Metacritic Review-Bombers Strike Again With FIFA 20 On Switch

Laughs

The only review-bombing I approve tbh.

I would have preferred them not release the game at all on Switch.

Rather than "review-bombing" I think these are actual legit reviews. lol

Probably the one company that really deserves to be review-bombed.

Good, I'm happy for these people

Can we just review boom EA??

When EA released the "Champion's Edition" on Switch last year, I thought it was an encouraging sign that EA were aiming for parity (or equitable treatment) going forward. What a difference a year makes.

I'll most likely grab 20 once it becomes bargain bin fodder. I grabbed the last two at launch, however.

They didn't even bother including a bunch of the language packs on the cartridge (and they would have fit too!). Absolute grubs. The decent thing to do would be to offer a discount for digital owners of 19, seeing as they're basically the same game, but EA forfeited their sense of decency in the mid 2000s.

I'm not sure this actually counts as 'review-bombing' as normally that means unfairly giving a low score for an unrelated reason whereas here the zero scores seem thoroughly deserved.

Well, in this case, the people actually have a point. It's that idiot Andrew Wilson. He needs to be sho... erm, fired already and they need to change course, and pronto.

EA needs to stop with their ridiculous antics, and just put in the time and effort. As several other companies have already proven, it's absolutely possible, and the effort will subsequently turn into higher sales and probably even a more positive view on EA themselves, so why the hell they just don't comply is beyond me.

@Shiryu And now follows a message from our sponsors: "Unfortunately, that picture that you posted, isn't visible for other users"...

(it shows up as "Untitled")

I think bad reviews are deserved as EA is basically selling a roster update for the price of a full game

The sad thing is that "review bombing" basically just equates to "brainless internet vandalism" now, so if there is a legitimate reason for something to get downvoted to oblivion then it just gets lumped along with the likes of Astral Chain. No message sent, no message received.

@ThanosReXXX ...wait, only I can see it!?
It is like EA being the only one that sees the need to charge me 60€ for the same game as last year.

What’s that? EA putting minimum effort into a game they feel unlikely to immediately swindle large amounts of money from unsuspecting players and cobbling out a slapdash game without nary a concern to any requests, comments or views of potential players?

Colour me shocked (with a transparent marker pen).

f..k ea and their current games.

**** 'em.

Just **** 'em.

What more do they want? They're just asking to be ****ed.

its not review bombing when its pointing out fact its same game as last year why not be honest call it cash in edition.

@Shiryu I always use PostImage. Never had a problem with that picture uploader.

IGN gave it a 4/10. That was generous to be honest. Really enjoyed FIFA 19.

why don’t people just stop buying EA games and constantly remind them why? if their sales tank they’ll 180 real quick. here’s the protocol, wait until game release, DONT PREORDER, play the game in store, if it’s garbage move on and send them an email, else buy.

Perhaps Metacritic could be forward thinking and just post a disclaimer stating they know the company essentially modded their own game and repackaged it as new. Heck, I used to do similar with the EA NHL games on PCs to get the next year's roster on it.

@ThanosReXXX Guess it's only working on PC browsers then. It is this:

When the only thing you really do is change the 19 to a 20 you are just being a lazy greedy company. So I have no problem with them review bombing this. The Witcher 3 is on switch yet EA still feels no need to bring anything other than a super lazy port to the system. Bethesda brought two Doom retail games and going on four old download only games of the first few.

EA does have its time disappointing players on other systems and their loot box business is going down in flames.

Is it review bombing, or reviewing a bomb?

@tekknik because than EA gets left with the people that don't care, who happen to be the people spending way to much on FUT MXT. so EA would maybe sell way less but they still have about 90% of their income from FIFA.

remember folks, most people don't care about the health of the gaming industry, they just buy their 1 or 2 yearly games and than put the money what we put in buying multiple games into the MXT for those 1 or 2 games they buy yearly.

@Shiryu Erm... I am on a PC?

I’m not sure if this is review bombing I’m inclined to believe these bad reviews I’m just glad I didn’t buy it if EA actually put some effort in and released a full product then you could say it’s not justified but this is just a roster update and nothing more for £45

I'd love nothing more than for EA to go pop.

Seems fair enough in this instance.

I'll probably get 19 now its cheap. Spurs were better this time last year anyway

Why not just make 2020 a dlc pack at this point. Cheaper for fans than selling $10 DLC as a whole new thing

@KevTastic84 You might want to hold onto that version!!

I agree that this is not really review bombing. It is people expressing their frustration with EA for the lack of Nintendo support. EA thinks like a corporation which means they only do the least to make the most, not a game company which is interested in also providing quality product to as many gamers as economically feasible. .

In most cases I think review bombing is silly but here it seems justified.
1: because it’s essentially a reskin mod of the previous game.
2: because EA.

It is not review bombing, they are legit reviews
EA themselves said it is the same game from 2019 with 2020 players as it is “legacy edition” 🤮

Anyway, the “real reviewers” gave it a 44 so far

just added my 0 point score

The Switch version is awful. It has always been. So not sure they "review bombing"

Switch was only 1% of sales in UK last week. People didn't need reviews to stay away.

