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.

 

[Reploid]

Oh no, someone don't wanna worship your sacred marizelda fluke. Let's have a shitstorm about it. Having differently developed tastes is such an issue, you just ain't supposed to have 'em, no matter how argumented your point is. You just can't.
69 is just fine, it is also funny. You can't ignore primitive combat, bland story, terrible character design, and lack of VA forever.

 

[subcon959]

This is all a bit weird. I know transparency is considered a good thing usually, but in this case I would've strongly advised to keep it in the staff room. I find it hard to believe there isn't a single person on the team that doesn't have the requisite people skills to come to an amicable solution, especially since Tom was stepping down regardless. Both sides come off as a bit immature here.

 

[SDA]

Tom Bombadildo. The only time he responded in a thread of mine was when I questioned about the Downloads section (as far as I remember).

 

[godreborn]

I do remember @Chary telling me she was attacked on gamefaqs? for posting a review for a popular game with a low score. I think a lot of gamers take review scores personally when it's a game they like.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

As a member who has written reviews both "unofficial" and "official" I think I understand the difference better now. It's far easier to just post a "member review" as those are clearly a person's own thought and not influenced by outside opinion. So in other words, you become 100% responsible for it and no one else holds liability for it.

As a "official" review, there is some pressure and even nervousness to even writing or publishing it. Honestly, those would probably get more attention than a member review. Even though I would thought people prefer the unfiltered version with one owning to everything they post. Similar to youtubers who do game reviews. They have spoilers sometimes (Though with a courtesy timestamp to skip) and may not even use scores either. But some are able to step away from the bias and consider someone who maybe looking for a game to play, and it's their first time playing that sort of thing. If they could recommend it to them or not.

Basically, there two sides to representing just yourself and representing a group of people being associated with me. For someone who has trouble socializing, making friends and other kinds of interactions with people. I come to understand the difference even though I don't like it, it is what it is.

Trying to get into the heads of people for a moment, think reviews add a lot of pressure with giving it scores to begin with. Most people care about the score. While it's a bad habit, it's almost like people who would complain about how something was said and made them feel over the context of what was said and if it made sense.

Guess I'll try to wrap this up here. I think there was just too much pressure in this. The fact most people think about scores more than context, people will ignore the context if it's not short and concise (Which isn't always possible as I understand) and perhaps unofficial reviews are a nicer path to take, even for the staff here who perhaps don't want the pressure for those things. Personally on the other hand, It seems like a opportunity to have the spotlight with official review, even if it does mean you might have some conflict with representing the group you work with.

Personal note, I would find it interesting to be able to have done a review with someone since that would seem easier. But I usually don't feel comfortable bothering staff with questions if they are busy. Sometimes I think to maybe ask one if they could maybe do grammar check, proof read, or suggestions, comments or concerns. It maybe sound like supervising a official review. But I think of it as just a member lost and maybe looking for some help on how to improve.

 

[godreborn]

As a member who has written reviews both "unofficial" and "official" I think I understand the difference better now. It's far easier to just post a "member review" as those are clearly a person's own thought and not influenced by outside opinion. So in other words, you become 100% responsible for it and no one else holds liability for it.

As a "official" review, there is some pressure and even nervousness to even writing or publishing it. Honestly, those would probably get more attention than a member review. Even though I would thought people prefer the unfiltered version with one owning to everything they post. Similar to youtubers who do game reviews. They have spoilers sometimes (Though with a courtesy timestamp to skip) and may not even use scores either. But some are able to step away from the bias and consider someone who maybe looking for a game to play, and it's their first time playing that sort of thing. If they could recommend it to them or not.

Basically, there two sides to representing just yourself and representing a group of people being associated with me. For someone who has trouble socializing, making friends and other kinds of interactions with people. I come to understand the difference even though I don't like it, it is what it is.

Trying to get into the heads of people for a moment, think reviews add a lot of pressure with giving it scores to begin with. Most people care about the score. While it's a bad habit, it's almost like people who would complain about how something was said and made them feel over the context of what was said and if it made sense.

Guess I'll try to wrap this up here. I think there was just too much pressure in this. The fact most people think about scores more than context, people will ignore the context if it's not short and concise (Which isn't always possible as I understand) and perhaps unofficial reviews are a nicer path to take, even for the staff here who perhaps don't want the pressure for those things. Personally on the other hand, It seems like a opportunity to have the spotlight with official review, even if it does mean you might have some conflict with representing the group you work with.

