Editorial Methodology

This page documents how we make editorial decisions — who reviews what, how we score, when we revise, and where the lines fall between news, opinion, and review.

Review assignment

Reviewers are assigned based on genre expertise plus a rotation to avoid any single critic building disproportionate influence on our scoring. A reviewer with strong personal opinions about a series is not assigned to review the latest entry in that series.

Time-with-game minimums

We require a minimum of 20 hours with the game before publishing a review. For RPGs and live-service titles the minimum rises to 40-60 hours; for narrative games we play through the credits.

Scoring

We score on a 10-point scale with sub-scores for Gameplay, Story, Visuals, Performance, and Value. Sub-scores are not averaged — the overall is the reviewer’s holistic judgment. We publish the scoring rubric so readers can verify the math.

Revisions & re-reviews

Live-service games whose shape changes meaningfully after launch get a re-review. Patches that fix critical bugs trigger a note in the original piece, not a re-score. Significant DLC gets its own review.

Conflicts of interest

Reviewers disclose financial interests, personal relationships with developers, and prior employment relationships that could affect coverage. Disclosures are published with the piece.

Corrections

When we make a factual error, we issue a dated correction notice in the piece. We do not silently edit published content. Substantial corrections are noted at the top of the article.