Talk:The Last of Us Part II/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Add co-writer request

Main writer Neil Druckmann said in his Twitter that the story for Part II would be co-written with Halley Gross, who has written for Westworld and Banshee. Here's the source below:

https://twitter.com/Neil_Druckmann/status/805600975729766400

109.159.96.188 (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

List of special edition stuff

It's WP:NOTCATALOG or WP:GAMECRUFT and not appropriate. It shouldn't be in GA articles either. Popcornduff (talk) 00:44, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: Which one does it fall under? I cannot seem to find anything under those WP:NOTCATALOG or WP:GAMECRUFT which states it is not appropriate.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 12:42, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

It's an arbitrary list of stuff, as per the examples in WP:GAMECRUFT. The exact contents of different special editions is trivial - just marketing guff. Perhaps worthy of briefly summarising in prose, but not worthy of a table. Popcornduff (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: WP:GAMECRUFT states no: Non-notable articles and spinouts, Numerous short articles, Detailed instructions, Strategy guides and walkthroughs, Excessive fictional details, Lists of characters lacking secondary sourcing, Lists of gameplay items, weapons, or concepts, Cost, Rumors and speculation, Exhaustive version histories, Cast lists, Unofficial translations, System requirements, Succession boxes, Non-notable soundtracks, Age ratings. The different versions of Part II does not fall under any of this.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:18, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes I know. But the policy clearly cannot state every possible permutation of trivial data editors might want to include; those are just common examples. Popcornduff (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

The different editions of Part II provides a wider context to the release and sale of the game. It is not merely trivial data. It should also be noted that WP:GAMECRUFT is merely a guideline which should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception and not a strict policy.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 13:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it allows exceptions, but there are already two editors (myself included) who oppose this. Since others have previously opposed this as well (see my comment below), you'd need consensus for it to go back here instead. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:44, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm 99% sure we discussed this a year or two ago on WT:VG and came to a consensus to not include this sort of sales crap in articles. I found an older one and a recent one that references the one I'm talking about that also agree to not include them too. So unless I'm remembering this wrong, it should be added to the MOS. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Reverted edits

Robynthehode has reverted two edits of mine stating that they were "Too detailed and also grammatically problematic" [1]. I do not think adding one sentence about one of the videos released about gameplay (which could very easily be expanded upon considering it contained more infomation which I did not add to the article seen here: [2], [3],[4], [5], [6]) is "too detailed". Could you elaborate on why this is too detailed? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I do agree that these additions are excessive. We don't need all this detail. For example, the fact that the limited edition will launch simultaneously with the standard edition - is this worth reporting at all, let alone the date on which this announcement was made? Do we need details of the cover art of the limited edition? Do we need a summary of the content of each promotional making-of episode? These things will quickly reveal themselves as trivial. Popcornfud (talk) 15:27, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

You are misinterpreting the text, the limited edition added was about limited edition PS4 Pros, DualShock 4s, Headset, and Hard drive, not a limited edition version of the game. It is generally easier to summarise these things after they have happened especially so with dates. Once the all this has been released a lot of the dates can be simplified but it is better to have a specific date when things can change or when it is a leading up to the launch. The section on the limited edtion products could be shortened but the part I was specifically talking about in this post was the removal of the second video being released about the gameplay (The second video examines the gameplay with Newman stating that Part II has much more open level design than the last, with large sequences that can be missed if the player does not explore.) That if anything a too short of summary than one that is "too detailed", as seen by all the other infomation in the source provided above. Summarising 5+ RSs into one sentence is not trivial. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 15:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Spy-cicle I reverted your original edit because I thought it included too much detail of the gameplay video. A sentence mentioning the release of the gameplay video is fine but your edit went further than that. The edit also included grammatical errors I believe. Please take note that you can't just post a reply to second editor objecting to your edit and then re-include your original edit's information in the article. Wikipedia is built on consensus. Two editors have objected to your edit, therefore it has to be discussed here before any changes. Robynthehode (talk) 06:48, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

To be honest I think it was all right for Spy-cicle to try reinstating the edit - it had been a few days since the discussion and neither of us had replied to Spy-cicle's response above. But yeah I still agree that it's excessive. Popcornfud (talk) 11:36, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Popcornfud. My rule of thumb is to allow at least a week and to make a note in any post on that talk page that I am editing the article that is in dispute because no-one has responded. Seems a more consensus friendly way of doing it but maybe its just me. Spy-cicle could have posted above following their long response that as they had not heard anything for a while therefore they will be bold and reinstate their edit but their edit summary seemed to imply that just because they has posted a response they were justified in changing the article back. Maybe a small point but adding a talk page post that states the reason they are reverting or changing the article due to a lack of discussion helps everyone. Robynthehode (talk) 11:46, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes I am aware of how consensus works, I decided to be bold and reinstate the edit once considering the lack of response and the fact that the revert was your only edit to this article. Could you point to the grammatical errors within the edit? And also what parts you think should be trimmed/shortened? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 13:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Just to add in a couple more of my own cents, I think the edits just add too much detail about something that won't be very important in the long term. As someone who loves adding detail about stuff I nerd out over I understand the urge to keep adding stuff and be comprehensive, but there comes a point where it damages the usefulness and readability of the article. Popcornfud (talk) 14:02, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the addition by Spy-cicle is contrary to WP:TMI and WP:FAN. Many Wikipedia articles suffer from including too much detail. After all this is an encyclopaedia which should summarise. There are links allowing a reader to read information about a particular subject in greater detail if they want. Once the game is out (which I'm very much looking forward to so I count myself as a 'fan') this pre-game release information in the detail suggested will become much less relevant. Robynthehode (talk) 15:04, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Which part do you think has too much detail, the summary of the second gameplay video or the limited edition paragraph. I could see how the latter may contain too much detail and could be condensed or shorterned but the former adequately addresses a core point from the second video summarising it into one sentence. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 11:13, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornfud: Reminding you of this. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 10:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anything added in this edit is necessary. It's all to do with the specifics of limited editions (fancruft) and vague statements from previews ("the game is so big that players might miss stuff!") that will become quickly irrelevant. Popcornfud (talk) 21:38, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Part of the description needs rewriting

The religious cult are not the only or even necessarily the key group Ellie comes into conflict with. There is no official source for the claim that the Seraphite cult are Christian, this is speculation (and in some cases it would be appear to be politically-motivated speculation.) , players enter the role of 19-year-old lesbian Ellie, who comes into conflict with a mysterious Christian cult in a post-apocalyptic United States. TroyOlympicCollateral (talk) 21:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The real question is why no one removed that earlier. Thank you for your notice. — Captainobviousthesecond (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

And thank you for addressing it so quickly, I’m not a regular editor and wasn’t confident editing this myself, so I’m glad someone was looking out and able to do so. TroyOlympicCollateral (talk) 08:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Neither am I. They undid everything I wrote apart from that removal. — Captainobviousthesecond (talk) 11:52, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2020

It is the 3rd best rated PS4 game on Metacritic. 119.160.65.27 (talk) 10:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. According to whom? And is that player rating or critic rating? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Third highest-rated game on Metacritic revert

Dissident93 removed the number of reviews and the fact it is the third-highest rated PlayStation 4 game on Metacritic [7] based on WP:VG/REC [8]. I reverted [9] and Dissident93 reverted it back [10] based on WP:VG/REC#6 (Reduce minutiae inappropriate for a general audience. For example, avoid scores and statistics in prose, which are hard for the reader to parse and often impart little qualitative information). Per WP:BRD, I should discuss. I am not too bothered about the number of reviews (WP:VG/REC#7 does states it is helpful to include the number of reviews... though it could simply be placed in an efn in the review scores template). Though I do not think that including Part II is the third-highest rate game on Metacritic... would be a trivial detail for readers and should be readded back into the article. For reference, this type of infomation is included on: The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Grand Theft Auto V which are all GA+. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Didn't we recently discuss this on WT:VG? A game having an arbitrary number of reviews (above 10 or so) doesn't really make a difference if its 35 or 40. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  I have no strong views as whether or not the number of reviews is included. I am more concerned about the removal of the fact that it was the third-highest rated PlayStation 4 game on Metacritic. I do not consider the latter to be a trivial detail. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:00, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  Dynamic listings like that change everytime there's another highly rated game released (which happens pretty often). Instead of citing that fact, we should be citing the reviews that got it listed that highly in the first place, as those opinions are more futureproofed. And even if we do keep this sort of stuff, at what point do we omit it? The fifth-ranked game? The tenth? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 21:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  Considering the PlayStation 4 is towards the end of its life cycle it is increasingly unlikely for the overall ratings to change. Regardless, at the moment it is the third highest-rated game on the PlayStation 4 and arguments based on the fact it may change in the future seem WP:CRYSTALly. It should be documented as such on the article. If it somehow falls down to eighth or eleventh it can be removed if that happens. Regarding the last part of your comment as to what point we stop ommiting it that seems like something that should be determined at MOS:VG. FWIW, I should the discussion you mentioned earlier about the number of reviews in prose [11] though that did not seem to change the guidance of WP:VG/REC#7 (Although not required, it is helpful to include the number of reviews GameRankings or Metacritic uses to calculate their scores, since it gives context and can help the reader understand how the score is averaged. The number can either be listed after Metacritic's qualitative summary in prose or footnoted in . Examples: Team Sonic Racing's reception section). Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 June 2020

I would like to edit the reviews in order to get them sorted from the lowest to the highest. Antonis Kappa (talk) 13:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 13:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Unscored Reviews

The article only mentions the scored reviews that appear on Metacritic. But other outlets who don't post scores have had less favorable opinions on the game that are not being represented. Polygon, for instance, criticized the game for lack of agency and a plot that punishes the player for said lack of agency. Could somebody with editing privileges add this in? Frohike14 (talk) 10:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Totally agree with you here. I think its dishonest not to include both sides. Thanks, (talk) 10:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

LEAKS ᐃᐃᐁᐁᐊᐅᐊᐅBA

I don't know how but we need to at the very least mention them. This feels like someone has come in and sterilized the page and painted it with a positivity brush. I proposed we create a new section detailing what happened. I understand why we didn't before release because it was unverifiable. I would say having your story and cutscenes leaked is pretty big and deserves a mention.

