than not lead you to a satisfactory buying decision.