What if ‘such and such’ had a bad support experience, but their review didn’t mention that, instead only claiming that the product is “rubbish” in an effort to trash the developer with a passive agressive comment?
Why would you value that review, when you’ve had neither experience with the actual product, nor a complete understanding of the accuracy (and motivations) of the reviewer? Why would you share that and promulgate incomplete information, or worse, blatant inaccuracies?
You’d do it because you wish to help other simmers. That’s your noble motivation.
For me it’s important to be a little more critical of the information I base my opinion on. If ‘such and such’ does a detailed product review evaluating the flight model, textures, system depth, overall perceived value, and yes, product support, I’ll use their opinion to help make a purchase decision. If a developer has a lot of positive reviews (reputation) I’ll tend to give ‘such and such’ review even more weight. Conversely, if there are a lot of detailed negative reviews (reputation) I’ll weigh that equally, but in the other direction.
But “rubbish” means very little in and of itself - to me.
I don’t know what your intention is here but I don’t need to own the product, when I see in a video of a content creator that a number has been painted twice on the altimeter (Stratocruiser) or that an engine sound isn’t even remotely believable (default 152 sounds on 1920s/30s aircraft) or the compass is numbered and turning in the wrong direction because the dev doesn’t have some grip on basic physical principles, then I don’t have to own this particular product, then I can just point at the obvious spots and say: this is just wrong.
Also many simmers have years of experiences with certain developers to be perfectly able to tell whether one miss is just a slip that will be rectified or if no remedy is likely to come at all. There are these different kinds of developers, those that care and those that simply don’t and where you can tell with great confidence that any bug encountered will be there for eternity.
Products mirror the general practices of developers, if there is a history of blatant ignorance and defects, then you can just call out the BS when you see it and protect others from falling into an already dug hole without jumping in first. You don’t need to personally own every product, there are more than enough people out there testing the products and giving us the necessary insights we need to be able to judge.
I would hope that would bear out over my experience over their many reviews on many different products. If I thought their reviews were in bad faith then I would no longer trust their opinions.
I don’t think I need to have experience of a product to trust their review. If that were the case for everyone then how would the Which? website ever exist?
I’m now beginning to question the purpose of this thread. If you start to call into question why people trust others, through experience, then I don’t know what you expect to get out of this discussion. I think its boiling down to a “you do you” situation, and no further discussion is necessary or warranted.
I appreciate your contributions to this forum. Thanks for your contributions to this thread.
You question my motivation for making this thread. I’ve made it quite clear. You at least shared your reasons for sharing an opinion.
Is anyone obligated to answer my question? No.
And I’m sorry if my counterpoints seem confrontative. They’re meant to be one side of a critical debate.