Happy to hear the reasoning for not including it.

Thanks, (talk) 11:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@LoganBlade:Mention of the leaks are included in the article under the Release section, based on reliable sources published, and has been there not long after the reports were made. Also, please remember to sign your comments using ~~~~. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

okThanks, (talk) 05:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 20 June 2020

The Game is actually set 4 years after the events of The Last of Us as confirmed in the game. 122.57.202.8 (talk) 03:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Jack Frost (talk) 10:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

LGBT and Trans in the user reviews section

thats what the T is for

I say we change it to gay and transgender characters or just use LGBT

Thanks, (talk) 05:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@LoganBlade: Adding to this, the mention of "LGBT" and "Trans" characters was only mentioned on one source on this article - Game-Debate.com. In VG247.com, the "vast majority of user reviews, the main complaint is the story with character development a close second" and "Of course, there are others who complain about the game being 'SJW' while others state even though the game has 'SJW parts,' those 'parts' are inconsequential, as the game is 'just bad.'" Speaking of "Trans" characters, the treatment of the character "Lev" was criticized by some users on Twitter for being too traumatic, as seen in this Pink News article.

As a bonus, Neil Druckmann responded to the controversy, noting that twice as people have reviewed TLOU2 in "just a few hours" than the first game has received "in the first seven years", as referenced in this article from ComicBook.com Yoshiman6464 ^♫🥚 16:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 20 June 2020

Category:2020 video games should be added to the article, as the game has released. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 14:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done Izno (talk) 22:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 20 June 2020

In the review bombing paragraph, change “Trans and LGBT characters” to “LGBT characters.” The former is redundant and also incorrect as the previously thought trans character is not trans and merely a muscular woman. 72.43.121.35 (talk) 18:34, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

You are correct about the misconception, however another one of the characters is confirmed to be trans. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 19:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done Izno (talk) 22:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 20 June 2020

Abby is not a transgender character, and since the last game had LGBTQ themes and these review bombers are supposed fans of that game, I don't think that they are doing this because of the LGBTQ themes. I think you should change the line regarding the review bombers to "perceived transgender themes", removing the LGBTQ. Come to think of it, transgender themes and LGBTQ themes shouldn't be in the same line in the first place, because they mean basically the same thing. Vader13289 (talk) 17:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Vader13289: We are detailing information that the reliable sources are publishing; to do otherwise, by giving our own opinions on the matter, is original research (incidentally, the consensus appears to be that the portrayal of LGBT characters is more blatant in this game, compared to how nuanced its predecessor was). Also, as per the sources, the negative reactions towards LGBT characters was not the only reason given, the narrative choices was another as well. The preconception that Abby was transgender was indeed false, however another character is confirmed to be trans. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 20:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. Izno (talk) 22:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 June 2020

In the Post-release section, a quote from a review by Maddy Myers of Polygon reads: "if Naughty Dog makes you feel bad enough, maybe next time you won't do [...] the thing the game forces you to do?" The brackets on either end of the ellipses indicate that the text is abridged, and that the original article contains more text in-between those two statements. However, the original article actually uses an ellipses there, so the brackets aren't necessary and are, in fact, misleading. I believe this was an error on my part, but I'm unable to fix it on my own right now as the page has been protected so that only administrators can edit it. —Matthew - (talk) 01:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done seems uncontroversial — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Consolidation of LGBT-based areas?

People seem to already be discussing how to cover why the game was review-bombed in relation to LGBT themes and characters. Given that there are now discussions emerging about how the game itself treats those characters, in a mixed or critical manner would it be more user-friendly to have a whole section in reception dedicated to LGBT+ discussions amongst the audience with its own heading or should we leave it mixed in as it is? Apache287 (talk) 17:37, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree. There are some reliable sources that discuss the controversy itself. JAYFAX (talk) 19:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Support a separate section. It's a big area of controversy, as demonstrated by reliable sources, and this is a popular game that has taken such an interesting take on the matter. The developers clearly, and by their own admission, intended for LGBT themes and characters to be a major theme in this game. Discussion regarding the issue is scattered around this article. I would support a second section. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 June 2020

The game was the subject of review-bombing on Metacritic, receiving a low user score of 3.4/10. Publications noted that most were unhappy with the narrative choices, much of which had been leaked prior before release, while a minority were unhappy with its inclusion of LGBT characters. DirtBeard (talk) 02:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

References

I'm not sure exactly what you are requesting. Also I will need to see agreement among other editors that this addition is warranted. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:48, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

His request is to change some (current wording) -> much, regarding the leaks. I think the whole discussion on the leaks needs an overhaul anyway. But, as for this request in particular, 'some' is more appropriate. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how these sources support the use of the word "minority" to describe the anti-LGBT aspect of the review bomb. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit request: Minor issue, missing word

I think "to" should be added after "order" in this plot text:

"and explained his plan to assault the Seraphites' island settlement in order wipe them out completely."

=>

"and explained his plan to assault the Seraphites' island settlement in order to wipe them out completely." --178.202.226.112 (talk) 23:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC). Formatted into a proper edit request, ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC).

 Done Izno (talk) 19:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 June 2020

I wish to propose a grammatical change to the wording of one of the sourced reviews in the article, from:

Rob Zacny of Vice came away believing that the game had been "poorly served by a Naughty Dog house style that has become less a signature than a straitjacket," in a negative review that comments on the story's inability to delve into its characters noting, "nobody ever reconsiders their quest for vengeance. Everyone acts under a kind of vindictive compulsion that goes little remarked and unexamined."

to:

In a negative review that commented on the story's inability to delve into its characters, Rob Zacny of Vice came away believing that the game had been "poorly served by a Naughty Dog house style that has become less a signature than a straitjacket," noting, "nobody ever reconsiders their quest for vengeance. Everyone acts under a kind of vindictive compulsion that goes little remarked and unexamined."

Wikibenboy94 (talk) 12:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems unnecessary to me. That paragraph starts with Conversely, other reviewers found issue with the game's narrative and its attempts to explore themes of violence and revenge. Adding In a negative review that commented on the story's inability to delve into its characters in front of an individual review in the same paragraph seems to simply hurt readability, as it is already stated the paragraph covers negative reviews that take issue on the narrative and themes.

I would perhaps support adding to the opener of the paragraph the issue with character development, e.g. "found issue with the game's narrative, character development and its attempts to explore themes of violence and revenge" ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. Izno (talk) 19:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Plot

I'm still for my changes being recovered. I think most agree that the game needs a plot section. Ellie being lesbian is also important to the story because she will get together with the pregnant Dina to start a family. And I think somebody here (Sony) is trying to keep that information out of Wikipedia until the release date because the leaked material has been received negatively by various internet critics. — Captainobviousthesecond (talk) 11:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree Thanks, (talk) 10:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

This is now moot, and covered in plot. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The Leak

Why is there no information on the leak? 158.26.65.167 (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

there is, under Release. Popcornfud (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but there no information on the (well documented) spoilers. 158.26.65.166 (talk) 21:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

We should not include any spoilers in the article, but the leak probably should get its own section in the article regarding how/why the leaks happened and peoples' reactions to the leaks. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems a bit WP:RECENTISM if you ask me. Sure we can add some general reactions to it, but we don't really need an entire section devoted to it, especially since it changes nothing in the longterm (game was already delayed prior to this). ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Mmm, I don't think it's recentism given the context. This is, by far, the most significant leak in video game history. I think it deserves a little bit more than just a couple of sentences. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it that, we'd need sources that call it the "most significant leak in video game history". Where have you seen that? There's nothing more to emphasize on. QueerFilmNerd^talk 00:59, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It's my opinion, and I wasn't suggesting we put that exact verbiage into the article. But can you think of a more significant video game leak than this one? Rreagan007 (talk) 01:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

How about when the entirety of Half-Life 2 leaked online a year before it was finished? I agree with Dissident, it's recentism to focus extensively on the leak, it will likely matter very little in the grand scheme of things. Popcornfud (talk) 09:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it should have its own sub-heading considering it is a major part of its release. Moreover, I think infomation of the leak could be expanded including the offical response from Naughty Dog but both were reverted ([12] [13]) by Popcornfud. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 16:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It probably won't amount to any more of a "major part of its release" than anything else to do with the release. Popcornfud (talk) 19:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think you're vastly understating the impact from this release and the reaction to it. The leak section should be expanded in the article. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

What are the sources indicating the impact of the leak and its likely lasting importance? Popcornfud (talk) 16:50, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, is this "impact" regarding the actual leak and its legal/industry implications, or is it the "impact" regarding the negative reception shown towards the story/themes/content from it? If it's the latter, then wouldn't the same reaction have happened on normal release anyway? This is nothing like the 2003 Half-Life 2 leak, which indirectly (has Valve ever confirmed it?) led to large parts of the game being redesigned. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 08:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

It's the impact on both. And the difference between negative reaction months before release vs happening after release is the (potential) negative impact on sales of the game. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

If/when we have reliable sources showing the impact we can add them. Popcornfud (talk) 21:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Generally speaking, until there's coverage of sales impact, we can't assume that there will be a meaningful impact from the leaks per WP:CRYSTAL. The negative reaction seems largely confined to Youtube commentators and small-time sites; sources that fall under WP:RS largely haven't written anything negative about the game itself. As the others have said, as sources provide more substantial content surrounding the leaks, their outcome, and their impact, we can add them, but until then there's little to add. — seadoubleyoujay ^{[talk] [contrib] [海倍君ジェイ]} 03:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

There were leaks that spoiled the sequel Radcircles95 (talk) 04:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Just pointing to the Wikipedia spoilers policy. WP:SPOIL dont mind me Thanks, (talk) 10:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Jason Schrier

In the release section it mentions Jason Schrier without his first name in that paragraph. I think we should chage it to "According to Jason Schreier, hackers had used a security weakness in a pre"— Preceding unsigned comment added by LoganBlade (talk • contribs) 10:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: WP:MOS is for one use of his first name (earlier in the article) and last name only elsewhere. Izno (talk) 14:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 June 2020

2607:FEA8:691F:E190:3C27:24C5:36D3:F91A (talk) 04:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The game has an polarizing reputation.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Izno (talk) 05:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Izno, just a point, as I see you've implemented some TPERs from here, it doesn't seem like you're giving the proper attribution for edit requests. I imagine this is intentional as the requests so far have been smaller and more limited to grammatical changes etc, but I just wanted to drop a friendly note and ask you to leave the proper attribution for future edit requests. With the page being fully protected, it would be important to give the proper attribution to what is ultimately other people's work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it's quite sufficient for "per tper" to indicate attribution; the license does not require the names be directly in the summary, only that someone can identify the author. (You are more than welcome to work on edit X-protected requests yourself and see how painful it would be to provide an entire full attribution in the summary.) Your ping also did not actually notify me. --Izno (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request, 21st June, Game Sales Figures

Please could this following section be added to the sales section.

