Frequently Asked Questions

What is Maximum Utmost?

The top of the toppermost, friend. The uppest of the up. We’re a video game blog unfettered from… whatever fetters other websites.

Wasn’t this called the Game Complaint Department?

Yes. I thought it was funny as a sort of self-deprecating joke about video game critics. Unfortunately, some have assumed I was being literal. At best, they thought this was actually a complaint department for various businesses. At worst, they thought I was determined to just be negative.

I got the advice from a few people that I need to build my brand. Even some of those people liked my old branding, but a negative title can kick things off on the wrong foot. I asked a few of the developers and PR people I talk to if getting an email from the Game Complaint Department would give them pause and even the ones who thought it was a great name said that it probably would. So, now it’s Maximum Utmost.

Your review scores are suspiciously low. Is this clickbait?

The Maximum Utmost scoring system just works a bit differently than most game sites. Here, anything above a 5 is a recommendation, and the higher you go, the more enthusiastically it’s recommended. Anything below 5 is a recommendation to avoid. If the score is 5/10, it suggests ambivalence. So, I’m sorry if a game you enjoyed got a 6/10, but that actually means that the author enjoyed the game and thinks there’s a chance you will too. They just don’t think it’s the cat’s pajamas.

I understand this could cause problems on aggregate sites if we ever land on one, but you can’t argue that the full scale should be used and then get cold feet when comparisons are made.

Yeah, but everywhere else gave X game a 9/10.

It’s just a personal opinion combined with the scoring system. We don’t weigh games off of metrics like art, narrative, or sound design, though those things may tie into the opinion. I don’t use metrics at all. The only method for weighing a game is the author’s feelings about the game, and there’s no accounting for taste.

Are publishers paying you for coverage?

Ha! No. Even in a professional capacity, I have never been offered money for coverage. Wait, that’s not true. It did happen once, but when I asked what the hell was up with that, they told me that YouTubers often ask for money, so they just offered upfront, even though written publications usually don’t take it. Makes you wonder.

I’ve been given press kits in the past, but usually, these are small things and are sometimes given as thank yous rather than incentives. The PR for Chicory, for example, gave me watercolor paint pucks. I’ve been given free stuff for review, like 8BitDo sent me a keyboard and Retro-Bit has sent me some of their releases. It’s the site’s policy that we’ll always disclose if we wer provided anything from the developer/publisher/PR firm in the disclaimer under the article. This doesn’t mean it holds any weight on the reviewer’s opinion, and we won’t accept anything that obligates us to write about or score something a certain way, but it’s up to you to decide if the opinion is still trustworthy in those instances.

There are no ads here. How do you make money?

The short answer is we don’t. Hosting for the site all comes out of my (Zoey’s) pockets, and I pay for it through her other job. I hate ads, so while I’ve considered adding a few to help keep the lights on, I haven’t taken the leap. If you want me to lose less money on the site or just want to see me write more here, consider contributing to my Ko-fi.

You’re lying. I just found some above the comments section.

Right, those ads are added by the Disqus plugin. They’re not part of the site. I don’t make any income from them. To get rid of them, I’d need to pay a subscription to Disqus. It’s 12$ a month to go ad-free, and, as I’ve stated, this site is not monetized, so I don’t really want to pay it. If they really bother you, you can use my Ko-fi account to send me $12 monthly, and I’ll pay it forward to Disqus.

In the meantime, you can feel free to use an adblocker. The downside is that they often hide traffic, so I don’t know that someone visited. That’s mostly just an ego problem for me, but if I get the impression that we don’t have a readership, what would be the point of keeping the site up? Still, ads suck.

Is generative AI used anywhere on Maximum Utmost?

No.