Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

[Shawn Zipay]

A developer that directly worked on Dragon Age II has decided to take matters into his own hands against the decidedly negative user review scores at Metacritic. He opted to pen his own user review, under the name of Avanost, giving it a rather outstanding 10/10 perfect score with a blurb that reads like a press release.

The immersion and combat of this game are unmatched! A truly moving and fun epic. Anything negative you'll see about this game is an overreaction of personal preference. For what it is, it is flawlessly executed and endlessly entertaining

Reddit user, GatoFiasco, decided to call out the user review once he suspected it was extremely fishy.

Since then, a response was issued to Kotaku directly from EA, in which the company defends the user review from Avanost, comparing it to Obama voting for himself in the last election.

"Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

If it's a user review and not directly altering "professional" reviews of the game, does it really matter in the long run? But that's not up for us to decide, what do you think?

[Stev0esque]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

its still a bit up-himself to do that in my opinion. Hell, If I developed a game my user review would probably poke holes in it just so I can point out what I should do next time... if no one has beaten me to it.

[stilla-killa]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

I am having fun with it so far.

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

Everyone thinks they made the best game in the world.

Look at 402 and JD_2020. They think their games don't suck.

You'd have to have a certain level of arrogance in order to work in the entertainment industry.

Hell, you need to be confident in a lot of professions. I'm pretty confident in what I do. It helps me get by to think that I'm better at shooting and killing than my enemies.

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

There's a difference between people like 402 and JD_2020 because what you hear from them is what their job is, PR. You can't compare them doing their job, which means not saying anything bad about the game the company they are employed by makes, and someone who worked on the game using an online persona to try and sneak in a review to combat negative user opinions.

[Vreki]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

"Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

Yes, but did Obama create an alias on a political blog site and post:
The charisma and intelligence of this president is unmatched! A truly compassionate and visionary man. Anything negative you'll see about this president is an overreaction of personal preference. For what it is, it is flawlessly executed and endlessly beneficial


Voting for your own work means your recommend it, but reviewing your own work is a bit narcissistic.

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

The only difference is that Obama and most game devs pay buttloads of money for someone else to say those things about them instead of just saying it themselves.

[Infernalis]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

It shows how low Bioware have sank.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Dragon Age II Developer Rates His Own Game on Metacritic, Gets Caught

The thing with metacritic is that it takes the whole of the reviews anyway. One 10/10 isnt going to change much. In the end, the game has to stand on its own and one 10/10 isnt going to change that.

Its like all the other reviews I read for PC equipment. I look at the overall score and then read the pros and the cons. You find a lot of the cons are people not knowing what they are doing, but if its con after con after con, its safe to assume there is an issue.

Crunch