"Upon launch the game became the highest selling game for the Playstation 4 in the UK by the end of its debut weekend, outselling the previous record-holder Uncharted 4 by at least 1% in physical sales and outselling the original game by 76%. Digital sales were not taken into account for this but were presumed to widen the lead if taken into account. [14]" Apache287 (talk) 20:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Good update. Do we have a raw figure for the number of sales? That'd definitely be a good addition. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. It appears the industry body for the UK only lists what sold most and not how many copies it sold. Would probably have to wait for a press release from Sony for that. Apache287 (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Izno (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Having read this entire talk page it seems noteworthy how sources praising this release are initially immediately welcomed and sources blaming this release are initially immediately criticized, until things settle down. Why is that? Could it be due to paid (commercial) editors who have not disclosed client conflicts of interest on their talk pages? 86.93.208.34 (talk) 04:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

IP 86: It is not appropriate to cast aspersions. If you have actual reason to believe specific persons are paid or have undisclosed COI, you should take that concern to WP:COIN. --Izno (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 22 June 2020

I'd like to edit just a few things, such as the fact that this page says the game received "universally positive" reception, while in reality that was just from professional outlets, and not most people. NewRuins012 (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Izno (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the above request was to do with the review scores by critics - vast majority positive and high - and the review scores from fans on metacritic etc - which are low. There is clear evidence of review bombing for the audience scores and more importantly audience scores are unreliable and not usually included re WP:UGC. Robynthehode (talk) 18:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 June 2020

Change where it says its the 3rd highest rated PS4 game behind Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V to say that its the 4th highest rated PS4 game on Metacritic behind Persona 5 Royal, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V Stardustsummons (talk) 21:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Exactly why we should be avoiding this sort of thing... At the very least, futureproof it by generalizing the statement. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. Izno (talk) 22:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Persona 5 Royal, The Last of Us Part II, and The Last of Us all share the same score of 95. Part II is still the third-highest rated PlayStation 4 game alongside the other two which is explained an efn. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 23:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

sales figures

The reference for the section reads Sony tallied more preorders in Europe for The Last of Us Part II than it did for Marvel's Spider-Man at the same point before its launch. [15] This doesn't tell us anything though. Do we know if that game had a lot of preorders? How is the "at the same point" defined? Is it the exact same number of days, or just the same quarters, which could mean over two months more time to gather orders? Also they say the source of this is Sony itself, so conflict of interest there. They want to make their game sound like its doing as good as possible to get more people to buy it. The other reference mentioning how well its selling in the UK is odd also. Is it not selling well in other markets? Why are they claiming its selling well without mention specific numbers to back that up? Dream Focus 01:19, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Considering the article was published on the 29 May 2020 and states it had more pre-order than Marvel's Spider-Man "at the same point before its launch", I am interpreting "at the same point before its launch" to mean the number of days before launch which would be exactly three weeks. Unfortunately the exact number of pre-orders were not disclosed but we have to work with the infomation we have. I think Sony can be trusted here and if they did lie I think would consitute fraud / misleading shareholders. In the video game industry the sales figures are not always disclosed but hopefully more will be revealed later down the line; we know the sales for the UK as it has weekly rankings (for physical sales at least). If you have a reliable source which states sales for other regions feel free to add it. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 09:35, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Controversy Section?

At some point, a video game that displays any type violence could receive some amount backlash/drama against it. The latest drama around LOU 2 was the trailer released at the PlayStation conference at the 2017 Paris Game Week event for the game. The trailer recieved backlash for no warning of the violence that was going to be shown in the trailer. There are multiple articles talking about this topic. I beleive this section should be created just in case of anymore drama around the game arises.Cjbeckford (talk) 00:01, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

We try to avoid controversy sections, especially when there's not really any controversy to begin with, and there's certainly no reason to make one "just in case of anymore drama" per WP:CRYSTAL. I've added some information regarding the trailer and the response to an existing section. – Rhain ☔ 01:56, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

That is honestly a pathetic excuse. It feels as if wikipedia is erasing evidence and LYING. A controversy section would be great especially with the leaks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LockyHimself (talk • contribs) 12:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Controversy sections are pointless, all the information from one can be worked into other sections for better context and proper weighting. The larger issue here is that a majority of sources that have been presented on this page re: the leaks have been from unreliable sources (Youtube, blogs, chatter sites). If you'd like to contribute content regarding the leaks with reliably sourced information, you're welcome to. Generally it would fit in the Release or Reception sections, depending on the information. — seadoubleyoujay ^{[talk] [contrib] [海倍君ジェイ]} 13:11, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

References

It is utterly antithetical to the spirit of Wikipedia, which seeks to broadly inform on its topics, to elide the overwhelmingly negative user response or shrug it off as review-bombing because small but vocal online minorities were upset with social issues. I would direct those editing this page to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Last_Jedi as an example of covering the massive gap between critic and user score. MysteryTed80 (talk) 11:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@MysteryTed80: The bottom line is that there are currently very few, if any, reliable sources that see this as a widespread "backlash" towards the game that haven't just pointed to the review-bombing on Metacritic as an indication of hostile reactions from fans and given their reasons as to why this has occurred (i.e. the leaks before release, plot, and perceived identity politics); this is why the article makes a brief mention of this and nothing else. There may eventually be publications down the line that discuss the backlash in-depth and sympathise more with those that do have legitimate complaints with the game, but unless there have been numerous examples that have done so up to this point, there should not currently be a section included on this.

Likewise, in the case of Star Wars: The Last Jedi's article, there had been many publications that not only reported on the film's Rotten Tomatoes audience score shortly after release, and questioning its validity by suggesting it had suffered from a review-bombing campaign, but had also observed why there had been such a discord from audiences in terms of the film's writing. I'm also aware that the decision to include an audience section in that article and how it was phrased was only agreed upon after weeks of discussion. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wikibenboy94 There's a Forbes article already out that warns against lumping all the bad reviews so far as "review-bombing" https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/06/20/two-warnings-about-the-last-of-us-2-user-review-scores/

@MysteryTed80: While there have been one or two Forbes articles like these, those written by Forbes contributors are generally not considered a reliable source as per WP:VG/S. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 17:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Then change WP:VG/S. If the only sources to report honestly on a subject are the ones being censored, then there's a severe problem with the policy on reliable sources. Carl Kenner (talk) 05:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

But I suppose I don't understand; editors at Wikipedia are something akin to historians—and there's been a lot of criticism, internal and external, for recording history as a top-down entity rather than as something more organic. Right now, you're telling me that we can't or shouldn't mention something that is clearly happening simply because the pundit class has not passed enough judgment on it to bother recording it. That's pretty wild. MysteryTed80 (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

It's worse than that. The pundit class has passed judgement that facts about reality need to be censored, and Wikipedia admins have loyally enforced that censorship. The leadership of Wikipedia is a sad joke. Carl Kenner (talk) 05:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Carl Kenner: If you read the "Adding caveat to Metacritic scores" section below, you'll see there is a discussion in progress about including a section on audiences responses. It's clear you need to familiarise yourself with Wikipedia's own policies first, rather than immediately jumping to conclusions about some perceived censorship. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 06:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

What leadership? Wikipedia is run by consensus. Some expert editors get paid by “clients” to amend articles in their favor (undisclosed paid editors). These games cost a lot of money to produce and returns on investment are expected. Budgets are reserved for shilling. Unless you find irrefutable proof that an editor has undisclosed WP:COI on their talk page there is no point talking about this any further. 86.93.208.34 (talk) 06:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the user scores should be referenced as well. Even though the reviews on metacritic might not be good, you can still check reviews (on any game) from Steam, Xbox Store, and PlayStation Store. Those could technically be considered reliable sources because those storefronts require you to have a copy of the material in question before you can review it. Yes there can still be review-bombing, but i’m pretty sure someone won’t spend $60 to purposefully drag down a games reputation. Then again, humanity is unpredictable B RexT Rex (talk) 15:13, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The Controversy section is stupid and makes it sounds like people's only problem with the story was the LGBT concepts when that's not the complaint at all. The issue was the bait & switch between marketing, telling everyone that it would be one character (Ellie) and doctoring shots to make Joel look like a bigger part of the story. A lot of people feel lied to. The way this controversy section is written is to write-off all complaints as that of bigots, not people who despise false advertising and a narrative decided to crush everything they liked about the original story. This was clearly done by someone with massive bias towards the game trying to be dismissal of all reasonable complaints. 75.16.49.65 (talk) 00:54, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Nothing at all on the actual players response to this? Really?

