Tom Bombadildo has left the editorial team following his TOTK review

[Costello]

Hi everybody,
I'd like to bring you up to speed about a few things that happened yesterday on the site and on the staff discussion channels.

Short version:
Tom Bombadildo, a member of our editorial team (aka. mag staff) has left the staff yesterday after a dispute concerning his 'Tears of the Kingdom' review.
He had his review almost ready for publication, but I, along with several members of the staff, had concerns with it, seeing as he rated it 6.9/10 (that is the score he gave to all his recent reviews).
I suggested that we bring in someone else and do a co-op review, in order to have some sort of balance, to make the review more representative of the GBAtemp staff's opinion. Tom didn't like this at all and decided it was time to leave.

Long version:
A few years ago, at the time Zelda BOTW was released, Tom designated himself to review the game. He posted this review: https://gbatemp.net/review/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.564/ the score, as you all know it, was 7/10. At the time our review became a bit of a joke online because it was the lowest score any website had given to BOTW.

I personally didn't do anything in particular when this happened, thought it was fair that someone didn't like the game that much, and that was the end of it.
We had to own the criticism and I respected Tom's work and never really came and talked to him about the subject other than make the occasional joke about it.

When the time came for our TOTK review, Tom decided, again all by himself, that he should be the one to review it. By the time we had a say in anything, he had already come up with most of it. So Chary and I just let him go ahead with it. We laughed it off on the telegram group, I thought "what the hell, let's see what happens".

Later on, Tom revealed he was going to score the game 6.9 out of 10. He had already updated his review and said he was almost done.
Why 6.9 ? because, "nice", right? He gave the same score to all of his latest reviews:

Realizing this, I just couldn't allow GBAtemp's name to be dragged through the mud again. While I respect Tom's opinion as a reviewer, I do not believe his review of TOTK was written with the fairness it deserved. He clearly wasn't a big fan of the first game. That wasn't a requirement for reviewing TOTK, but you would need to have the honesty to acknowledge the hard work that was put into the game to improve upon the first one.

What Tom doesn't seem to understand is that he isn't just speaking for himself (if he were, he would be posting his review as a 'member' review, i.e. not an official GBAtemp review). His words represent our site on the public scene. People are going to share our review and we are going to be made a laughingstock again. I felt that I had to prevent that from happening.

I had a talk with Chary, our chief editor, who shared the same concerns. We tried to figure out a way that wouldn't upset Tom. I came up with the idea of bringing in someone else into the equation; someone who wouldn't be in the same negative state of mind as Tom and who could bring balance. I didn't suggest changing the score (just like I didn't ask Tom to change his score on the BOTW review) but simply to ensure the review is more representative of the staff's opinion, the staff as a whole, not just Tom with his constant 6.9 ratings.

After Chary presented him with the idea, Tom didn't take it well at all and decided to leave. He revealed to us that he was going to leave anyway, and that this would be his last review no matter what.
But before leaving, he forced the publication of his review (against our orders). As a result some of you may have seen Tom's 6.9 review for a very short time.
I'm here to tell you that Tom's review won't be published - or if he wants to publish it, he is free to do so under his own name (I personally think that he should).

However there will be someone else in our team that's going to review the game, and that will be our official review. I know who this other person is because Chary told me, and I'm not going to be influencing him/her, I'm just expecting them to publish something they really believe in, that they put a lot of effort in, and to come up with a fair score - fair in that it acknowledges and respects the work that the developers put into the game, without bias.


Last but not least: why did I post this message in public?
1) because some of you may have seen the review while it was online
2) because I think this is actually an interesting debate to have. Did we handle things correctly? Or did we make a bad decision that harmed our own integrity? Should we have published Tom's review as is? Tell me what you think.
3) because this gives Tom a chance to present his own perspective if he wants to. In spite of everything that happened, I respect him for his past work at GBAtemp and I will miss having him around.

 

[JeepX87]

For me, I would give TOTK - range between 7 to 8 out of 10, depending on my mood.

