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Did Polygon Really “Lie” About The PS4’s Remote Capabilities?

Ben-Dutka 37 Comments

As one might expect, this is the kind of inflammatory story that ruffles many a feather.

Polygon is a generally well-respected website but now they're facing accusations of bias and even flat-out lying during their in-depth live-stream presentation of the Xbox One .

The "lie" – I put it in quotations because I'm leaving it up to the readers to decide – was spotted by FuriousFanboys , a site decidedly less well-respected. However, they may have a point: After a demo of Dead Rising 3 where it seems that the voice commands had trouble registering on the Xbox One, Editor-in-Chief Chris Grant said several times that the one advantage Xbox One has over PS4 is that Microsoft's system supports remote controls and the PS4 does not.

He said services like Netflix are better on the Xbox One because of this remote support, and he was quoted as saying that the PS4 "does not use remotes at all." You can see through a series of Tweets the response this received. The PS4, like the PS3, fully supports HDMI-CEC controls, and most TVs today have a remote that can be used to operate the PS4. Grant's explanation is that while the PS4 can be controlled "by a specific TV through HDMI," this isn't the same as remote support.

It seems clear now that Grant was referring to universal remotes, and he simply misspoke when he said the PS4 "does not use remotes at all." However, there have been some rumors that Polygon may have some Microsoft funding of some sort. That isn't proven, of course, but maybe it's worth mentioning, don't you think?

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The Nasty Business Of Using Review Scores To Drive Traffic

Ben-Dutka 49 Comments

This is one of those tricky, sticky, controversial topics that can incite plenty of anger and outright hostility.

But for the sake of consumer understanding, it should be addressed. Let's take a very recent example to kick things off; you might be familiar:

Naughty Dog's The Last Of Us currently holds a Metascore of about 96, making it one of the highest-rated games in video game history. Personally, I agree with the majority . However, as always, there are a few statistical outliers; in this case, it's Polygon's much-publicized 7.5 score for what many have deemed a total masterpiece.

Critic Philip Kollar has taken a lot of flak for that score, and then he got into it with Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida on Twitter. That exchange can be seen here . First, Yoshida takes a little supposed jab by asking, "who are you?" This is followed by a very interesting statement:

"Congratulations, you must have gotten lots of clicks for the review, incl. mine, I would have not read it otherwise."

See now, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Let me give you some insight on this from my perspective, and that perspective includes 13 years of writing for various gaming websites: Reviews for big games often equals big traffic. Everyone wants to read about the latest hotly anticipated title, especially if it's either A. scoring huge, or B. scoring well below what was anticipated. Either option generates plenty of discussion, which in turn generates traffic. However, a site doesn't really have any control over the general reception; it can only control its own review score.

And herein lies an obvious problem, as Yoshida so clearly stated above. One of the best ways to generate traffic is to go against the status quo. It's the easiest thing in the world: If your site needs a traffic boost and a big game is coming up, a regrettably common tactic is to wait for the initial round of reviews, and then run precisely counter. And when you run counter, you do so without any hesitation; go full on. If the game is getting 9s and 10s, give it a 4. If it's getting 4s, give it a 10. You get my drift. Sadly and unfortunately for consumers, this is a very real occurrence. Hey, websites are free; they need to generate revenue, yes?

That's no excuse, of course, but that's the reason editors will give. As for this particular situation, I'm not sure that's what happened. Polygon is too big to care that much about extra traffic. The only question I have concerns how they go about reviewing games:

"Games are not scored until a review is written and finalized. Once a review is complete, the reviewer meets with a group of senior editors to determine which score on our scale properly reflects the text as written. We do not write with scores in mind."

In my honest opinion, that's wrong. Meeting with a group only dilutes everything and completely eradicates the one voice, the one cohesive opinion, that is necessary for writing an accurate review. Trying to incorporate the opinions and thoughts of a big group doesn't do anybody any good, especially when a portion of the analysis is subjective. That's a critically flawed policy in my eyes. That being said, it doesn't mean the reviewer went out of his way to score The Last Of Us low for the sake of traffic. I doubt there was an ulterior motive.

There may have been a personal ulterior motive but hey, this is a crapshoot. Everyone is human. No critic can be 100% objective at all times and for all reviews. And if something about this game really got to Koller, well, so be it. But I just wanted to clarify the subject for those who aren't quite familiar. Yes, it can and does happen. No, I don't believe it happened in this case. It doesn't seem logical.

Related Game(s): The Last Of Us

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