Should Giant Bomb allow official 'guest reviews'

Reviews mean little without a background of the reviewers likes and dislikes. At least as far as this site has taught me. I prefer the reviews where I can already have a background in what the reviewer seems as important. For that I have to go either here or main reviewers on other sites. Now if they were to establish someone else that did more reviews that over time I could get to know, then maybe.

Why not, if it means we get more opinions on games the guys either don't have time to review or don't want to.

@tehbull: I mean, its quite clear that giantbomb is moving away from the written review in most cases. I don't think it would hurt if they had a few contributors who could consistently review games, so that they could establish a voice through giantbomb.

I think it would be fitting given the dearth of reviews lately. It seems that GB is focusing on touching as many games as possible rather than spending too much time on any one thing, which fair enough given the volume of games releasing, but the difference between reading Austin's review of Homefront and watching the quick look is significant and that's why I would like more reviews on the site, from whatever source. Getting across the editor's voices and maintaining them in the site's body of reviews is all well and good but given the infrequent nature of reviews lately I would take more reviews from freelancers than none at all.

Nah, I don't need reviews for the sake of having another rating on another game from another person I've never heard of before. The only reason I read the reviews on the site now is because I'm familiar with what the GB dudes like/dislike and how their opinions generally clash/line up with mine.

@samfo: sure. I'm all for a consistent reviewer. But that is less "guest" and more "another staff member" I don't need a random voice every week.

I don't think the site needs more reviews just for the sake of having more reviews. I like the current format, if one of the guys wants to write a review on a game then they write one. I especially don't need more reviews from random freelancers, if I want to read things like that I can just skim through Metacritic and find dozens.

Reviews? No.

Articles? Sure.

No for me.

I'm sure people still hold value in reviews nowadays, but a gameplay video does a lot, lot more to sell me on a game than a review. And no, quick looks don't count for me considering how polarizing and opinionated the GB guys can be. I just want commentary-free gameplay.

Plus, GB's tastes in games is the polar opposite of mine. At this point, I'm only here because I like GB's humor and I just don't have as much time as I used to back when I was in college. So I can't watch their full videos anymore (except Demo Derby; that stuff is the best and I will always make sure to set aside some time for that).

Reviews only mean anything when you know the reviewer's personality, likes, dislikes, etc. There's no shortage of opinions to be found for games. Reviews are becoming less and less important. I think adding more reviews (from staff or contributors) is a step backwards. I like the idea of the small GB crew looking at what they want, when they want. Throwing reviews up for everything (especially by people we don't know) is the opposite of what I want. I'm all for more members posting reviews of their own on a blog or the forums, however.

Reviews no. But I like guests on quick looks. The Danny O'Dwyer teaching Jeff and Dan about cricket and rugby quick looks are by far my favourite thing on this site these days.

I'd like to see reviews. Or not really reviews in the traditional video game review style but actual critiques on specific games.

I wouldnt mind if they stopped reviews all together honestly, its not really what this site is about imo.

Not sure about reviews. They only have meaning if we know the context; by which I mean, listening to them in the podcast or watching them comment in a quick look is more informative than a score and a few paragraphs. Of those, there are a lot on the internet.

Without guest reviewers being able to argue their opinion to some of the crew on the site, it would not be different than purely user reviews.

I'd rather have more guest columns than standard reviews. Something like Rowan Kaiser's column on the Dragon Age DLC. It's probably easier to do now that there is a guest column pipeline of sort anyway.

That seems pointless. Reviews by people you don't really know are already everywhere.

No, unless it's from people that have been at the site previously (Austin, Patrick, etc). The appeal of a GB review is we are able to understand the reviewer's voice better than if we went to some random review found on metacritic, because we hear them talk about games every week. If that's lost, I have zero interest in reading the review.

Remember when video reviews were a thing? That seems so long ago.

I kinda think it's worthless. I visit this site for the youtube personality aspects, the interactions of the main crew. Reviews is the odd man out already, something they brought with them from Gamestop that doesn't actually fit much with their unscripted video output. But at least it's these guys' reviews. I don't really listen to 8-4 or read the guest columns, and I wouldn't be more interested in guest reviews.

I'm all for a Rich Gallup or Greg Kasavin review.

Possibly yes, but with the caveat that it only really makes sense for recurring guest contributors. A review is a lot more valuable if you know the reviewer's history/likes, or at least have a number of other reviews from the same author.

That said, there's plenty of places to go if you want non-GB staff reviews (even on GB you have user reviews - I've published 15 so far FWIW), so I'm not really sure it'd be worth doing.

I'd rather have editorials on games rather than strict reviews, I haven't found regular reviews all that interesting in a long time.