Personal note, I would find it interesting to be able to have done a review with someone since that would seem easier. But I usually don't feel comfortable bothering staff with questions if they are busy. Sometimes I think to maybe ask one if they could maybe do grammar check, proof read, or suggestions, comments or concerns. It maybe sound like supervising a official review. But I think of it as just a member lost and maybe looking for some help on how to improve.

I agree with everything you said. you did the mega man legacy collection review? I seem to remember that.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I agree with everything you said. you did the mega man legacy collection review? I seem to remember that.

Yes, I reviewed mega man x legacy collection, because I didn't think a official review was going to be posted. But it was after I had published mine. I did laugh though. Because It was one of the reasons why I made the review.

But I did that because I Like Mega Man X and I wanted to share if it was worth someone's money instead of thinking just playing it on original hardware or "Sailing the seven seas" if you know what I mean.

That option usually ends up being inconvenient and expensive compared to a collection on a easily obtainable and affordable console. I was able to highlight the fact that the game has content and enhancements that would appeal to the both fans of the series and people who are new. Making it a good collection to have for the low price.

I done other games though, some I would probably do over. (My earliest ones have been done on my Nvidia shield tv, using a web browser, and game controller for typing. Done in a single day due to not knowing how to save drafts and such. NOT IDEAL FOR TEXT REVIEWS!) I Just at the time, I had strong opinions that I wanted to share. Some come off sloppy and as if I was just trying to focus on one side of things. I mostly wanted to know if I was just alone in how I thought the game was or if someone else could see what I don't.

I come to learn, understanding is hard. Not always but it can be most of the time. There will be times when you don't agree, can't agree, refuse to believe. But when you understand someone, it's okay to not agree on the same thing all the time. Understanding may have value later in life. Sometime you may experience something that you had previously discussed and may understand better what they meant. You don't have to agree or like whatever it maybe. Just hope that what you understand can help you in some way, learn new things and become better.

 

[godreborn]

Yes, I reviewed mega man x legacy collection, because I didn't think a official review was going to be posted. But it was after I had published mine. I did laugh though. Because It was one of the reasons why I made the review.

But I did that because I Like Mega Man X and I wanted to share if it was worth someone's money instead of thinking just playing it on original hardware or "Sailing the seven seas" if you know what I mean.

That option usually ends up being inconvenient and expensive compared to a collection on a easily obtainable and affordable console. I was able to highlight the fact that the game has content and enhancements that would appeal to the both fans of the series and people who are new. Making it a good collection to have for the low price.

I done other games though, some I would probably do over. (My earliest ones have been done on my Nvidia shield tv, using a web browser, and game controller for typing. Done in a single day due to not knowing how to save drafts and such. NOT IDEAL FOR TEXT REVIEWS!) I Just at the time, I had strong opinions that I wanted to share. Some come off sloppy and as if I was just trying to focus on one side of things. I mostly wanted to know if I was just alone in how I thought the game was or if someone else could see what I don't.

I come to learn, understanding is hard. Not always but it can be most of the time. There will be times when you don't agree, can't agree, refuse to believe. But when you understand someone, it's okay to not agree on the same thing all the time. Understanding may have value later in life. Sometime you may experience something that you had previously discussed and may understand better what they meant. You don't have to agree or like whatever it maybe. Just hope that what you understand can help you in some way, learn new things and become better.

yeah, the reason I remembered the mega man x legacy collection review is that I'm also a huge fan of mega man. I even thought about having those robot master decals from the original series aligning the top of my walls, but I don't know what happened to that person on ebay.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

yeah, the reason I remembered the mega man x legacy collection review is that I'm also a huge fan of mega man. I even thought about having those robot master decals from the original series aligning the top of my walls, but I don't know what happened to that person on ebay.

Got to be careful on that site I guess. Read buyer reviews? (How relatable to this is suddenly)

 

[The Catboy]

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.

You never want to be caught on the back foot and it's best to be open to ensure that doesn't happen. I could see a good reason to keep it private if he didn't post his review, but since he did and you had to take it down, then that's a good reason to be open. People would have been asking about the review and why it was removed. There are already members here claiming conspiracies about the staff over locking/removing stupid threads. A whole ass review for a major title like TOTK being removed and eventually posted with a different score would really get tongue wagging. So yeah, I agree with the idea of making this public beforehand.