 

[rcpd]

My only concern here is that all of this could have (and probably should have) been handled internally and privately. This whole thread reeks of “he said/she said” school yard infighting and an inability to have a discussion by both sides.

Did Tom have to be so stubborn? Nope. But at least he didn’t run to the forums presenting a fairly one sided argument to get support. Sure some people may have saw Tom’s review, but that number was far less than the amount of attention that was brought to it by making this thread.

The professional way to handle this was internally. If any thread was made about Tom leaving, it should have simply said “Tom has decided to leave the staff. After nearly a decade writing reviews, it’s been nice Tom”. without the malice that was clearly intended in the OP here.

I don’t know any of the staff personally or even really at all. But the amount of pettiness seen here kind of sickens me. Handle private business privately. You don’t air out family dirty laundry, so why air out the Temps?

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Honestly, I think 7 (6.9) /10 is fairly realistic. I've played a few hours of it, and already have PTSD for how much of a slog the original game was.

Griding for ingredients isn't very fun and grinding dragons to get their claws/scales/etc took it to a whole new level of nuisance. Breaking swords/shields/bows is also the dumbest mechanic in any Zelda game. It's padding for padding's sake. I'll play this one to completion just to tick the box of saying I've beaten every Zelda game out there since 1987 but this'll definitely be a one time play.

Have you beaten the CDi games, out of curiosity?

 

[r1vver]

Adjusting 'site's' number scores to the presumed number scores of others (sites) to look "appropriate"? Has it come down to this yet?
It's just disgusting. Although what else would you expect from this long-rotten site.

 

[GhostLatte]

How much is Nintendo paying you?

 

[sarkwalvein]

If you are going to do a job, take it seriously and do it professionally.
The job is to write a review and assign a score to the game. These are the rules of the game in gbatemp.
If you don't want to follow the rules of the game don't play the game. Anything else is just lack of professionalism.

The problem is not about writing a review in a positive or negative light. It is not about censoring the reviewer.
This is about professionalism, about taking your job seriously.
Given the review format of gbatemp I would have expected a well written review with a corresponding numeric score for the game; because those are the rules of the game.

PS: I also believe numeric scores are useless to summarize the value of a game, but an official review for an organization has to follow the review guidelines of the organization; anarchy has no place inside an organization. If what you want is to talk about the uselessness of review scores write an opinion article, don't put that into an official review even if it is in the shape of a meme score.

 

[Kioku]

Maybe not passion but at least giving it some care and consideration when it comes to what you are reviewing.
Although, I think it's kind of a bad idea to review something that you already know or believe you won't enjoy. That just sounds like you are setting yourself up for a bad time.

I was more or less making a jab at some video game reviewers who don’t play games but get paid to tell us if they’re good or bad.

 

[LAA]

This is kinda pathetic of you to try and force a score change, I can understand why he left. It's his review, if he can back up the score with what he says, whats the problem? Your concern shouldn't be whether your score is the "lowest" or not, it should be whether he had enough time to review the game well enough, his comments reflect the score, the criticisms/positives are clearly outlined, etc., at least if you care about the quality of the reviews, which judging from your comments, it doesn't sound like it, not that I'd really go to GBATemp for review opinions anyway, but this makes it even more unlikely now as the concern seems to be more about "fitting in" or at least not angering the fanbase. Sure there's merit in writing reviews with certain audiences in mind, but a game can only really be reviewed by one person, it's subjective, you can't really write a review that matches the opinion for everyone perfectly, variety is a good thing. That and if you didn't like the score/review for BOTW, why use the same reviewer? It was unlikely to go in the opposite direction, though I suppose it'd also say a lot if the score bumped up too.

All this for a 6.9/10 too, which isn't even a "bad" score by any means, (and for the record, far from the only site to have similar opinions), you're really just feeding the problem here that this needed to be done to potentially quell outrage from a subsection of 'fans' that have already decided in their minds what scores the game should get without playing it. Doing this to escape the 'embarassment" of having a low score too, you should be embarassed you couldn't respect a staff member's opinion enough to post it. Honestly surprising you even put this message out as if it was a good thing on GBATemp's part, far from it.