As annoyed as I am about FIFA 20 on Switch, I think I am going to get it for 2 reasons.
The first reason is that I didn't get FIFA 19. I really should have when it was on sale for like $15 on the eshop but I wanted to wait for some announcement about FIFA 20 before deciding but by then the price had gone back to $60 and hasn't come anywhere close to $15 again since then.
The second reason is Konami. I am not big fan of PES but I would gladly have bought their offering just to spite EA but no, even seeing EA deliver subpar FIFA games on Switch for years now, they have done nothing to take advantage of that so for their short sightedness, I think I can justify giving my money to EA this time

@Agramonte which year?

i have to disagree with the majority of comments here. The game is not possibly a 1/10, 0/10, .1/10, etc. The gripes are legitimate, but that's not a real review. Do you think for a moment that if somebody played this game for the first time without all this background knowledge, they would think it was worthy of such a score? This isn't Superman 64.

This isn't review-bombing though. This is just a bunch of legit scores.

Does anybody actually think FIFA 20 is worth even a cent on Switch? I mean cmon, how much abuse would you have to have already suffered to acquire that kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

@Alztru the last time you could justify giving them money was “Battlefield 4” or “a way out”.... since then they had nothing good

If I paid a hundred Aussie bucks for a game that merely had player name changes, then that’s a zero out of ten. Fortunately I don’t trust EA, and so wait for reviews and the eventual price-drop. Otherwise I’d be super-annoyed

@Tantani Compared with what you can play elsewhere, all 3 years. If you mean the "1%"... FIFA 20

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-09-29-fifa-20-and-xbox-one-dominate-uk-charts

I don't like EA, but why would they bother changing a game as long as millions of people buy it?
The players are to blame. EA is just the equivalent of Apple in the video game industry and fanboys are enabling them.

Wow, review bombs that make sense! That’s a rarity...

Not a defense of Electronic Arts, mind you, I just think this would all mean a lot more if Metacritic had learned how to curtail the practice of review-bombing a long time ago.

Like many others in these comments - I'm not sure this constitutes review bombing. It sounds like people are reviewing the game based on what EA has done (or failed to do) with this update.

At least this time it is a game that deserves it, the Switch version lacks a lot compared to the other ones, it remembers me of the legacy editions on the 3DS, Vita and Wii.

However the game is scummy anyhow, just like NBA 2K 20 (that got a 9 out of 10 here...) if we are talking about microtransactions, both game are the pinnacle of being scummy about it (yes some free to play games are worse, but those at least don't have the guts to ask money for a non complete game, but just the microtransaction crap, not that it makes that situation much better)

in a nutshell Fifa deserves this, even while NBA 2K 20 isn't much better at least that game on the Switch is same as on other systems.

Nintendo Life, your reviews are just weak. No real critique, no real confrontation (Mario Kart Tour, NBA 2K20, etc) so i havent high hopes for your review.

@Agramonte cool, thanks

Review bombing is not giving poor reviews for a poor product. Review bombing is giving poor reviews for a good product that you don't personally like. It's people giving Astral Chain a 1/10 because it's only on Switch and they want a PS4 version. It's giving Pokemon Let's Go a 1/5 because they don't understand it's targeted at 5 year olds. It's giving Breath of the Wild a low score because you think the average review score is too high. Etc.

What EA did with FIFA 2020 is beyond lazy and insulting. All they did was update team rosters and stats and slap a new label on the cover. It's the same game as last year. People say Pokemon and Call of Duty are repetitive?! This is literally rehashing the same thing from before! The amount of new content makes Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon look like an entirely new entry in the series by comparison!

@Heavyarms55 Exactly!

@Tantani I'm not saying they have done anything good. It's just that I believe that as people are all justly condemning them, they should equally be giving it to Konami for not taking advantage of the I'll feeling that everyone has towards EA. They are directly the reason why EA can deliver such subpar nonsense because Switch football fans don't have any reasonable options so EA has no competition

@FantasiaWHT if Nintendo released Breath of the Wild 2 and it was the exact same except they have a few people new names and stats how would you review it? Would you give it a 10 because "that's what someone that went in bound would give it"?
If a review is supposed to help people know if they should buy it then the reviewer should absolutely keep in mind that some people will own FIFA 19 and would be completely wasting their money to buy FIFA 20

@darkswabber i don’t even think you have to care about the gaming industry to not buy ea games. even still, they’re a publicly traded company. they have a legal requirement to the stockholders to maintain or increase profit. if it drops enough they’ll have to change to increase it. i think just those that care about the gaming industry will be enough to move the needle. either way people need to realize how much of a rip the yearly sports games are. updating the roster is cheap/free, if this info gets out more you may see more people starting to care. this article is a step in that direction.

@Heavyarms55 Pokémon ultra s/m was known to be an updated version and were pretty much marketed as such....

