If you pay any attention to the mainstream gaming press, you’ve probably heard about the mess that is Battlefield 4. Ever since the game released on next-gen consoles, there has been a constant crap-storm of commentary: How could DICE release a game in this state? It’s not worth buying! Go get your money back! All of this underlined by the softly spoken acknowledgement that, when it works, this is one of the best shooters of the year. The initial review scores reflected the game in a much better state than we find it currently; played at “review events,” Metacritic reported scores of 83 for PC, 86 for PS4, and an average of 81 for the three Xbox One reviews. In light of the problems, many outlets have added addendums to their initial reviews. Polygon is taking another approach of updating their review scores over time. It have a problem with this approach and just what it implies about games journalism today.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Review scores are the answer for players who really don’t want to read. They want a quick yes or no and way to compare to other options on the market. They’re useful in that way. In a general sense, I believe the sites like Metacritic are pretty accurate in how they represent the general appeal of a game. If one review gives it a ten and another a 4, there’s a question, but when half a dozen do the same, I feel pretty confident that issues getting raised over and over again are probably a real thing. There is a financial appeal to this market. Reviews, as disclosed by journalists on many a podcast, draw in the most readers. Readers mean more pageviews and ad impressions. Review scores are the revenue generating Instant Answer to reader’s questions and so they dominate the gaming press.

But we live in a time when static scores really don’t make much sense.  In 2013, the world is online and connected. Developers release patches and content drops regularly that change the core game and address many of the concerns reviewers raise. In that sense, it makes sense to update a review score. In the same way, if a game crumbles once it is available to the public, the experience becomes demonstrably worse. Common sense says that it should drop.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it is at best a band-aid for the larger problem and at worst a doorway to lazy reviewing. The issues with Battlefield 4 and, earlier this year, SimCity, represent how misguided the review climate is. We have seen, over and over and over again, games crumbling under the load of their launch window. Bugs crop up. Lag cripples any ability to play. Patches and patches go out with the expected thankfulness for our patience. Even if these things had never occurred, isn’t it reasonable to expect that game reviews should be conducted under the conditions they will actually be played?

Online games like SimCity and Battlefield 4 should never have been reviewed pre-release. It is irresponsible and far too trusting of the publishers. But in the games business, having your review up even a day after launch means substantially fewer views for your site, substantially fewer ad impressions, and substantially less money. There is pressure coming from the top down to have these reviews published on or before launch day. For some games without online components that makes sense. For an increasing number, it feels a lot more like rush jobs shedding credibility.

Given all of this, you’re probably wondering why, I would have a problem with Polygon updating their review scores over time.  The answer here is simple: Repeatedly updating a score only proves that you see the problem and are unwilling to actually fix it. If you’re mission is to perform a critical assessment, invalidating your culminating thought — the score — only invalidates all of the writing that came before it. That’s not fair, and not even totally accurate if the average reader actually reads, but most do not. They skip to the bottom and what they find is that a trusted source got it wrong.

What’s more, you will find far less consideration for cross-platform differences. Once these reviews go out, their earning potential immediately begins to decline, so to expect paid reviewers to re-assess each game on every platform is unrealistic from a business standpoint.  If you look to Polygon’s review of Battlefied 4, you will find that the initial review covered the PC version and was updated to say that the console releases matched a month later. The next update, coming just five days after console players converged en masse, and more than a month after PC players had been doing the same the whole time, the scores for every platform were dropped to a 4.0. This came after numerous reports of the console editions being plagued with problems and EA servers riddled with lag spikes — a game-changing issue which does not exist on PC due to servers being rented by players. In short, the final update dropped the score of the PC version in line with the far more damaged console editions.

This is problematic as it clearly indicates that the same care was not taken with the re-review. As a player who has spent many hours exclusively with the PC edition, I can tell you that Battlefield 4 is not a crippled game. It crashes too often, about once every couple hours, but that is actually less than when the game received a 7.5. There are fewer bugs, as well. As I hear the experiences console players are having, I cringe for them but that is not the game I have been playing since the end of November. Battlefield 4 performs well, especially for how hard it pushes my machine, and I have been increasingly more pleased.

But who can blame the reviewer for looking on the forum, hearing that, yes, there are issues, and yes, the China Rising expansion pack did cause some people to crash (not all), and assuming that the situation was as dire. The same impetus on the reviewer is absent; the review is already written.

Which can also be said for re-reviewing in a positive way. SimCity is largely a repaired game today. The issues that plagued it are almost entirely absent. Systems have been restored. Life is good, especially with the new expansion pack. Yet Polygon’s review, first a 9.5, then an 8.0, then a 4.0, has settled on a 6.5. In academic terms, it went from an A+ to a D+ while still fundamentally being the same game.

I am much more in favor of reviews receiving written updates, which, in fairness, Polygon also does. Written addendums leave the initial conclusions intact. They trust the reader to make their own judgment and don’t rely on a number to summarize the 1500 words before it.

And perhaps that’s what the real issue is here. Online games are evolving beyond launch day numbers. Titles which live and breathe change are not suited to numerical scores when many of the criticisms are naturally fixed over time. If sites really intend to be fair to the men and women who make these games, then the process needs to change, either by extending it out or getting rid of scores entirely. Allow readers to think and draw their own conclusions. Or at the very least, stand by your initial assessment and let readers see a paragraph or two in update. Not a loose, damning number that encourages readers to write a game off without even reading the text you did write.