 

[The Catboy]

I was more or less making a jab at some video game reviewers who don’t play games but get paid to tell us if they’re good or bad.

Ah, the ones who play like an hour of a game (at most) and somehow that’s enough to write an entire review on

 

[sarkwalvein]

This is kinda pathetic of you to try and force a score change, I can understand why he left. It's his review, if he can back up the score with what he says, whats the problem? Your concern shouldn't be whether your score is the "lowest" or not, it should be whether he had enough time to review the game well enough, his comments reflect the score, the criticisms/positives are clearly outlined, etc., at least if you care about the quality of the reviews, which judging from your comments, it doesn't sound like it, not that I'd really go to GBATemp for review opinions anyway, but this makes it even more unlikely now as the concern seems to be more about "fitting in" or at least not angering the fanbase. Sure there's merit in writing reviews with certain audiences in mind, but a game can only really be reviewed by one person, it's subjective, you can't really write a review that matches the opinion for everyone perfectly, variety is a good thing. That and if you didn't like the score/review for BOTW, why use the same reviewer? It was unlikely to go in the opposite direction, though I suppose it'd also say a lot if the score bumped up too.

All this for a 6.9/10 too, which isn't even a "bad" score by any means, (and for the record, far from the only site to have similar opinions), you're really just feeding the problem here that this needed to be done to potentially quell outrage from a subsection of 'fans' that have already decided in their minds what scores the game should get without playing it. Doing this to escape the 'embarassment" of having a low score too, you should be embarassed you couldn't respect a staff member's opinion enough to post it. Honestly surprising you even put this message out as if it was a good thing on GBATemp's part, far from it.

What score?
I hope the review has a serious though score, like e.g. 5.7 or whatever, not a placeholder "6.9".
That is just an aberrant lack of professionalism.

(PS: also I agree with some post above, posting about an internal conflict is also not quite professional)

 

[VartioArtel]

This feels like some high school level he said she said drama not gonna lie,

It’s a review. No one is gonna care or remember any of this in a few years what’s the big deal. Scores are objectively meaningless nowadays and it’s all about the actual written part of the review.

"No one is gonna care or remember"
Cuphead can't complete the damn tutorial review.
Heroes of the Storm launch review.
ORAS review.

People ARE going to remember unabashedly horrendous, bad intent reviews.

 

[guisadop]

I know 6.9 is basically a joke, but I think a 7 is a decent score for BotW/Tokt

 

[LAA]

What score?
I hope the review has a serious though score, like e.g. 5.7 or whatever, not a placeholder "6.9".
That is just an aberrant lack of professionalism.

(PS: also I agree with some post above, posting about an internal conflict is also not quite professional)

Well I see what you mean with 6.9 being used in this case as a meme score because they don't believe in scores. In that case, fair enough if the site has a scoring system, he should be following that as this is a review for this site, though he's done the same thing in all his reviews and it's only a problem now?
The score side of it then, I can't really be 100% on the reviewer's side, even though personally I am fine with him using whatever 'scoring' system he wants, or lack of one, imo scores are becoming less relevant, e.g. we're seeing games get 9/10's, but they're a technical mess, or games that add Microtransactions and worse shit later, so they get the benefit of the glowing reviews only to change shortly after launch, you can say that's all subjective too of course, but all the comments about why GBATemp didn't go ahead with it still just screams immaturity to me, it hardly seems the content of the review was "negative" at all, and trying to "balance" a review with more opinions just isn't how it works, if they were bothered about being a "laughing stock" by imo, idiots, removing the score altogether could have been the best approach, you're not gonna get idiots who judge the whole review by a number they already decided it deserves or not and want everyone to have the same view, and you respect the reviewer, sounds a win-win?
The ignoring of the score system, (if they have one?) is the only understandable reason they got, which is fair, if you want scores and them to be counted the same way, that's fine.

