Did TA change their score for Angry Birds after the game became more popular?

[TinkerTailor]

This is something that I noticed after reading TA's recent review of "Angry Birds Space." I was a reader of the site back in 2009 when the original review was posted. The reviewer gave it a 4/5. Metacritic backs this up: http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/a...critic-reviews

But now, the review (http://toucharcade.com/2009/12/11/an...-of-boom-blox/) gives the game 5 stars. The text of the review doesn't seem to have been changed, and it's still sort of lukewarm on the game.

I believe that TA changed the score after Angry Birds became popular (some three months after the review was written).

EDIT: Another note: I posted a similar comment to this one on the review of Angry Birds Space. It was not approved by the TA staff. I'd like to get a response from the staff explaining this.

[Red1]

You could have asked your question without putting a threat on the end. LOL.

[TinkerTailor]

Haha sorry, didn't mean to sound threatening. It's just that if the admins deleted my question once, there's nothing to stop them from pushing the question under the rug again. I wrote that so whoever deleted the first comment wouldn't just delete this one too.

I edited it.

[Red1]

Well, I'm not personally aware of any review scores being changed retrospectively. Perhaps one of the others will comment.

[TinkerTailor]

Yeah, this would've been back when there were only a handful of writers. Hodapp's probably the only one here now that would know.

[Snozberry]

I was actually just thinking "I wonder why TA didn't review coco loco..it's such a good game and Its on their banner so it's not like the game isn't known to TA writers"
Then I pondered whether they're in contract with angry birds to only write good things about angry birds and never review a game that could be a threat to angry birds.

[Echoseven]

Originally Posted by Snozberry

I was actually just thinking "I wonder why TA didn't review coco loco..it's such a good game and Its on their banner so it's not like the game isn't known to TA writers"
Then I pondered whether they're in contract with angry birds to only write good things about angry birds and never review a game that could be a threat to angry birds.

That's just silly.

And a LOT of Chillingo games go up. It's probably just a contract.

They probably don't care beyond a cursory glance to make sure it's not porn,

[Eli]

Our original four star Angry Birds review was posted on December 23rd, 2009. After thirteen different updates, most of which added new content, we upped it to five stars on December 29th, 2010. I'm not sure which of the Angry Birds Space comments were yours, but as a general policy I delete any highly conspiratorial comments accusing us of being paid off, biased, or any other number of crazy things that people seem to come up with regarding review scores. Judging by the original tone of your post here, it's not hard to guess what you must have posted on my Angry Birds Space review.

As far as advertising and editorial content is concerned, I encourage you guys to read our policies here: http://toucharcade.com/toucharcade-a...rial-policies/ Cliffsnotes amounts to advertisers have absolutely no control over any editorial content, on any level. In fact, ads are sold and managed through an entirely different person who not only hasn't ever written a story for the site, but also doesn't even talk to me (or any other writers) about upcoming or existing advertising. I see the site skins and banner ads at the same time as you guys, and ads are never sold with any kind of coverage agreement, either expressed or even vaguely implied.

There's a Coco Loco review that's scheduled to be published in a few hours at the start of the American business day.

I encourage anyone who actually believes in these weird review score and/or coverage conspiracies to do some reading on Occam's Razor.

[TinkerTailor]

Thanks for the response! I think it's a bit odd that there's no note on the end of the review explaining to readers that the score was changed, but I agree that it's fair to change the score after the game got all those updates.

Aso, in regards to the first part of your response, the original comment I posted on the Space review was the same as the question I posted here, minus the edit note (obviously).

People will never stop suggesting that all game reviewers are paid off. They've done it since the beginning of gaming journalism, and they'll continue to do it until the internet explodes from over-exposure to toxic levels of cynicism.

[Blackharon]

Originally Posted by ghOti

I implore you all to ask yourself this question: how can you trust someone who can't even be honest about simple facts? IE: where he is located.

If you look at @hodapp's twitter stream, it becomes VERY obvious that he is no where near Spain!

He's also not a janitor. Never coming back to TA!