After “Mixtape (Remix Youth)” recently received a perfect score from IGN, it triggered quite polarized reactions among the player community. Some players believe that this evaluation is well-deserved, and the emotional expression and rhythm design of the work are both impressive; but others feel that there is a clear gap between IGN’s evaluation standards and the actual experience of ordinary players, and the conclusion of a perfect score is simply untenable.
The “standards gap” between the review media and the player community
This problem has been around for a long time, with review editors assigning scores based on a relatively subjective set of criteria that often don’t quite align with what the public of gamers actually wants. When a work is given full marks, but a large number of actual players feel otherwise after experiencing it, this gap will be greatly magnified, eventually triggering a public relations crisis in the community.
For IGN, these types of controversies are almost a daily occurrence these days!
In an era of information transparency, the channels for players to obtain game experience are not only evaluation media, but also live broadcasts, discussion forums and live broadcast platforms. When these “popular voices” gather together, their evaluation of a work is often more convincing than the review scores. The case of “Mixtape” once again reminds the seriousness of this problem.