Game currently has a 3.3 score from 2251 ratings on metacritic and many reasoned reviews explaining their scoring. I see nothing here about this and the page is locked. So paid critics are all that count eh? 87.112.192.206 (talk) 08:43, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I hate all that feminist crap in the game and agree with the player score but how many of those you think are bots and trolls? It was released last night and on average it takes a few weeks to finish. Normal people don't review it until after finishing it. It's a crappy game, yes, but highly likely it's also being review-bombed. —Preceding undated comment added 10:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Jesus dude WP:COMKNOW unverifiable —

Please stop placing the metacritic userscore on the game as some proof of "critic vs audience" disagreement. No one is going to take seriously a 3.4 userscore from 6000 reviews when it's a game that takes more than a day to play and most have had at best 7-10 hours so far, especially when so many of those 1s and 0s are "SJWs ruined this" or poorly spelt spam. Come a week or two after the initial review bombing and there are more detailed pieces we can reference on fan reactions then that can be included but as it stands it's highly reactive leak driven anger and not reactions to a 25 hour game. Apache287 (talk) 12:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

What *is* a verifiable source when audiences have a massive disparity with critics? Critics are increasingly less and less in touch with how a game is actually received. And also I am rather annoyed at how everyone tries to blow the complaints off as people being bigoted or whatever label when in reality the real beef people have is the bait & switch. It's sort of like the backlash to Metal Gear Solid 2 forcing you into a new character, except if the character you played was a sociopath who ganked Snake a few hours into the story and remained heavily unlikable afterward. That's the real problem people have. I've not heard ONE serious complaint that there's a lesbian relationship, not one. You could literally make everyone in the game straight as an arrow and the anger would be just as high, the problems are flat out with characterization and narrative.75.16.49.65 (talk) 01:02, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2020

The Audience response section should be edited. People put low score in Metacritic not because LGBT stuff ('cause nobody cares), but because Part II killed hero of the previous game (Joel) and players are forced to play as Abby (killer of Joel) and also – there's is no satisfying ending, because player can't kill Abby in the end of the game. So the ending is kind of Mass effect 3 type disaster.

PROPOSED CHANGES FROM:

The game was the subject of review-bombing on Metacritic, resulting in a user review score of 3.4/10 at its nadir.[75] Reporters noticed the review bomb shortly after the game launched and observed that it was far too early for these users to feasibly have finished the game by this time,[68] including positive scores being made in the same time. Commentators noted that a proportion of user reviews made statements about the perceived "social justice warrior" politics of the game and observed that some of the angry response focused the presence of LGBT+ characters and diversity within the game.[76][68][77] Daniel Van Boom of CNET stated that the review bombers do not represent the majority of players who otherwise have no problem with diversity.[78]

Stacey Henley of VG247 wrote about the transgender community of whom some were dissatisfied with the treatment of Lev, a transgender boy. Critism was directed at the fact Lev gets deadnamed and that non-transgender writers created him. Henley rebutted that the deadnaming was done sparingly and that a transgender male actor provides the voice and motion capture of Lev.[79]

TO:

The game was the subject of review-bombing on Metacritic, resulting in a user review score of 3.4/10 at its nadir.[75] Reporters noticed the review bomb shortly after the game launched and observed that it was far too early for these users to feasibly have finished the game by this time,[68] including positive scores being made in the same time. Commentators noted that a proportion of user reviews made statements about the perceived "social justice warrior" politics of the game and observed that some of the angry response focused the presence of LGBT+ characters and diversity within the game.[76][68][77] Daniel Van Boom of CNET stated that the review bombers do not represent the majority of players who otherwise have no problem with diversity.[78]

Stacey Henley of VG247 wrote about the transgender community of whom some were dissatisfied with the treatment of Lev, a transgender boy. Criticism was directed at the fact Lev gets deadnamed and that non-transgender writers created him. Henley rebutted that the deadnaming was done sparingly and that a transgender male actor provides the voice and motion capture of Lev.[79]

But it also should be noted, that a lot of players had a negative or angry response because of game developer's decision to kill the main protagonist from the last game at the beginning of the game and force players to play as he's killer, to get killer's perspective on story in the game. A lot of people on Metacritic points out, that they give low score because there is no satisfying end (players can't avenge the death of the main hero from the last game) and compared Last of US PArt II ending with Mass Effect 3 ending. PewdiepieLithuania (talk) 13:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Such a change is, I think, contrary to WP:POV, and. WP:UGC. Even if such information is to be included (in a concise way) the current suggestion is WP:UNDUE. The sentiments expressed would need to be part of an analysis by a WP:RS rather than extracting comments from a review aggregation site. Robynthehode (talk) 14:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Please discuss to see if there is a way to include this acceptably in the article, per the concerns raised by Robynthehode. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2020

The user score of Metacritic is 4.5. 119.158.126.50 (talk) 11:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not closing your edit request, but it's not clear what you're requesting to change. The article says at its nadir, with reliable sources stating this from the date of reference publication. 84.250.17.211 (talk) 21:02, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: per the reliable sources. GoingBatty (talk) 00:53, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 June 2020

In the Synopsis, under Characters and setting, Isaac's name is misspelled as "Issac".— Preceding unsigned comment added by Muffingrenn (talk • contribs) 16:35, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Fan petition inclusion

Given that trusted websites are now reporting on fan petitions (https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/06/the_last_of_us_2_petition_demands_dramatic_story_alterations) I was wondering at what level would we agree it should warrant inclusion in the audience reaction section.

Personally I think around 30,000 people willing to sign a petition claiming to be "disrespected" is enough to warrant at least a line mentioning this but what are others thoughts? Apache287 (talk) 23:42, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Only Push Square has reported as of now, the petition is not reliable, and not like GoT. Also, for example, https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP9000-CUSA07820_00-THELASTOFUSPART2 shows that most of the people who actually bought the game liked it. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 23:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

That's only got 11,000 ratings and that doesn't prove anything about "most people who bought it like it," only that 11,000 people who bought it on the PS Store who chose to leave a rating averaged out at 4/5 stars. Apache287 (talk) 00:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

A bunch of nobodies against verified players who played the game. Still a much better and trustable source than your hater petition reported by one website. These "30,000 people" should've just voted for the game in the store, since they supposedly bought and played it. Get over it. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 00:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

And again with the insults... have you thought about maybe not taking how others viewed a game so personally? Plus I don't know why I have to repeat myself but those 11,000 only counts those who bought it by digital download so you can't prove either way if people signing the petition did or didn't buy the game because many people would've bought physical copies. Apache287 (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Uh, nobody is such an insult! Why are you getting offended? You are the only one who takes things "personally" here. As I've stated before, this petition and "would have bought..." (which is not the topic here and was just shown as a basic example, but as expected you changed the subject and made a big deal about it) has no value right now. Get over it. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 07:52, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Mate you immediately wrote people off as "nobodies", once again deemed me to dismiss me a "hater", and are straight up lying... AGAIN. You changed the topic claiming that "most of the people who actually bought the game liked it" by citing 11,000 people on a PS Store page which is not a large audience sample for a game that sold millions of copies. I am getting tired with the fact all you do is straight up bully and harass people on this page, railroading your way around as demonstrated before where you made up a load of false allegations of vandalism about me and resort to childish insults, if you deem that person to be negative of a video game. If you don't stop I will happily bring other admins into this given it's happened on multiple occasions now. Apache287 (talk) 09:08, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I am definitely not your "mate". No one is deeming you anything, I've written "your" not "you're". It is basically a hater petition, since some people who hated the game want it to be changed. What am I lying about? The fact that this petition is only reported by a single website, or that it is not notable? You think 30k is "a large audience sample for a game that sold millions of copies"? I didn't change the topic, you are the one who is insisting on not to delve into your "trusted websites" claim. Mine was, again, as I've stated before, a better example than some random fan petition. Why is no one complaining about me except you, since I "bully and harass people on this page"? Will any of the things you write acutally be helpful to the article? Please, stop whining. (Of course, everyone is free to bring "admins", just don't bring the ones you thought were admins but in reality they were not, otherwise it will be embarrassing again.) −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 10:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

"No one is deeming you anything, I've written "your"," the use of "your hater petition" implies that I have some connection to said petition or its contents. All I did was suggest that the reporting of this could add some extra context to the audience reaction and asked if there was some level at which it would warrant inclusion. Now, mere days after you previously accused me of being a "hater and review-bomber" and badmouthed me to several users you're once again using the same language to discredit anything I contribute. Even your changelogs can't help but make patronising comments like "how to alternate one subject with another within minutes when you don't have anything valid to say" because I argued that a single storefront's review page doesn't back up claims "most players" liked the game. You suggested that Push Square isn't reliable despite being on the reliable sources list. Anyone who introduces any potential criticism for inclusion onto this article you immediately insult and lambast with accusations of bad faith. If you could maybe make a contribution or rebuttal without relying on bullying tactics that would be appreciated. Apache287 (talk) 10:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, despite showing the petition "not reliable", you just took it and show it as if I said Push Square was unreliable (surprising that you didn't also accuse me of saying GoT is not like Push Square), just like your other accusations, which are off-topic. You do you, I guess. Why break the habit? −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 11:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

You literally just changed your first comment to change its context entirely, changing the text from suggesting an issue with Push Square (Only Push Square has reported as of now, it is not reliable, and not like GoT) to specifying the petition (Only Push Square has reported as of now, the petition is not reliable, and not like GoT)[16] to claim I was deliberately ignoring you talking about the petition when you don't actually mention it in the original comment. Talk about a dishonest argument there. Apache287 (talk) 12:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

A single report about a single petition. Audience ratings of games (and films etc) are unreliable because they can be manipulated. So too are petition numbers. At the moment this seems contrary to WP:NOTNEWS and WP:TMI. If this is reported more widely and becomes less of a reactive news item then careful inclusion maybe be warranted as part of the audience reaction section as long as reliable sources are available. Robynthehode (talk) 07:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Sony's official site that sells a game they publish isn't really a reliable source for ratings. They were caught giving themselves a high rating before the game was released, some commenting on that rigging of the results. As for the change.org thing at [Wikipedia blacklists links to there] it currently reads "29,023 have signed". People who didn't buy the game or ever have any intentions to can vote there, so not sure how anyone would consider it relevant. Dream Focus 08:31, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

They weren't "caught out" giving high ratings on the PS Store for The Last of Us Part II, considering Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghost of Tshushima also have 5 stars there. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 12:15, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm just wondering as the fan petitions to demonstrate anger have been used before when it came to Game of Thrones (season 8) so was asking at what point would it warrant inclusion as some aspect of what happened in the response to the game. Apache287 (talk) 11:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I think is worth mentioning in the Audience response section. It can be source to an RS, Push Square. Moreover, it can also be sourced to Cogconnected [17], SVG [18], PSU [19], Gearnuke [20] all of whom have not been discussed at WP:VG/RS about their reliablity. There is also PlayStation Lifestyle [21] however its it inconclusive at WP:VG/RS. Guessing as to whether those who signed it have or have not played the game falls foul of WP:NOTSPECULATION without an RS. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 12:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

