Topic: Can we have a frank discussion about this site lately?

I can't be alone in thinking that the complete censorship of any comment even remotely criticising articles on this site lately has got completely out of the hand.

Over the past week, there have been numerous concerns raised about clickbait and/or misleading headlines, or articles written in such an unprofessional way that they seem like they were published solely to rile people up. Then, when - unsurprisingly - these headline and articles rile people up, the staff will delete any comments they don't agree with

People using this site are providing legitimate and valid feedback about the quality of headlines and articles. If somebody strays too far into insulting, then fine, I get it, but dumping white phosphorus on the comments section isn't helping anyone.

If constructive criticism and feedback isn't even allowed here, I give up. I also urge anyone commenting in this thread to remain polite and civil. Don't give the staff any ammo.

I completely agree.

@Locopath that really is absurd. It did, however, completely contradict the "major disappointment" headline, so you got what you deserved 🤣

Hey @Markatron84, it might be worth you checking out a recent exchange in another thread that touches on some of these areas.

Essentially, though, nothing has recently changed about our approach to moderation, and we always aim to apply our community rules as fairly and consistently as possible. Although it's worth saying that different team members on different days are going to be slightly inconsistent, as we're all human.

We're more than happy to engage with constructive feedback, as we've demonstrated over the years and in that other thread.

However, whenever people start accusing us of clickbait, or things like "published solely to rile people up" or personal attacks on staff members, etc. etc., we're a very long way from being constructive. Therefore, any feedback that appears to be in bad faith is quite obviously going to get removed. Likewise, for sweeping or reductive statements like "the staff will delete any comments they don't agree with", if you honestly believe that is our approach here at Push Square, as professionals, there is little I think we can do to change your mind.

We've always encouraged people to email us via the contact form to discuss feedback and/or removed comments. The comments sections in articles are there to discuss the topic at hand, not for discussing moderation.

If you've got any specific comments of yours that have been removed that you'd like to discuss, please use the contact form.

Thanks for your feedback @Markatron84 et al.

As @antdickens mentioned I'm always happy to engage with your thoughts/ideas, so if you have something specific you'd like to discuss I would encourage you to use the contact form.

We've always been proactive at engaging with readers, even as the site has ballooned in popularity. (I'm sure you can appreciate, it's much more difficult to reply to everyone these days as it was, say, ten years ago.)

On the subject of Crimson Desert being disappointing, as @Locopath mentioned, I think it's pretty clear we're referring to the expectations of the game. I'm not sure equating our site's scoring policy to Metacritic's aggregate is a good comparison in this instance. (Nor is it a gotcha!)

Of course you're free to disagree with the tone/direction of the headline, but I stand by it — I don't think anyone expected Crimson Desert to be getting 5s and 6s from major outlets like Eurogamer and IGN. (I didn't!)

Hope that helps, and like I say, if you have any further questions please feel free to use the contact form.

@Locopath You said "Gross clickbait headline" and "The only 'major disappointment' is you".

In my opinion this goes beyond the boundary of constructive criticism.

As per the community rules:

"If you disagree with anything you've read on our site, whether staff or user-submitted, please be respectful in your response. "

"We welcome fair criticism of our content, however, we insist that you are both constructive and polite with your feedback. Insulting authors, complaining about article topic selection, topic frequency, arguing about what should or should not be in the site's remit is rarely constructive. Also consider whether it should be discussed publicly or via the contact form."

Consider that your comment was removed not because of what you said but the way you said it.

If you still feel that's unfair, you're welcome to use the contact form.

I am not someone who gets passionate about these types of topics but I have to agree on this.

@get2sammyb If you really thought this was a "Major Disappointment" because a handful of outlets gave it low scores, I guess I can't argue with that since those are your feelings. However, I also think it is reasonable for the readers of this site to be frustrated by such a headline since, as an experienced journalist, there should be some expectation that the hype leading up to this release was never reasonable to begin with.

I think this position is validated by the comments on that article. Where the a good portion of those commenters are venting frustration at the headline and article. The fact that so many posts had to be removed on what shouldn't have been a highly controversial article is also telling in it's own way.