 

[Blakejansen]

Hi

I originally wasn't going to bother responding to this thread, as I know you're all going to crucify the guy who gave BOTW a 7/10 regardless of the facts (this is a Nintendo oriented site, after all ), but Costello conveniently left out a few things, so let me add some context

1), nobody asks for "permission" to review anything here. We list upcoming products we get access to, effectively put our names in a hat, and we're randomly picked to do it. If we like something, we'll mention we're going to write a review. It was asked in a mag staff chat who would review the game, I said I would, nobody else offered, so I started. I finished the game before anyone else, explored most of the world, and have nigh 20+ years of experience with Zelda games. I like them, and I feel like I'm qualified to rate then accordingly...without Nintendo bias like every other site. How many reviews of BOTW mention all the same negative traits I mentioned and yet still called it a masterpiece game 10/10? I figured we'd appreciate honestly here. This same situation happened with BOTW as well, the game leaked, we asked who would review it, and I offered because I was basically done with the game before it came out. Costello makes this out as it I went rogue and wrote the review without anyone knowing or approving which is just straight BS.
2). My scores almost never have anything to do with the content of the review, if any of you have read them you'd know that. I've always believed number scores are not the way to go, so i opt for a happy medium that's also a meme. Again, read the content. I'll give that it seems lazy and uncaring to post the same thing again and again, but we can't change to non-scores and putting a number out of 10 is difficult in most cases so I stopped bothering adding a number that conveys little to nothing about what I think. He also failed to mention my reasoning in this case, again mentioned in the mag staff chat a couple times (but also personally to Costello in a recent conversation as I imagine he probably doesn't have time to read most of it), that I opted for 6.9 again as I feel this game isn't as good as BOTW, which I previously gave a 7, but also isn't a bad game either so I didn't want to go lower than that. Let me quote the warning I put literally at the top of the TOTK review before anything else.



3) I've never once said I don't like the game?? This is what happens when nobody reads the content and goes off a score, which is exactly my problem with scoring anything. I'll quote my BOTW conclusion:


Let me quote part of my TOTK review:


But nope, I went into the game expecting to hate it and clearly think it's bad because I clearly hated BOTW since when is a 7/10 a bad score for anything?? Any non-nintendo game with that score would've been perceived as me generally liking it with occasional problems.

4) most of the mag staff, at least in terms of casual chatting, agreed the game isnt remotely worth a 10/10. Whether they'll actually confirm that is up to them, but either way the general consensus in my view was "yeah, 6.9 actually sounds about right", with some lower numbers thrown around by others.

5) none of this was brought up to me ever until late last night (my time) despite talking about my review and my thoughts the last 2 weeks (or at least since the leak). I was basically finished with it, ready to have it up by an agreed upon Sunday. If they were "discussing" anything, it was without consulting me at all until literally 24 hours ago where I get a message saying my review is going to illegitimize the site and someone should come and doll it up to make it look better. Anyone that's ok with letting someone else edit their content "add their positive opinions" to increase an arbitrary score that shouldn't even matter should be ashamed of themselves. It wasn't suggested that I opt for a personal review vs official review or anything of the sort, the solution presented to me was "change the score or let someone else write something up and change it". Anyone who writes content should agree this is a shit alternative. I did act hastily and pushed the review out without any authorization, purely because I was afraid it would simply be removed without my say in it.

6) I hope Costello is fine with this, as he directly contradicts what I said directly to him in this post. I'll just quote part of my conversation we just had before this thread went live:

Clearly I understand the repercussions of posting something like that. I simply believed as a trusted mag staff member for near a decade the owner of the site would stand behind opinions made by mag staff, even some that he may not agree with. There's no such thing as an objective review, anyone who believes as such is gullible and I have a bridge to sell you. I'd love to see any purely objective review that's been posted here.


As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

Where can I read your review? I'd like to check it out.

 

[Blauhasenpopo]

So...guess i had something to contribute

In my opinion,the transparency is cool, and in the beeing of the site, it follows the "Heart" of GBAtemp...transparency and taking the whole "crowd" aka Members into discussion, is tradition...the reason why i stick to this comunnity and to this site (it is the only site where i contribute and get involved), is the Staff and the Heads of the site.

So....next thing: Personally i scroll donw to the "pros" and "cons", that what i'm interessted in aand if this gets me into "attention" of the game, then i read the full article and at last i take a look at the score, in my opinion the score isn't a "gamebreaker" aaaand since the existing of GBAtemp, the site had the goal to be different and it always was different, that's why i stick to it

GBAtemp, should be different in future.... @Costello, why not start a poll ( Time limited) about the Scoresystem and let the members decide ?

Besides a Co.op Review would be also a awesome thing, in think, maybe for special Games

We don't have to be mainstream, we only have to be GBAtemp

 

[p1ngpong]

Thank you both for the transparency.