As far as fan petitions go, this one isn't even that big. I think there's been long-standing agreement at WPVG that fan petitions are generally not noteworthy and the bar for inclusion about them is higher than for other types of fan behavior (like review bombing, for example, which already has a high bar for inclusion). Axem Titanium (talk) 18:52, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Axem Titanium the inclusion of the petition is not noteworthy. It is contrary to WP:UNDUE. If sales are approx 4 million then an approx 30000 petition is less than 1% of 'fans'. Although a side comment, and having read the text of the petition, it reads like people who feel entitled to demand change because they don't like something rather than a reasoned criticism of the game. We cannot know how many have played, finished or even reflected on the game of those who have signed the petition. If there was support from notable game reviewers or similar it may be noteworthy but in its current state the petition is not encyclopaedic. Thanks. Robynthehode (talk) 15:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Do we know how many copies it sold? 37,251 is the current number of people that signed it, but you don't know if they are "fans" or just people clicking a link from a news article to go there and sign it. If it was mentioned in this Wikipedia article the number signing it would surely be much higher. Wikipedia blacklist linking to that site so perhaps there is a rule against having it mentioned in articles somewhere in the endless tangled mess of rules. Dream Focus 15:17, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Dream Focus The copies sold is shown in the sales section which states the 4 million. 37,251 is still less than 1%. It wouldn't matter re WP:UNDUE if this number tripled or more. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to promote a certain cause by including it in the encyclopaedia so more people flock to that cause or have I misunderstood your comment? Robynthehode (talk) 15:52, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed since the sales figures were updated since last night when I looked. You did misunderstand me somehow. I pointing out it was just a small number of people who may not have even bought the game. I also mentioned the site is blacklisted to keep people from posting links to it to get people from flooding there- whatever, reading what I wrote, I should've been clearer. I don't really care about this one way or the other. Dream Focus 17:24, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Poor References for Audience Reception

Is there a better reference for "review bombing" in the "Audience Response" section: ?

References

The current reference shows little proof of review-bombing. The site makes a claim with no evidence given... basically no better than hearsay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.221.157.21 (talk • contribs)

Here are some other citations: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/06/22/two-warnings-about-the-last-of-us-2-user-review-scores/ and https://www.svg.com/219914/the-real-reason-the-last-of-us-2-is-getting-review-bombed/ Both attempt to analyse the review bombing. Seems pretty clear from these analyses. Robynthehode (talk) 19:37, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the game-debate.com ref isn't great, but we presume that the author went and looked to see that it was happening and then reported on it. That isn't hearsay. Feel free to replace with some of the refs Robyn provided though. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Having checked the Game Debate source it is really poor and Game Debate has not established itself as a reliable source as far as I can see. So we can't presume anything about their fact checking credentials. Have changed citation to one from Forbes. Robynthehode (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Forbes is not considered a reliable source per WP:VG/S. There are a number of articles that have reported on the review-bombing. Note the article on review bombing makes use of two by VG24/7 and Push Square. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 22:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Was about to say the same @Wikibenboy94:, so much so that it caused an edit conflict. I've updated the section in general to stick to trusted outlets and managed to include some more nuanced details about the review bombing situation. I don't think there's much expansion able to be done to that section at this point until it settles down and we get the inevitable think pieces in a few weeks time that go "why did fans reject this game" Apache287 (talk) 22:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Having had the time to check the link WP:VG/S. Forbes is not listed as a reliable source but it is also not listed as an unreliable one so its status needs to be reviewed and it cannot be merely asserted it is unreliable. Unless of course there is other information to say otherwise and I would be happy to see that. Robynthehode (talk) 14:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It is listed as situational becuase Forbes has both staff writers and contributors. The former are considered reliable whilst the latter are not. The same can be seen at the listing at WP:RSP. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 16:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Spy-cicle Yes, of course. I should have checked this list. Thanks for the heads up. Reading WP:RSP I believe it does say that some contributors can be regarded as reliable if experts in their fields. Hard to gauge this from the article but as there are better sources then the assessment is moot. Thanks. Robynthehode (talk) 18:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

“The game was the subject of review-bombing on Metacritic, resulting in a user review score of 3.4/10 at its nadir.[75][76] Reporters noticed the review bomb occurred shortly after the game launched and observed that it was too early for these users to feasibly have finished the game by this time” This is comically deceptive, and has no place there. Naughty Dog has the protagonist of the first game killed fairly early on, and then wants the player to assume the role of his murderer. Nobody has to finish a story to conclude at that point that this isn‘t what they signed up for. The devastation is also captured, live, by several YouTubers, who genuinely in the moment say they don‘t like to play this further (one is seen cutting the disc apart). Lokkhen (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

A review implies that you've finished the piece of media being reviewed, so why should someone's only opinion of the game that stems from a narrative decision they didn't like in the game be just as valid? Also, noting that the game can take anywhere from 25 - 35 hours, the duration between the major death and then taking control of the killer is essentially half the game's runtime, which would imply even fewer people reached the latter before they left a review in the first few hours. This is to say nothing of those who did not play the game at all, since their minds had already been made up following the leaks, and upon release took this as an opportunity to continue to vent their pre-conceived notions on Metacritic. Yes, some of those reactions inevitably were from YouTubers, your point? Wikibenboy94 (talk) 00:02, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding caveat to Metacritic scores

Hi,

I believe that there should be a caveat to the metacritic score point in the release section stating that many of the more critical views were unscored. While typically we don't mention that reviews are left unscored and not counted as part of the metacritic one in this case the notable divide between games giving it scores and those that aren't in terms of critical views towards the game's story may warrant such a notification. I'm not intending to start a discussion on why that divide exists, because I don't have any information, but it exists none the less and should be noted if we include more critical reviews from major outlets yet we promote the fact it has a 95 on an aggregate website. Apache287 (talk) 11:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree with you on this. I would say add a sentance about how some of the more negative reviews were unscored. Personally I would say it boils down to a divisive and hard to assign a numerical score to game.

Thanks, (talk) 12:08, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Apache287:There are over 90 positive reviews of the game on Metacritic. Only around 10 of these are unscored, and even then not every one of those in the bracket are more critical of the game. There are also several scored reviews categorised as "mixed", which presumably touch on many of the same complaints, as well as those whose less-critical reviews are categorised as "positive", but are on the lower-tier of this spectrum. Considering they are in a minority, there's no guarantee that all of those unscored critical reviews would have affected the overall Metascore, at least to a notable degree. You're making this out to be a glaring issue that needs mentioning when in the context of things it's utterly trivial. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wikibenboy94: Typically I would agree however to the general user in this instance it does provide some clarity as to why the game has a very high MC score of 95 yet some of the biggest, most well-known sites are highly-negative towards the game. If you just glanced at the MC score you'd see 91 positive and 3 mixed scores but only if you look closer you'd see that many of the 100s are from sites that are tiny and not exactly well-known while the gaming equivalent of "papers of note" like Polgyon, Eurogamer, and Kotaku aren't counted at all. Given that we don't know the workings of the algorithm itself other than it uses a combination of plain score and worthiness of site we can't say whether if scored these reviews would have a noted impact or not on the MC score. You can't describe it as having "universal acclaim from critics" if there are multiple notable publications who have considered it a poor game.

All the caveat does is very simply explain why there is a notable level of very-negative criticism of the game from major outlets in the reception section but this doesn't seem reflected in the MC score. It doesn't display any opinion on the usefulness of that score or commentary on how scores are reached. It provides a useful and factual quick indicator to casual readers that may not know that unscored reviews aren't counted. Apache287 (talk) 14:41, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Removed, please see wikipedia's policy on Wikipedia:No_original_research. To be up to standard, you would need to find a reliable source that states unscored critical reviews affecting the overall metascore. Drsmoo (talk) 14:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Apache287: Please see Drsmoo's above comment. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 15:15, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Except it is using Metacritic itself as the source, which is already sourced for information to denote the game as "universally acclaimed", pointing that any reviews listed as unscored aren't counted. How can it be "original research" to point out Metacritic's own policy? The only extra source is the site's FAQ so I'll add that in. Apache287 (talk) 15:20, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD, please discuss here before further changes. What you have mentioned is a problem with Metacritic, but not a problem for the game. We don't need to have a note for every single vg article just to mention a problem with Metacritic. Also, both "many" and "more critical" are WP:POV and WP:OR. It is impossible to define both, since the former is subjective and for the latter, you are already gauging the tone behind a review on your own, which is WP:OR. OceanHok (talk) 15:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing out what the game was criticized and praised for in its opening prose, especially when the game's plot has been discussed on multiple reviews, with a good amount of them being negative, and also a lot being positive, making a "ploarized" response. If there are common points of criteria that critics are pointing out, then they should be pointed out in the article, end of story. Aardwolf68 (talk) 15:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@OceanHok: but how can you denote the reception of a game according to Metacritic if you don't note that even it doesn't include all the critics it lists as being counted in its description? You can't say "Metacritic says the game is universally acclaimed" if you then ignore that the MC page used as a source to claim this also shows that not every review it lists contributes to that description by Metacritic and the summaries of some of these reviews are openly critical of the game. Also it's not POV to summarise on the talk page an article as more critical when that article has been previously placed on the article as a whole denoting a more critical reception to the game from several major publications. Apache287 (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