A new voice every once in a while for articles is fine, but I need a certain amount of history with a reviewer for their work to mean anything to me. If they had one or two independent contractors putting out reviews on the site regularly, I would be okay with that. It would take me several reviews from the new voice(s) to get a real read on them, but they would be useful in time.

I wish the GB staff would do some more writing. i know it's more and more for a niche audience and it doesn't really make them much money, but I want it regardless. When one of them writes a review, they're noticeably more articulate when discussing their opinion of the game in question during a podcast/video of some kind.

If it was a more review-focused site, yes. That's not really what this site's been about, though.

Having a site as personality driven as Giant Bomb. Then having random people come in and do reviews kind of defeats the point.

I would also say that I wish Austin had gotten to do more in depth pieces whilst he was here rather than having to run the guest contributer program. More than once he would come up with a great premise on the beast cast for a piece that he didn't get to write.

I'm not sure if this is in response to something said on the Bombcast or not but personally I think guest reviews could be just fine especially if they come from a regular pool of freelancers or known personalities. Like if Steve Gaynor were to write a review of some cyberpunk game because he had downtime between projects I'd totally be into that or if Rob Zachny had a review of a new strategy game I think I'd really dig it and it would add something to the site that I don't think we'd get elsewhere.

Important for people to remember at one point for all of us the crew were strangers to us individually and giving people a shot is important for building up future relationships. Also should remember people like Jeff have handled freelance contributions in the past so he knows a thing or two about managing something like that. Key thing is to have a general review philosophy that can be given to a guest reviewer as a guide.

I'd rather see community members writing more user reviews, personally. It could give readers a chance to get to know the reviewers, which I think is key in knowing how that person's tastes line up with their own.

I don't really come to the site for written reviews, and no offense to the community, but I don't really have any interest in reading written reviews by anybody here.

Nah, reviews are such a secondary thing at this point. They'll be stuck on the Bombcast trying to talk about an outsider's review. Unnecessary, I think.

Like a lot of people here seem to have answered I'm going to have to say no. The reason I follow Giantbomb is because I respect their opinions on games, and a review from a guest that I don't follow or even know about wouldn't do anything for me since I don't know their background on what kind of games they like or even if I agree with their general opinions.

I'm all about those guest articles though.

The reason I come here is for the personalities of the crew. To have random people who I know nothing about write reviews for games doesn't do anything for me.

I'd say no. I really like the guest pieces, because they allow the writer to focus on something that's important to them, and they can really bring their own personality to the table. It's a way for someone who might be lesser known to bring something interesting/unique to the table and share it with a site that has a strong (and largely positive) community.

With reviews, that's less the case. I never really came to GB for reviews at any point. I like it when they do review stuff, but primarily because I'm so familiar with each of the staff members that I can get a lot from reading a review they've written. Whereas freelance reviews wouldn't have that. There's plenty of other sites who do hire freelancers for reviews, and I'll happily read their stuff, but it would feel somewhat out of place on GB. I come to this site for the people who work for this site, and the content they produce. As I said, the guest column makes sense as a way to say "Hey, you should check this writer out!" - but I don't feel like reviews work nearly so well for that.

I guess I wouldn't be against it, but like others have said articles/editorials would probably be better. I don't come here for reviews anyway.

I can't be the only one that remember when the site went through a short period of having written content (was it just reviews or both reviews and articles?) from free lancers. It wasn't exactly a popular move.

@turambar: You aren't and it wasn't. The whole point of this place is the personalities, so it really didn't fit. At least the current guest stuff feels like it's coming from people with vested interest and passion in their chosen topics.

Definitely, although I think only staff reviews should get submitted to Metacritic.

Either that they should stop doing reviews altogether, because at this point Gb reviews stuff so sporadically and often days after release it's basically worthless in terms of buying advice. The reason I still read them is basically for entertainment value anymore.

as it is now, certain types of games have zero shot at ever getting reviewed (pretty much any RPG like the Witcher, I seriously doubt Final Fantasy XV or even Persona 5 will get scored. God Help you if you are an MMORPG). And I get why they do things the way they do for Quality of life reasons. But still Might as well farm them out to somebody who would actually be willing to do it. As it is now, GB only seems to review zeitgeist Indie games and 10-20 AAA Action Adventure or shooter titles. Neither of which ppl probably need much help deciding whether to buy or not since those games tend to be short.

as far as the personality thing goes- is it really better for some major games not to get scored at all? I think that concern could be addressed by having a regular crew of freelancers. So that they become a known commodity. Every new person is unknown at first anyway. But I get that that may not be the best use of their time and money.

Would be kinda neat if they just picked their favorite user reviews and used it until when/if a formal review gets written.