Even if it wasn't intended to be, it does seem like a clickbait title to others.

Frank?

What PS also needs to acknowledge, but hasn’t, was that it was throwing cold water on any hype for months prior to release. Thus, from PS’s own position, an average 8/10 score isn’t a major disappointment at all, but arguably a pleasant surprise or at least worth a sigh of relief. PS lowered expectations but then referred to hype to justify the “disappointment” headline- that’s the clickbait / bad faith part of the headline.

Moreover, the main issue PS and others used to be negative about the game prior to launch - performance and looks - appears to be the one thing that is universally praised. Recognition of that error by PS would also be appropriate instead of using mixed reviews on OTHER elements implicitly to support their negative expectations.

@get2sammyb

I really can't believe people still going with "This scores are bad!? What has gaming come to!?". Like it should be obvious that these score are dissapointing for this specific game considering the expectations.

I expected Eurogamer to give it a 3/5. It is pretty much their go to score (akin to an IGN 7/10) these days except for the odd exception where they go for the clicks (ie AI...1/5 or 5/5 ignore the haters, followed 6 months later with a “perhaps we were wrong” article). Generally regard Eurogamer as irrelevant these days which is a shame however I wasn’t expecting an IGN 6/10 tbh.

My main problem these days with this site is the hate on PSVR2 but I’ve made my comment which hasn’t been deleted so I will move on and just ignore the hate articles.

@antdickens I'm sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree with this:

However, whenever people start accusing us of clickbait, or things like "published solely to rile people up" or personal attacks on staff members, etc. etc., we're a very long way from being constructive.

How exactly is the headline 'No One Is Buying This on PS5': PC Port Begging Already Unbearable as Sony Switches Strategy not specifically designed as clickbait or to rile people up? How is calling out "port beggars" not meant to rile people up? Or the incessant sarcasm of the article? How is any of that professional? Furthermore, what's professional about the same author the same day putting one article out that did exactly what he was previously taking the mick out of: "port begging"? Or the second one he put out a few days later, doing the exact same thing again?

And anybody who called it out? Comment removed. I actually did send something via the contact form but never received a reply. To be honest, I don't need one, as if everyone sent something how are you or Sammy or whoever else meant to have however many discussions with users about the same thing? But no one addressed it whatsoever. I guess what I'm saying is that when that many people have a problem with something, maybe the smart thing to do would be to actually address it, rather than merely deleting every comment complaining about it. You want our feedback to be constructive? What constructive feedback did we get?

I've noticed the trend in rage baiting/click baiting articles too. The only reason that I visit the site often is because I use it as a gaming news/guide site with occasional interesting editorial pieces that are clearly labeled as opinions.

It's perfectly normal to have different opinions but it's not all right to pass off opinions as facts. That's why I stopped visiting sites like Polygon. I genuinely hope Push Square won't go down the same route.

my biggest problems with the site are indeed clickbait exaggeration headlines on more and more articles

also the fixation with xbox and i dont understand why? PlayStation has won that battle its not even a debate anymore and for some reason we dont mention nintendo despite them being more of a competitor than xbox. people keep saying as the games are multiplatform we write about them, microsft are the publisher of the games not xbox but yet we still get xbox this xbox that on this site we actually get xbox news on this site before pure xbox does

What you sent through the contact form was not asking about why your comment was removed, nor was it providing constructive feedback; it was a further expletive-laden rant. Anyone giving such "feedback" in any other professional environment would be kindly asked to leave the premises.

This thread itself is further to my point that if we're genuinely going to have a discussion with constructive feedback, we are more than happy to engage. Let's not pretend that swearing at our staff is somehow anywhere close to that.

With regards to the headline and article in question, I will defer to @get2sammyb who can provide further thoughts.

@antdickens and I apologise if what I sent crossed the line. But imagine the frustration of seeing so many of my (and others) comments on something just be deleted and not addressed. You and Sammy have both mentioned the contact form, which I'll say is a very inefficient route to take when so many people voiced their concerns on the same thing.