You can include this limitation of Metacritic to the its article, provided that you can find RS to support what you have said. This is a systematic problem for Metacritic and not a problem for the game, thus having it here is inappropriate. What we can do is to summarize the reception in a WP:DUE manner by mentioning both the praise and the criticisms. What's currently in the lead (Praise was directed at the improved gameplay over its predecessor and visual fidelity, while its plot and the presentations of its themes through violence received a polarized response.) is a good example OceanHok (talk) 15:45, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The thing is with this game is that negative/more critical reviews are from well trusted and reliable sites, yet differ so drastically from what Metacritic claims, which is why the inclusion feels like an exception to the rule, not the base. Aardwolf68 (talk) 15:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@OceanHok: But the source are Metacritic articles themselves. In this case the article reads "The Last of Us Part II received "universal acclaim" from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic". Except the source itself used to support this being on the article shows only 94 critic reviews were used to claim this when Metacritic lists 104 critic reviews on the page (because there are 10 that are not scored). Therefore to accurately portray the source you should list that it doesn't include every review it lists to claim it was universally acclaimed and that even the source's own summaries of reviews demonstrates not every review it listed was universal in acclaiming it. Apache287 (talk) 15:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The key here is that Metacritic has a process it publishes applied to every game of how it aggregates the scores. That (if it is the case, I haven't checked) that the unscored reviews of TLOU2, but still listed as critical reviews on MC's page, are the ones that are most critical of the game's story, that's not something we can address and can't do anything about, outside of making sure their worded criticisms are included in the text. If we're talking the user scores which are being user bombed, that's totally different and we are NOT including those outside of mentioning the review bomb. --Masem (t) 17:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It is actually hilarious that how haters and review bombers from Metacritic come here and complain about it, not knowing how Metascore works. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 18:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not "hating" to think that the current description of simply saying "it received universal acclaim" without any nuance on how that conclusion was reached looks a bit strange right before a section that then lists three major publications reaching rather negative conclusions Apache287 (talk) 19:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Also to add it doesn't help when Metacritic's own website contradicts itself with an FAQ that claims unscored reviews are added yet the actual review pages themselves state they aren't if you highlight a tiny icon buried away Apache287 (talk) 19:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm actually explaining this. https://www.metacritic.com/about-metacritic is here for your nonsensical reasons (especially "any nuance on how that conclusion was reached"). Also read Metacritic. "IN PROGRESS & UNSCORED" reviews do not count towards the actual ones, because they represent the thoughts on unfinished gameplay (that's why they were added to the site on June 12). So there are only 3 mixed reviews (assigned 7/10), no negative. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 19:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

None of the pages you've linked actually state what you claim. Meanwhile here's the FAQ (https://www.metacritic.com/faq#item11) which states "for those critics who do not provide a score, we'll assign a score from 0-100 based on the general impression given by the review" while on a typical review page (https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-last-of-us-part-ii/critic-reviews) if you dig into it and highlight the ? on unscored and in-progress it states "these unscored reviews do not factor into the METAscore calculation". So it contradicts and is not clear which explanation someone reading a page on wikipedia would reach. Apache287 (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287 can you kindly highlight where on the page these question marks appear. — Niche-gamer 21:45, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Niche-gamerHi. On the second link you need to scroll down to the section marked "inprogress & unscored" and it's to the right of the title. Apache287 (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the initial statement here. I've played through about 10 hours of the game so far and it is absolutely boring garbage and it was likely reviewed by many companies who are shills to get such a high score. Regardless, Masem is right, we can't really do anything about it. Yeah, unfortunately the more important companies who are actually critical of the game were shut out and not allowed to give number scores, but again, the Wikipedia page has to go off the 95/100 score it got on Metacritic. Oh well. Acekard (talk) 19:31, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem that interrogating the weaknesses of Metacritic is not the purview of this article. I think the right move is to say something like "According to Metacritic, the game received 'universal acclaim' with a Metascore of 95/100 among 94 scored reviews." And then discuss criticisms in text. It's extremely important to note the number of reviews any score aggregator aggregates. I've been beating this drum for years. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I am perfectly happy with that and had something similar to that before it was removed along with accusations of bad faith editing/vandalism by another user Apache287 (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Acekard: So because you think it's boring garbage, everyone else has to think the same way? Even if they were paid shills, they could have given an 8 or a 9 and it would still be a very positive score. Also, "not allowed to give number scores"? They're unscored because the websites don't give scores, period. Do some research first. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 20:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wikibenboy94: Nah that isn't what I said. You can like the game for all you want, I was just making the point that there is nothing we can do about the overall score on the Metacritic, it is what it is. Take some reading comprehension classes first. Acekard (talk) 20:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

"Reading comprehension classes" have told me to inform you that Wikipedia does not care about your opinion of the game and your conspiracy theories about "more important" reviewers. This is not a forum. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 20:41, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Axem Titanium, what difference does it make if a game got 94 reviews or 80? 75? 63? The exact number of reviews becomes irrelevant once it goes past 20 or so, and including it in prose just clutters it. It should be limited to either the review template and/or noted. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It matters because readers should know how many opinions an aggregate score represents, whether that's 94 or 63 or 20. It doesn't stop mattering once it crosses some arbitrary threshold number. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's also relevant I'd argue because it lists at current time 104 reviews yet it only counts 94 in its calculation. Wouldn't you want to know why a site excludes ~10% of its dataset when reaching a conclusion of "universal acclaim". It's not about painting MC as useless or manipulated but simply adding extra information from the linked source to clarify why we have a section on "reception" that opens saying "universal acclaim" to then listing three prominent outlets being highly negative. Apache287 (talk) 01:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Apache287: Going off topic a bit here, but while you've given your reasons in contesting the "universal acclaim" label by Metacritic, what I don't understand is why you decided to change the use of "critical acclaim" in the lede (which was incidentally included by an admin) to "a near universally positive critical response"; what exactly is the difference between the two? This does not make use of the term "universal" either, so it should not be an issue. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 18:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wikibenboy94: Because we appeared to be having a discussion here where a summary of the critical reception on various elements was agreed as suitable for the lede, which said user kept removing in full (along with unsupported claims of vandalism). If there only issue was that leaving it saying "majority positive" as the critical viewpoint then why they removed the other details didn't make sense so just to stop the arguments I put a midway in. As for the admin bit, their behaviour of snarky changelog, only then bothering with the talk page to be dismissive of other views as those of "haters and review-bombers" before then trying to badmouth me to several admins about "vandalism" (none of whom agreed with this person's claims by the way) hardly struck me as being the etiquette of an admin but rather an upset user. Apache287 (talk) 18:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

You are still failing to provide a valid reason and sources as to why we should say the game's story was polarized. No one agreed what you wrote there. Your personal hate towards the game, and a couple of other reviewers, are not more important than the rest of actual professional reviews from critics. Your wording sucks, and I didn't go to multiple admins who disagreed with me. Continue to live in your dreams, nobody cares. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 12:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

If you're going to lie at least make it convincing, here's you going to multiple admins trying to go around the talk page, both of whom didn't agree with your claims [22][23]. Maybe instead of just throwing insults at various people on here and making up false claims of vandalism you should take a break from this. Apache287 (talk) 18:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Both of them agreed with my claims, if you actually properly read it, you will see. One of them didn't want to participate, and the other thought that I was a bit too much on handling WP:FORUM issue. Will you at least accept that one of them is not even an administrator? You are just dwelling on an irrelevant subject and make a fool of yourself. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 21:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

"You deleted their entire comment because you felt that one section of it was maybe a little off-topic. That's not appropriate behavior when trying to "enforce" NOTFORUM," and "I am sorry again, but this is content dispute. I checked thet neither of you introduce vandalism or BLP violations". So no, neither of them agreed with your completely false claims regarding vandalism or inappropriate content. Again, you're a liar who is acting very toxic about a video game receiving slightly less than perfect reception. Apache287 (talk) 21:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I genuinely feel sorry for you, I hope you get a life one day. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 23:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I think this speaks to perhaps a wider discussion of how to deal with Metacritic. A lot of review sites have explained explicitly that they're doing away with numerical ratings, because video game fans get toxic about those numbers, and because those numbers don't really describe the quality of a game. Some of them even acknowledge that this will have an impact on metacritic, and that they don't care. I think it's time to admit that aggregating scores are a poor way to summarize a game's reception. That said, it's something we'd need to address with some level of consistency, and we can't just make a random exception for this article because we found it to be odd. Even without a consensus, our policy on WP:NPOV suggests that disregarding numbers and aggregate scores is a mainstream and established point of view, and our articles ought to reflect that somehow. At least, lead more heavily with qualitative themes than numbers. But again, that's something we should maybe discuss at WT:VG or at an RFC. Related articles showing why sites don't believe in numbers: [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] Shooterwalker (talk) 07:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree but it's not for us to decide. Individual publications are making their moves away from scored reviews but there's still a huge number that do. Until there's a balance shift in the industry that's reported on, our hands are tied. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think our hands are tied. Sure, it's probably a reliable source, but we do have to cover it in context. Our policy on WP:NPOV/WP:DUE says that viewpoints should be represented "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint". Even if Metacritic exists, should we be highlighting it the way we do, treating is as the WP:LEDE statement (sometimes two or three statements) for every video game "Reception" section? Or does it depreciate into just one more dumb but verifiable opinion, because we know now that there is a growing number of publications who don't participate in it, and those unscored viewpoints are just as valid? Basically, why is an aggregator considered a summary of what reliable sources are saying, especially when those reliable sources don't consider that aggregator reliable? I'm not saying that we can decide that on this page right now, but I would support a conversation at WT:VG or some other RFC. Something to think about. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

This is also not the place to discuss why Metacritic shouldn't be considered reliable and/or notable. If they accepted every "critic" they came across, then they would be unreliable. Moreover, if they added the reviews that are listed under "progress & unscored" to Metascore, the game would still be listed as "universal acclaim". You have to accept the fact that the most famous, prominent and well-known publications/reviewers/etc. around the world have given the full score, so when you add 10 zeros to 94 reviews, the score will not go down very much. The only thing we can do (and we normally do) is that we basically say "The game was met with "universal acclaim" on/according to Metacritic." and list other review roundups and consensus if possible, then list the reviews. Mentioning three reviews who are mixed/negative about the game's story doesn't mean the story received a "polarized response", you are ignoring other (at least) 50 reviews that gave the perfect rating and praised the story very much. If audience response gets more recognition and cover, we can include it just like we did with the last season of GoT. −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1]+Fexti[(n^−1)] 12:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

"Moreover, if they added the reviews that are listed under "progress & unscored" to Metascore, the game would still be listed as "universal acclaim"", but we can't possibly prove that.

The issue here is an anomalous one in that it's some of those "most famous, prominent and well-known publications" that are some of the most critical of it. I'm not disputing that Metacritic can be a useful weathervane on most occasions to see where critics are pointing but as a section on reception to the game it looks odd to say "it was met with universal acclaim according to Metacritic" and then have three very well-known and trusted publications lambasting the game. We can't assume all readers would understand the core workings of Metacritic or the movement of some major outlets to no longer score reviews and not appear on their site, hence why simply a handful of words added to say "the game was universally acclaimed according to those scored reviews aggregated by Metacritic" would help tie up the opening lede with the core content of the section without altering the view of Metacritic.