While I agree that numerical game scores are nigh on useless and definitely not indicative of the game's quality or worth, if a site uses numerical scores, and you are writing a review specifically for that site, either make an effort to come up with a score or refuse to write the review at all.

This "6.9 on all reviews" silent protest was a dick move. Yes, there was a disclaimer in the reviews themselves, but we know every single aggregator, score counter, search engine, SEO software, will take the number and discard all the rest, and on the vast interwebz nobody will see the review and all anyone will see is "GBAtemp gave the game X out of 10".

The number represents the website to the outside world. The numerical format should, in theory, represent the consensus of the entire site staff, and not be a throwaway joke. If Tom didn't want to give a numerical score to his reviews, he should have asked the rest of the staff to read his review and come up with a suitable number to represent it. But hey, hindsight is 7/10

That being said, if Tom was the only one willing and able to put the 40-whatever hours into playing the game, and compose an entire review, it is his prerogative to give the game a score he felt it deserved (and elaborated on why in detail - read the review). If BOTW got 7/10, and Tom felt TOTK was almost, but not quite as good, 6.9/10 is a good way of saying that with the final score.

Too bad it was undermined by the previous string of joke scores.

100% this. A lot of people have issues with numerical scores for games and I fully understand that. But Tom just giving every game 6.9 because he doesn't agree with numerical scores is very shit practice.

I like you Tom and always have, and I actually often agree with your take on things. You are an intelligent guy and know full well that the first thing people look at is the number, maybe then they will read the review or just bits of it. Because I know you are a smart guy I can not honestly believe that you truly believe people will look at your score, read the review and then make the assumption that the score is a meaningless placeholder or a meaningless thing.

Anyway though Tom is someone who contributed a lot to the site and I really appreciate that. Shit happens and I don't want him thrown under a bus for sticking to his guns. This could have been handled a bit better and Tom's stance on scoring could have been accommodated. Instead of a official review the contents of the review could have been reshaped into an opinion piece article, scores removed and the word review removed. I think people would have found that really interesting to read and everyone would have been happy with it.

Anyway Tom thanks for all your work, hope you stick around.

 

[Immortallix]

Lol
Lmao
Lmfao even

 

[ShadowOne333]

Tbh I think TotK is at best an 8/10, to me it's obvious that most gaming websites are just wiggling that Nintendog tail with the money bone Nintendo is giving them to review the game a perfect 10 or at least a 9.

It's unrealistic, and the game has a ton of flaws which are carried over from BotW. I would personally give it a 7.5/10, an 8 if I'm generous, but nothing above that.
Perhaps I'm too burnt out of the mechanics, so Just went the cheat code route for a lot of the nuances it has and I'm now enjoying it more lol.

 

[Kioku]

Tbh I think TotK is at best an 8/10, to me it's obvious that most gaming websites are just wiggling that Nintendog tail with the money bone Nintendo is giving them to review the game a perfect 10 or at least a 9.

It's unrealistic, and the game has a ton of flaws which are carried over from BotW. I would personally give it a 7.5/10, an 8 if I'm generous, but nothing above that.
Perhaps I'm too burnt out of the mechanics, so Just went the cheat code route for a lot of the nuances it has and I'm now enjoying it more lol.

It really just seems like a direct continuation of BotW, or a DLC of sorts. That wouldn’t be so bad if BotW wasn’t lacking heart. Some aspects of TotK seem fine, but they’re just dogpiling on top of the mess that was already there.

 

[zoogie]

lmao, knew something was afoot. XD
https://gbatemp.net/threads/when-do-you-think-zelda-totk-will-leak.632030/page-3#post-10143196

I knew the BOTW score was in bad faith given the guy's anti-nintendo post history at the time. Can't believe he did it again.

I just wish he was as openly obvious about the bad faith the first time with the nonsense BOTW review.

 

[Marc_LFD]

6.9 ain't good, but 10/10's aren't credible either.



I knew Nintendo would do this and the fanboys love it. lol

 

[urherenow]

1) I love the game
2) I hate the same things about the game that I hated about the first one, and have seen many tempers post the same sentiment: Breaking weapons and shields and stamina curve being the main 2. Even using cheats to take those out of the equation, this game is HUGE and LONG. I thought the first one was long. Wow, is this one longer. I maybe have seen 30% of the game, cheating my way through the ending. And it will be months before I find and complete all shrines and side quests... if I don't loose interest first. I've never found all of the seeds in BoTW...

3) I agree with the actions taken here. But, I would have asked (and made public if the answer was "no") if he would like the review published as a member review.

 

[M7L7NK7]

I don't have a problem with durabilit this time, it's so easy and fun to make new weapons