To be honest, two replies in and I'm seeing the play here: mention the contact form, deny accusations of clickbait and unprofessionalism and hope it blows over without actually addressing any of the actual issues people have. And I'm not into that. So if you want to delete this thread, ban me, delete my account, whatever, then do that. Who knows, maybe that'll be the end of it? But a lot of people have voiced these concerns because they like the site and want to continue liking it.

I'm literally only logged in in the first place because it's the only way I've beem able to view the site in the dark theme.

@Markatron84 I don't want to sound like I'm repeating myself, but we're more than happy to engage with feedback when it's fair and most of all, polite. The vast majority of comments that I've seen removed were completely unfair, over the top and/or disrespectful. There is absolutely no campaign to silence people from having feedback.

If we're all able to put all the accusational language aside, I'm sure Sammy will come back to you shortly with specifics on the content itself — that's his domain, as I'm responding to you more on a moderation basis.

@CaptD We love PSVR2 and champion it where we can. Acknowledging the realities of the product does not make us haters. I can tell you with full transparency basically no one reads our PSVR2 articles, but we still choose to cover it when we see something cool because we want to share that, even though we know the views will be very, very low.

@puddinggirl The site has always been opinion-led and I personally believe it's more important than ever in an era of AI summaries basically stealing all our traffic. However, I totally take your feedback on board and agree there's a balance to be found here. I think by and large, of the hundreds of articles we publish every week, we generally get that balance correct.

@trev666 On the subject of a "fixation on Xbox", I looked at the data to see if that's true. Of the 288 articles published in March 2026 so far, 12 of them mentioned 'Xbox' in the headline. That's around 4%.

Just to break that down further:

• 2 of those were about Starfield, which is now confirmed for PS5.
• 1 was about Forza Horizon 6, which is confirmed for PS5.
• 1 was about South of Midnight, which is confirmed for PS5.
• 1 was about a trio of upcoming Xbox ports, heading to PS5 in the coming weeks.

The remaining 7 related to Xbox Helix and how it may relate to PS6 (price, launch timing, etc).

I wouldn't say this reflects a fixation at all. I agree we're a PlayStation website, but we're always going to cover it within the context of the wider gaming industry, because things like PC, Switch 2, Xbox Helix, etc WILL have an impact on Sony and its business.

@Markatron84 With regards to the subjects of port begging, I think you've got to appreciate we're always going to approach this through the lens of PlayStation fans.

I personally found it very interesting that a completely unrelated Saros post was pretty much exclusively bombarded by people asking for a PC version. I think that's topical and worthy of reporting on, especially as Bloomberg had pointed out a few days prior that Sony was pulling away from its PC strategy.

I also think it's interesting that Square Enix has been publicly and vocally parading its multiformat approach, only to then completely ignore PS5 with a series of titles, including most recently Bravely Default.

There's no hypocrisy here, it's just commentating on what people are saying. You're completely free to disagree if that's your opinion.

I'd point out, as above, that you're specifically referencing three articles of the 288 published in March thus far. That's a little over 1%.

Of course we want you to enjoy every article, but if these topics don't appeal to you, then there are many others for you to interact with.

Having said all that, I will take your comments on board and will continue to work towards the right balance. I can't guarantee we'll get it right every single time, but as I said above, I think we get it right much more often than not.

Unfortunately it's the way of the world that clickbait articles generate revenue, so I don't mind having to gloss over the odd one or two.

Some authors go at it more than others here, for example Liam's headline is 'Crimson Desert Reviews Are a Major Disappointment' whereas the opening line of Stephens similar article is 'while [reviews are] pretty good, they aren't quite as hot as many expected.'

In direct response to the over-moderation, I think the team do a great job, and rightly should remove any inflammatory, nasty or attacking comments.

Compared to the amount of AI-driven gloop hyper-stuffed with affiliate junk that is available elsewhere, it's actually a fantastic site!

@get2sammyb lets use the latest starfield article as an example. why isnt the article headline ps5 starfield rockets to the top of preorder charts nope must have xbox in the title. you dont even call it xboxs starfield in the article its Bethesda's starfield

its obviously a conscious decision to put in the word xbox