I think it depends on why you are reading the review in the first place. If you use them for purchasing advice, especially from a purely mechanical or technical standpoint (does this run well, how are the controls, how long is it, etc), then sure, it's better to have reviews up for as many titles as you can. But if you read a review because your tastes match with the person reviewing it, or because you are interested in reading what a specific member of the crew thought about it, then having a freelancer (or multiple freelancers) write reviews is worthless to you. There's something to be said for just having new people writing reviews so you can eventually get a feel for what they like, but they'll never be as big of a presence (and hence you'll never get quite the same level of familiarity) without also appearing on video or on the Bombcast.

For me, I never use reviews as purchasing advice beyond how things perform in a technical or mechanical context (which I can easily get elsewhere), and instead read them because I'm interested in finding out what a specific person thought about a game. Whether they loved it or hated it is irrelevant to me; I just enjoy reading what they write. I can't see myself caring about what a random freelancer thinks, in the same way that I didn't care about what Dan thought until I got used to seeing him in videos and started getting a feel for his personality.

So it's possible a freelancer could build that kind of rapport, but they'd have to be incredibly active in the community/comments if they aren't going to show up in anything else. But that's just me.

I come for GiantBomb, not some of the "freelancers" loosely attached to people on this website that I don't really wanna hear from!

I totally get that, because frankly the way you use them is the way I use them too. Although if you are reading a review because your tastes match the reviewer isn't that a kind of purchasing advice (i.e. I'll read Brad's reviews of Starcraft because I know he knows the series well)?

But how does it help anybody to have no review at all on games like Witcher 3? Granted they can't and won't hit everything, but there are some genres that just have no chance on here (RPGs, Sports to name a few) even if they show up at GotY time.

Either way you don't have the opinion of the personality you know and respect. But at least if it's farmed out in some fashion there is a opinion on it to someone else who might want one. And if you don't care for the reviewer you could just ignore it.

I'm struggling to see the downside other than cost to the site.

Guest contributors is one thing. Guest reviewers are basically freelanced reviews, from people who aren't on staff, probably won't record a Quick Look, stream the game, or talk about it on a podcast. I'd say no.

That said I was glad their review output increased when Austin was brought onboard (maybe Jeff and others wanted to get back to writing reviews too. I haven't heard of anything official about why they started posting more reviews lately.) I think there was one year where the site published 13 reviews for an entire year. I know videos and podcasts are this site's bread and butter now, but I still think it is important to have reviews for some of the bigger or more personal games. Not everybody is going to go back to the May 2016 podcasts to find out what everybody thought of DOOM, as an example.

Review? No. It has zero interest to me if I don't know the reviewer.

I dunno about reviews. As others have said, video and personality seems to be the industry trend these days.

That said, I'd maybe like to see some kind of recurring feature where someone actually digs into a game a bit. Not a review per se, but more like a deeper breakdown of gameplay, mechanics, artstyle, etc. and why it works or doesn't. Particularly in comparison to similar games.

I think for heavily recurring guests the answer for me is Yes.

But random one-off reviews from non-GB Staff seems to miss the point of this website.

If you want written reviews, there are hundreds of sites that do that.
Why does Giantbomb need it?

Oh yeah, 100%. I just worded my point poorly; I mean that if you read a person's reviews primarily because your tastes match with theirs, a freelancer stepping in to review games gives you basically no value, as that idea would even extend to other members of the crew (if Jeff reviews a game you would have liked to get Brad's opinion on, for instance).

I can only speak from the selfish perspective, so yes, while I may not get any value from bringing in guest reviewers, it's absolutely possible that others might find it in just having a review up there in the first place. I consider them (at this point, though it wasn't always like this) to be a treat or a bit of a bonus; since the business model has moved away from reviews as a traffic generator and into personality-driven video content as the main revenue source, just the act of putting up a review tells me that a game has breached a certain interest threshold for the reviewer, positively or negatively, and that I should pay attention. However, I don't really need a review on even big titles like The Witcher 3 as I can get that elsewhere, and being able to say "Giant Bomb did a review of it!" holds little to no value for me. I understand the frustration of (as an example) RPG fans who would love for their genre (or certain games in it) to get more recognition, but I'm not sure how much a freelancer's review (especially if they don't become a fixture) really addresses the core of the problem, i.e. that the personalities you are here for are passing on good games for one reason or another.

So I'll have to modify my position; If I were the one allocating resources for Giant Bomb Dot Com (A CBSi Website), I wouldn't spend any money on this. Funnel it all into Taco Tuesday or whatever. But if they decided to do it, I wouldn't be up in arms like they diluted the brand or whatever, I'd just ignore it, more or less. It'd be the same as if I went to a different website to read a review, just on Giant Bomb, if that makes any sense.