As for the top of the page if the only issue is the word "polarised" rather than remove the entire bit (which is useful as a summary) we should instead alter to language to better reflect the majority opinion of critical success but that the story, characterisation, and themes were not as unified in viewpoints from critics (or audiences). Maybe a rewording to say "Critics appeared to be in complete agreement in regards to the improved gameplay over its predecessor along with its visual fidelity, though its plot, characters, and themes of violence were subject to criticism from some prominent quarters"? Apache287 (talk) 16:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

A summary like that is just too wordy; "appeared to be in complete agreement" could easily be substituted with "universally praised", and there shouldn't be a need to label criticism from some reviewers as being from "prominent quarters" because this is implying the opinions of these critics are worth more than others. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 17:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Universally praised could work. As for prominent quarters the issue is trying to balance the fact that it was major "trend setter" publications who said it with the fact it wasn't across the board. You could say "however reception regarding the story, characters, and themes present was more divided"? Apache287 (talk) 17:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Should be fine, although apart from giving another aspect of criticism, it's really not that different to the existing prose we have already. The thing is, as it stands the Reception section is simply not as long or extensive as it could be, particularly in terms of reflecting this consensus in the lede, and neither does it reflect the acclaim this game has received when taking into account WP:WEIGHT. In accordance with WP:VG/REC, there should be seperate paragraphs focused on each aspect of the game that has received either general praise, criticism, or polarising opinions. Currently, there's none that are centered around the gameplay and graphics for example. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 18:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Completely agree. I think once the protection wears off the reception will need to be split up between those two areas (gameplay/visuals and narrative) as well as another for LGBT+ reactions as we've already got documented cases for people review-bombing because of that but also articles from reliable publications regarding negative reaction from the LGBT+ community itself regarding aspects of the game as well as recognition of its diverse case in general. Apache287 (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the solution to Shooterwalker's problem is to note at the top of the criticism paragraph (or paragraphs) that many criticisms came from unscored reviews as a way of explaining why it's such a long paragraph. That would help us navigate the fine line between DUE, OR, and NPOV. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur @Axem Titanium:. THat's what I had originally put in and suggested on here when there was push back against exactly that line, that many of the criticisms were due to unscored reviews that weren't counted by Metacritic.[29] Apache287 (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Many of the arguments above come from people's individual like or dislike of the game. That is not relevant here. Wikipedia is not a blog. Our job is to accurately portray what the reliable sources do - we are building an encyclopedia. My view is that everyone here has good points and bad.

On the Metacritic score:

1. It is indeed inappropriate for Wikipedia to conduct WP:OR on Metacritic. We can't take apart the reviews, determine ourselves what the "real" critical consensus is, and then insert that in.
2. Metacritic says "universal acclaim". It is original research to pick this apart and try to state something that our source, Metacritic, does not say. This article is not the place for criticism of how Metacritic does its ratings.
3. Based on the above, the wording should be along the lines of "On Metacritic, the game was met with critical acclaim". Note that stating the source of the critical acclaim (Metacritic in this case) is not unusual, and is often done for films (Rotten Tomatoes in that context). We must not try to inject our own opinions into this result, as has been attempted. We must not accompany this with a statement on our view of the Metacritic scoring system, unless reliable sources directly make the connection between this game and its Metacritic scores.
4. It is a fact that the user score on Metacritic is dreadful. We must not avoid mentioning that. The reasons may be review bombing, bots, LGBT-haters, whatever. We can mention that too, and I recommend that we do, and in the future perhaps we can discuss the reasons if and when reliable sources discuss them. We do not have to do original research on including the user score. See, for example, Kotaku's post on the matter. Kotaku presents a very balanced piece on the matter, which considers both the pros and cons raised above, and I suggest everyone here read the full article.

On the overall critical reception:

1. The users above are not entirely wrong. This game is not universally critically acclaimed. I go back to my first source, [30]. Kotaku is a great source for video games, certainly a WP:RS here, and is listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources#General gaming as such. This source states: Despite The Last of Us Part 2’s mixed critical reception, review score aggregator Metacritic shows it with a critical score of 95 out of 100, with a plethora of 10/10s developer Naughty Dog has been happy to tout. [...] All of these numbers are meaningless. (emphasis mine), further Metacritic scores fail to take into account the diverse critical opinions of the game (several user reviews accuse these positive critical scores of being paid for) and the plentiful non-scored reviews (such as Kotaku’s, among others).
2. We must not kid ourselves, or attempt to censor the reality of the matter. This game has been subject to criticism, and not just from fans or "closed-minded individuals". I will only consider reliable sources, as determined by the video games Wikiproject. We cannot ignore these.

• Sidenote: Eurogamer has a great (positive) article on the tech I would suggest including. I believe this is uncontroversial. [31] Certainly, some of the game design has been criticised too, and I'm lazy to dig into that right now, but I'd suggest including that too. But, the game has improved visually over its predecessor, and we have the sources for it, so we should discuss it.
• Eurogamer. Interesting piece. There's obviously criticism of the violence here, but overall, it seems like the game was well received by this critic.
• Polygon was not a fan. Kotaku's review was mixed, and overall they were not a fan. Neither were Vice, or Ars Technica

This Wikipedia article on the game has great potential; The Last of Us was a featured article. We have been given just as much juice to write about with Part 2. The game has tried to explore many themes here, and reliable sources have begun to analyse them, and hopefully in the near future we will get more analysis. I hope you folks can come together and focus on building a great article, rather than arguing over which facts to suppress or attempting to do original research due to our personal likes or dislikes of the game.

My overall suggestions:

1. "Post-release" be renamed to "Critical response". In here, we should state there was universal acclaim on Metacritic, with a more mixed response overall (we have sources for these statements). We should discuss some of the good reviews, and give note to some of the bad, and discuss the key points rather than individual reviews (violence and poor storyline seem to be the main two criticisms). As usual, weight should be given to the most known critics in this part. They're diverse enough that we can write, adhering to WP:NPOV, and discuss all the good and bad without neutrality issues.
2. Insert a "User response" section with a short mention on the poor user scores, along with the fact that many were before many could've finished the game, and bots/review bombing is likely involved (we source Kotaku and some others for this). We should agree to not add to this further for a week or so, until more RS can examine the issue and user scores hopefully balance out. I suspect Metacritic may remove bot scores.
3. In the lead: Most sources would claim this is critical acclaim, including Screen Rant, VG247, and of course Metacritic. We go by sources, as usual, hence the lead should state the game received critical acclaim. A few dissidents, even if they are large scale critics, do not get to change that status. This can be subject to change if more sources change their view too, and concur with Kotaku that the response was "mixed".

Admins have stated at WP:RFPP that they will keep this on full protection until consensus is reached. Given the state of this article, I think it would be prudent to reach such consensus so that we can move on and improve an article that is in need of improving. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Good thoughts and I do agree with most of them. On the lead point I have no issues with saying critical acclaim but I think the quick breakdown of where acclaim was and wasn't so unanimous as a summary of the "post-release"/"critical response" is useful. On the Metacritic bit at least from my point of view it was never about judging how they make up their score, which would be WP:OR, but adding extra information from the source MC article that several of the reviews listed on MC weren't included in the final MetaScore for being unscored. I understand it isn't typical to add this extra information listed on a MC page but I feel this is a rather anomalous situation as far as any game I've seen where it's a notable few high-profile and reliable sources that have heavy criticisms of the game and without that extra information listed on MC being readily available for the reader of this article to see may make the statement "universal acclaim" seem odd if placed directly above a paragraph where at least two reliable sources talk in a rather negative tone. Apache287 (talk) 23:11, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287, I agree that in weird cases it's important to be accurate in the lead. It's also important to note that Metacritic is not the sole deciding factor for what the consensus of 'critical reception' is. So, if their scoring metric is broken, as Kotaku suggests it is, we don't have to follow their recommendation. But, I don't think we're there yet for this game, and I'm wary of following just Kotaku's view that their critical reception consensus is incorrect. I would feel more comfortable with the change if more sources also call it a 'mixed critical reception' (at a glance, it doesn't seem like many more reliable ones do - Forbes doesn't count). We need to be reasonably concise in the lead, and be wary of limited space. Nevertheless, an appropriately worded expansion on the issue is not necessarily something I oppose, if you can propose an appropriate exact wording for the sentence(s) you would like to adjust it to, and we can go from there. We don't have to be completely accurate today or tomorrow - sources tend to lag behind, and people looking for information won't be lost because of what we write. It's fine if we can't add on this part in the lead for another week (while we wait for sources to catch up). In the meantime, this full protection is stopping us from updating anything at all.

I will also request a comment from the video games and films Wikiprojects regarding the "critical acclaim" label in the lead, as admittedly I'm not too familiar with the styling consensus on this issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I don't want to start a discussion as to whether it's broken or not, that'd be for sourced commentary on Metacritic but simply something to highlight that it doesn't account for all reviewers hence the more critical reviews in the section of this article not seeming to impact on Metacritic. So something along the lines of, "according to those scored reviews aggregated by Metacritic the game received "universal acclaim"". As a sentence it doesn't get bogged down into explaining in detail how MC works but leaves the implication for the rest of the passage that many of the critical viewpoints sourced weren't taken into account by MC. As for the Kotaku piece having read it while it references in relation to this game it also mentions many others so would probably be more suitable for previously referred to sourced commentary for Metacritic regarding concerns over its methodology or use by gamers. Apache287 (talk) 00:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287, the issue with that wording is that it implies Metacritic's scoring is flawed. That implication cannot be made without reliable sources stating that TLOU2's critical reception on Metacritic doesn't match up with reality. Kotaku has said that already, but I think we need to wait for others before changing the designation. Unfortunately, Wikipedia lags behind reliable sources. We can't make a conclusion not supported by them. That's not to say this won't change in a week, we just don't know.