 

[AmandaRose]

Ever member of the site has to abide by the site rules including the review staff. The reviews on the site have to have a honest score. If Tom was refusing to do this then I fully get why he has been removed from the review team. He left them no option by not playing by the rules.

 

[A-Hacked-Soul]

The other site that gave it a 6 is an eSports venue

Which I think is another case of someone who doesn't like adventure games reviewing an adventure game

I'm not saying he's right, I'm just surprised that somehow someone is more wrong.

 

[Costello]

(PS: also I agree with some post above, posting about an internal conflict is also not quite professional)

but see, we aren’t professionals and we never pretended to be.
We are an open community. We are forthcoming and transparent about our issues.

If I hadn’t posted this, and kept things purely internal, this would have been very suspicious. Tom could have just gone out there and accused us of review/score tampering, and we would have been on the defensive. There are a bunch more reasons why I decided to go public, they can be found in my first post.

I knew this thread wasn’t going to please everyone. But if I had to put things in the balance, I think we did the right thing.

 

[qqq1]

A 7 is about right for BOTW. I didn't understand all the 10s and "there will never be a better game" reviews. It's ok. Not a good zelda game.

 

[JuanMena]

but see, we aren’t professionals and we never pretended to be.
We are an open community. We are forthcoming and transparent about our issues.

If I hadn’t posted this, and kept things purely internal, this would have been very suspicious. Tom could have just gone out there and accused us of review/score tampering, and we would have been on the defensive. There are a bunch more reasons why I decided to go public, they can be found in my first post.

I knew this thread wasn’t going to please everyone. But if I had to put things in the balance, I think we did the right thing.

But you never actually knew if Tom was going to in the first place.

I get you are the absolute Headmaster, but that seems to be too far to guess what anyone might do based in an internal situation.

Not saying that you shouldn't have made this public.
In this idea, it's not hurting anybody in my opinion, but it isn't benefiting anyone else neither.

In my point of view, this should've been kept Staff Only, and in the remote chance of Tom doing something, then I would've brought this to the public opinion.

Not defending Tom, not putting words or assuming his actions, and not judging your decisions. But at the end, Tom decided to leave anyways, so why not leave his review as is?

You just said that:

we aren’t professionals and we never pretended to be.

So I would've let it be. But again, that's me and you probably know that everything to me is a joke.

 

[titan_tim]

Have you beaten the CDi games, out of curiosity?

Yep! Not sure if I should be proud of that or not.... Although I haven't played the GB demake of the CDi game, and don't plan to. Only official games. I remember playing them once with a walkthrough and will never look back. Those are definitely the worst of the worst, so I barely put them on the list of official releases.

 

[r1vver]

If I hadn’t posted this, and kept things purely internal, this would have been very suspicious. Tom could have just gone out there and accused us of review/score tampering, and we would have been on the defensive. There are a bunch more reasons why I decided to go public, they can be found in my first post.

It worked! But, as expected, with the opposite result.
So far I see only continuous:
- thesis that expected (aka "proper"/"required") score is the most important thing in the world,
- some fears that this (7/10) score is (was) close to the minimum among other scores (given by other sites) and even become 'joke online'. (Btw, what happened to initial 6.9? Score been raised? What an amazing coincidence!),
- regrets that the review was not written by a rapturous fan (with the expected 9001/10 score I assume),
- some statements of categorical reluctance to be dragged through the mud (again).
It all looks like a simple plain obvious 'review/score tampering'. Nothing else.
So yes, you can start defending yourself. Although after an incident like this, it's unlikely that anyone will be interested in it (your excuses).

Don't feel bad, forget about it and keep it simple. Order reviews with the necessary parameters and desired (hardcoded) score from "writers for hire".
Then maybe publishers (and even Nintendo) will even start giving you tips. That would recoup the costs (that's unlikely to happen, though).