Well there are several reasons, the most prominent of which is probably engagement. Saying something is really bad or really good gets a lot more reactions out of people than saying “Eh, it’s okay”.

But it’s also dependent on what you choose to measure something against. It’s important to acknowledge our biases, and we all on some level measure things against the things we like. There are different factors that shape our expectations, such as these personal biases, but also out understandings of the industry, and game development.

For instance, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are games that were poorly reviewed because of numerous glitches and bugs. They were, in every sense of the word, unfinished games, so when you look at the rest of the Switch library, which includes games like Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Animal Crossing, Metroid Dread, etc., Scarlet and Violet look like extremely bad games.

But then you could also choose to measure Scarlet and Violet against the thousands of 2 dollar games you could find on Steam that were developed in like two weeks, and suddenly Scarlet and Violet look pretty decent.

So it depends on what you deem as a worthwhile measuring stick. In this case I’d say Scarlet and Violet are just flat out bad games, because of how poor it is in comparison to other AAA titles.

A lot of people are also pretty stubborn in their opinions, which in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad, but the willingness to engage with arguments is important. Cyberpunk 2077 is often seen as a bad game, because when it launched it was bad. It ran extremely poorly, and while it has been fixed now, a lot of people still cling to that first impression