I would be open to changing the current wording to ", and received critical acclaim on Metacritic". It creates the same implication, but is more neutrally worded, and reflects what the majority of reliable sources state currently. Perhaps some variation of the following statement can also be added, ", though some critics criticised the violence and storyline". Since several critics leaving a positive review in the end (like Eurogamer) also made these comments strongly, I don't think this is WP:UNDUE. If these suggestions and compromises are good with you, we'll be half way there and can request for a final comment from other editors on these changes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I get where you're coming from but I don't think it does imply it's flawed, so much as it simply states the fact Metacritic doesn't account for unscored reviews. If it were to say "according to those chosen by Metacritic" it'd sound more like a criticism of curated bias but the problem is trying to choose language that specifies the unscored nature of these reviews in major publications that are being included. This is the anomaly situation because typically it'd make sense to just say some were more critical but here it's a frankly unique situation where those that don't fit into MC are the most vocally negative. Apache287 (talk) 01:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287, per WP:SAID 'according to' is neutral. So is ", and received universal acclaim according to Metacritic" okay with you? In addition to the comment regarding story and violence issues, as you agreed above with other editors? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: if that's the best compromise available that's fine. It's just a shame there isn't an easy way to clarify the difference between scored and unscored reviews. Apache287 (talk) 01:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287, I think it'd be lengthy. Adding in a comment about them only being the scored versions is confusing to a reader without context. For such a comment to make sense, we'd have to explain that some critics are leaving unscored reviews (for various reasons). And by that point, we're inflating the lead with text. It can certainly be mentioned in the critical response section, as it is sourced. I think the best way to get your suggestion forward is being able to change it from "universal acclaim" entirely, but as stated, that would depend on other reliable sources following Kotaku's suit. Who knows where we'll be in a week. I think, in the meantime, this is the best compromise which other editors will agree to so that full protection can be lifted. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:49, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I think there's been some confusion. I meant as in describing the sourced/unsourced bit for the lead of the critical response section, where currently it just says about metacritic accalim. Apache287 (talk) 02:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287 I’m referring to the same (in the lead). My comment about the section was an additional one, stating that it’s likely to be fine to elaborate further in the section, as space isn’t as much of a luxury. Regarding the lead, are the agreed upon changes fine? (an according to Metacritic mention, along with a comment on what areas of the game were more divided in critical response)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: all good with me Apache287 (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Apache287, thank you for being reasonable and willing to compromise :) -- I trust that other editors will also agree to these resolutions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this, but with the exception that I predict there will some disagreement from admins over whether a "User response" section is appropriate, particularly if there is not enough information publicized in the end to warrant this. It's also extremely rare that an article on a game details such a section, although the negative reactions in this case do boil down to more reasons than just simply "It's a broken mess" or "The ending was bad" (referring to other games). Wikibenboy94 (talk) 22:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikibenboy94, it isn't really up to the admins, it's up to whether the editors here have consensus for the change. Due to the large disparity between user reviews and critical reviews, regardless of reason, I think the former deserves a mention, and for layout purposes it should be a separate section. We can talk more about it, of course, I simply propose we keep it limited for now. It's going to take time for bot reviews to be filtered and deleted, and for more reliable sources to discuss the issue. To prevent debate in the meantime, I propose users refrain from editing such a section for a week, until we have more to add to it, and that will prevent further edit warring in the meantime which would just result in full protection again. Such a section isn't permanent. If, in the future, it turns out that Metacritic just deleted the negative reviews and there's not much WP:RS has to say on the matter, we remove it. If it turns out to be a greater disparity which is talked about, we write more. If it turns out that it would be better suited merged into other sections, we do that. It's simply a temporary, and hopefully ideal for current circumstances, solution to get us past the current impasse. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm basically in agreement with Procrastinating's whole statement. I think we as editors are past the point of debating language minutia on the talk page and ready to move to hashing out a consensus version live on the article itself (I can't make the same claim about random IP editors so I'd caution against removing protection for non-autoconfirmed editors just yet). I have minor quibbles (such as: the lead should reflect in some way that the acclaim was not "universal") but I see mostly everyone here on the same page with respect to OR, DUE, NPOV, BBQ. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

It looks like everyone is closer to finding a consensus, and happy to provide a third / fourth / fifth opinion here where needed. Overall, problem X policy = solution. I think the WP:UNDUE policy is really instrumental here. There is a good faith and verifiable issue with Metacritic that's been growing due to more and more unscored reviews from leading publications. The policy outlines a number of tools to help weed out conscious and unconscious biases, including "depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements". If you need more help mediating, you can contact me on my talk page, and I check WT:VG often as well. (And I do think this will become an issue again on other articles, and might require an RFC, in the long run.) Shooterwalker (talk) 13:11, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have no doubts about that. I just don't think we're at the preponderance of evidence breaking point yet where it would fly through an RFC without significant gnashing of teeth. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to add a comment here to show that MC is not playing any special games here, note that the "unscored" reviews are plays like Kotaku, Polygon, and Eurogamer, three sites known to have long ditched numerical scores. Now go to any other big major release, like RDR2, P5R, FF7Remake, and so on. These sites remain in the "unscored" section throughout, and ever since those sites stopped their scoring systems, I have never seen them listed as "scored". So just to be clear, MC is not specifically excluding them to keep the MC score high, if that's the question being asked either. --Masem (t) 13:52, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that's the insinuation here. If anything, the high MC score is an effect of uniformly applied policies that result in a score that does not reflect unscored reviews. When working as intended, these policies should not show a difference between the tone of scored vs unscored reviews because it assumes that these two review types will have similar distributions of opinions. This case demonstrates a breakdown of that assumption but discussing that in detail is outside the scope of this article. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. This one game is very anomalous in that the the spectrum of views in unscored reviews is notably wider and at present leans more towards a more negative view of the game than the scored ones. So without the context of understanding how MC operates it may look odd to some and for others could fuel the conspiracy talk about "paid reviews" and all that nastiness. Apache287 (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that adding a caveat for Metacritic scores may be warranted if we have a RS which states as such. At the moment, we could state that The Last of Us Part II received "universal acclaim" from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic based on 99 of 109 scored reviews." We could also mention the fact that the unscored reviews tended to be more negative than the scored ones however we need a RS to back that up otherwise it would be WP:OR. Or the later criticism paragraphs could mention these were unscored. Though, it may be worth clarifying in a RfC to prevent any future edit warring so this page is not fully locked. FWIW, ProcrastinatingReader Screen Rant is not considered a reliable source per WP:VG/RS. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Spy-cicle, seems like a reasonable and neutral wording to me. Thoughts from other editors? On your second part, Kotaku goes into reasonable depth on why they think the Metacritic scores for the game are useless, or "meaningless" in their words, so an accurate portrayal of what they said, whilst not giving undue weight to their opinion, may be acceptable here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be worth mentioning that article from Kotaku to some degree but I am currently undecided as to exactly how much WP:WEIGHT we should give it. If more RSs start publishing similiar views it would become easier to build up more infomation about it. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 23:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Spy-cicle the one correction for that suggested neutral line is that it suggests there are 109 scored reviews on MC, when it's a MetaScore of the 99 scored reviews while the 10 unscored reviews it lists aren't included. Apache287 (talk) 19:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah you are correct. Something more accurate would be ...based on 99 scored reviews of 109 total reviews (could probably copyedited down). Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 23:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think this wording is reasonable and neutral. Axem Titanium (talk) 01:26, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This Metacritic scoring criticism is strange in a Wikipedia article, its wording doubly so. It editorializes the article with a criticism that is equally applicable to all games and all media. Note that the same outlets left unscored on this game are those that Metacritic leaves unscored for other games. Further, it is rather misleading. The unscored reviews are a mixed bag at best, with several critical and several positive. The wording as it reads right now seems to suggest that the Metacritic score would differ if these few reviews were included. Yet, they are a very small portion of the total MC reviews which number over 100. Breath of the Wild (which has an even higher MC score still had negative reviews but certainly there's no criticism of the MC score in that article). The notion that their inclusion would alter the Metacritic score is speculative (at best) and very likely unknowable given that MC's scoring algorithm is proprietary and kept secret. And the wording remains problematic, suggesting that MC has (perhaps tactically) excluded unscored reviews for this title alone, or at least that this title is unique, when we all know MC does not include these scores for all video games. It is hard to fathom why this sentence would be included here but not comparable language in any other game's (or film's or album's or TV show's) article. MC scores are numbers, a number is never going to reflect the full range of opinion about anything (whether it's video games, food, or otherwise) and the notion that a Wikipedia reader (or any human being) would be incapable of understanding that is bizarre (perhaps insulting). People know how numbers work and that a numerical score is a "shortcut" to try to imperfectly summarize something. In fact the name of the Kotaku article is "The Last of Us Part 2’s Metacritic Page Shows How Broken Numerical Scores Are." The article is a critical broadside against Metacritic's arguably heuristic methods as whole (and the notion of numerical scores as a general matter) with Last of Us 2 being used simply as an example. Lastly, many of the unscored reviews which the Kotaku article refers to as "plentiful" are perhaps less than "plentiful" (11 remain unscored out of 118 as of 6/26) and part of the article is squarely speculative (e.g., its suggestion that the game developer/Sony paid for positive reviews based on ... user reviews speculating as much!). That Macleod is criticizing a service (MC) that excluded his own review from the MC score (and reviews of his colleagues) would also seem to call into question the even-handedness of his own article. None of this gels with the neutral viewpoint principle that should govern here. Stacker4414 (talk) 20:33, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Obviously some of us are aware of this, but an IP, incidentally one with no previous edits, has today included an audience response section, citing it was done "as requested", which may or may not imply he's looked at this talk page. Some of us here as well as other IPs have edited this section since, but did no one think the inclusion was too premature, particulary as ProcrastinatingReader said we should wait for a week or so for enough articles to comment on the audience reactions? Wikibenboy94 (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually it was this edit that made the section. The "as requested" edit seems to be something else. I do worry that having a section header dedicated to audience response might be asking for trouble though. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure there's definitely more than enough articles out there now that highlight that a good portion of the negative reactions are stemming from the writing and story, and not just the perceived "SJW agenda", and if so they need to be included. I feel like otherwise we're just fuelling the opinions of those who come here to gripe that Wikipedia are using specific sources to imply everyone who hated the game is a sexist/homophobe. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 12:05, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikibenboy94 find the sources and add it in. The aim isn’t to portray Wikipedia’s view, its to accurately represent the sources. So long as we can find the sources for it, we can add it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2020 (UTC)