Whatever, let's face facts, look at the reviews so far it got from the so called pros. They're verbally just as miserable and scathing if not worse as it's not done immaturely or to make an anti-EA statement. The game is a rehashed dumpster fire masquerading as a new update and somehow better which is a lie.

Good. Hopefully this shows EA to stop making trash ports on the Switch. Doubt it though.

Sometimes it's valid.

When Fifa first came out on Switch with a "Custom engine" This was exactly what I said would happen, and people were like no no they are putting real effort into the Switch version. This is exactly what they did with the Vita....

Why is it considered "review-bombing" when most people who played a game (ie, not just critics but chiefly the people for by which the game is designed to be played and bought) are very unhappy with it? I get that you wrote this before your colleague's review was published, but it's unfortunate that you jumped to conclusions and sided with the people behind this game instead of with the consumers and (in this case) the critics, also.

EA deserves it they have a cheek to charge £44.99 for a physical copy/digital with just a player update it's disgusting companies like that deserve to go bankrupt. I'm not surprised that EA does this as they have been doing these dirty tricks for years with the Wii, 3DS and even the Vita releasing the same game with the same bugs that never got fixed with every version of the game.

Nintendo need to make a Mario Strikers game for the Switch.

EA just should give up on bringing out any FIFA games anymore. I’ve played the ‘new’ game and it’s still the best handheld FIFA out there and there a few noticeable tweaks here and there but overall it’s juts lazy. The price point is just a further insult to Nintendo gamers. They could have just proved it at £20 and then I would have said that was fair enough.
As it is it is NOT an awful game but it is a lazy effort from EA yet again. My review score would be 6/10.

In this case, the review bombing is 100% deserved.

DO NOT SUPPORT THIS LAZY F-ING GARBAGE ON SWITCH. Vote with your wallet.

@leo13 Sure, but "Hey this is a great game, but if you played the previous one, this one isn't worth paying full price" means a game gets a small downgrade, it doesn't make it a 1/10. If Nintendo released a BoW Remaster that only had a few different things, the game would still be an 8 or a 9.

In this case it doesn’t sound like review bombing, more like reviews that actually correlate to what was released. In other words deserved of the low scores...

How about just not buy the Switch version till it includes the things players are begging for. Even if you don't preorder it, if after release day it does fare well you could pick it up then?

In other words, wait for the reviews.

@Zyph because you agree with them .

I do too but that is still the case. Review bombing still tells us something about people feeling upset about something and I find it interesting regardless of whether I agree with it.

If I try to frame this in a more forgiving way towards ea I would say they went about as far as they could with the old engine and figured the cost of bringing frostbite to ARM hardware wasn’t worth it. This is assuming they still haven’t ported it to arm, but it seems crazy they wouldn’t undergo this since you could imagine them wanting this tech on mobile at some point.

Too bad Konami hasn’t jumped on this opportunity and ported their game.

These reviews seem legit.

And that’s the last of EA on the Switch.

this isn't review-bombing

Wow, talk about the double standards from the people who say this isn't review bombing.

Here's the definition of review bombing, per Wikipedia: "A review bomb is an Internet phenomenon in which large groups of people leave negative user reviews online in an attempt to harm the sales and/or popularity of a product, particularly to draw attention to an issue with the product or its vendor."

FIFA 20 on Switch was clearly review bombed, whether you think the game deserved it or not.

This time, it is well-deserved, but don't exaggerate! A Legacy Edition release of a FIFA instalment also means the countdown for the drop of support on the platform has begun. Essentially, FIFA is the only game that will come out for a while until the platform holder moves on. Guess I will have to wait until next year to see what will happen.

EA's franchises could bring many new things to the Switch, regardless of if they're criticized or not. Hopefully this knocks some sense on their minds and shows them to never underestimate Switch users and traitorusly say that they don't care and prefer play their games on other platforms! Considering the current sales of the platform, maybe they could still support the current Switch in some ways even when next-gen hardware (which typically EA always gets excited for) arrives. Really, just bring the Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (which was even rumoured to appear on Switch) or at least Apex Legends! Those games will still be supported even when PS5 releases (oh wait, PvZ won't...). Besides, I think even EA will be amazed to see their Frostbite games running on a Switch Lite, promote it as the best-looking portable game, blah blah.

Eh. For me this is like seeing some hack youtuber or twitch streamer make millions even though their content is lazy and uninspired. It doesn't matter how much I don't like it, as long as rabid fans keep supporting it, it'll keep getting made. No reason to worry that much about it or spend my time giving it terrible reviews.

Sometimes, the trolls are right.

All I have to say is...Why EA? Why!?

Metacritic should not be taken as a serious final arbiter of anything.

It's the ultimate in laziness and has been exploited for bad faith reasons too often.

They should just change the player names and allow Nintendo to release FIFA 96-98 on the SNES service. Still better games & indoor footy!

What if...the reviews were simply bad?

EA bomb good, EA bad, FE bomb bad, FE good

Lol, this game deserves it!

But seriously, you never should review-bomb something.