PR And The Game Media, The Rockstar Way

simoniker writes "Discussing PR and the media, former Rockstar Games PR rep Todd Zuniga discusses how the company tried to manipulate the game press as part of an in-depth article on how the two forces interact: "In part, it's a numbers game... Otherwise, it's history. Who wrote negatively about the games, and who hasn't? We never worked with [gaming website] GameSpot while I was there because 'they just didn't get it.'... Hilariously, we even had a list of journalist preferences: 'Likes cake, married, went to school at Indiana U'.""

The trick

I know most of the major gaming website/magazines out there are payed in some way or another from publishers/developers/whoever, but I have found that using gamerankings.com usually helps bring things truth to light...besides, I enjoy reading reviews that are polar opposites of each other...it's similar to getting your news from different biases (left/right/whatever)...kinda helps paint you a full picture...between all the extra crap and spin thrown around from each news source, you are usually able to come up with some bit of middle ground that gives you an idea on what really happend (although that is becoming increasingly difficult)

Naturally, the best review is a play-through yourself, but that's not always viable (or wanted.) A very good way to get unbiased reviews is to look up personal opinions on various websites such as Amazon, Rottentomatoes, etc...

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Just to piss you off, yes I would.

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you're right, it's been roughly 9 hours...see, that's the problem with your wife screwing you before you goto work...it's all you can think about until you get home.

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Good to see you respect your wife there.

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She'd be upset if I talked about her any other way

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Anybody want a peanut?

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What was that you said? You like paid?

If you weren't an anonymous coward, we would track you down since you just said you were a paidophile.

Cheers!

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I have found that using gamerankings.com usually helps bring things truth to light

It's funny, because I've had the exact opposite impression of most ranking systems employed today. Everyone tends to either give the game a perfect 10/10, a 1/10 because it's

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That's precisely my point for suggestion gamerankings.com...it's a site that offers access to a BUNCH of different reviews all from one central page...just open up a few tabs, grab something pleasent to drink, and get to reading :-)

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It's funny, because I've had the exact opposite impression of most ranking systems employed today. Everyone tends to either give the game a perfect 10/10, a 1/10 because it's not their cup of tea, or an average score like 8/10. After it's all tallied, it j

Not that convenient.

It's still a waste of time.

What would be more efficient (not necessarily more entertaining) is something like "Reviewer A who liked A,B,C very much also liked X", and say one paragraph of comments. And if lots of "reviewers" who have similar tastes to you

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See www.boardgamegeek.com and geekbuddies, which does exactly that for boardgames.

We just need someone to re-implement for www.videogamegeek.com :)

Ridge Racer

For example, in every review of Ridge Racer games these days, reviewers are constantly belaboring the point that the car physics aren't realistic enough. That's why people buy Ridge Racer, ya shmucks

I buy a new Ridge Racer (the recent versions I own ar

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Best website in my opinion for Game and Movie reviews has to be Metacritic [metacritic.com]
It takes reviews from loads of sites, offers links to the reviews, and gives you a standard score out of 100 for the game. It also has user comments, which can be useful.

Game magazines?

Did we (even those without tinfoil hats) know this already? Isn't that why we never read the cheapo magazines, but bought it for the CDs with demos/useful utilities when we were on dialup? I think we all read game mags with a critical eye - especially arti

Nothing to worry about

I've worked for two well-known gaming journalism groups, and I can tell you that game developers don't have quite as much control over the content of feature articles as this article might have you suspect.

The principled difference between an advertisement and a feature story is that a company has control over the content of the ad, and that the advertisements are usually handled by the entity producing the game, not the developers.

Developers may control the spigot of game-related information, but they don't control the spigot attached to the gaming press' fingers and mouths. Editor impressions, exclusive previews, and game reviews are all written by the editors of the press outlets, and we get paid by our company, not by the software developers, to write these things. We really do want to help you save money by pointing out which games are worth your time and money.

All of these are elements are effective at providing a check against any potentially slanted information that a company may try to use to artificially spike its product's popularity, and believe me - they get called on this very quickly when it inevitably fails.

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As an aside, having stopped reading Nintendo Power for about 10 years, they certainly seem to have the balls to knock a bad game around. In the golden age, the good points seemed to be emphasized much more... I don't remember many harsh criticisms.

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Hypothetical situation:
20% of your ad revenue comes from EA. Would you bash EA Cricket 2007? Would I find an honest comparison of Codemasters' Brian Lara Cricket vs. EA Cricket 2007 in your magazine?

Cheers!

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Amiga Power magazine used to write honest reviews about some games, but this resulted in game producers often not sending their games to amiga power for review, preferring to get them reviewed more favourably by other magazines instead.
I would regularly se

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We would still give lousy scores to lousy games, because to us the most important element of our work is the trust of our readership. Advertising revenue from entertainment software companies can fluctuate depending on the release schedule of any given ye

Review inflations does make economic sense ...

We would still give lousy scores to lousy games, because to us the most important element of our work is the trust of our readership.

That is clever side stepping, such extreme cases are unrealistic. What is realistic is that when something is a wobbler

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I just want to go on record as saying that I would purchase Cricket 2007 were such a thing available.

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Oh! for heavens sake! Ok... I'll correct myself - it's EA Cricket 07

Of course, if you were not being pedantic, and you really wanted info,
Codemasters is supposed to have the better game.
Neither is available for US Consoles. Only PC :(

http://www.electronica [electronicarts.co.uk]

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Uh...I wasn't being pedantic. I've never heard of cricket video game, and was simply trying to say exactly what I said - that I would be in the market for one if such a thing existed.

Obviously, not so in the market for one that I've researched their existe

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Sorry for getting pissed :)

Enjoy the game! (tip: buy the Aussie/Indian version - Pommie software is more expensive)

Cheers!
--
Vig

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Forgive me if I take that with a rather large grain of salt...just considering your nick and all ;)

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That's exactly what I was thinking...

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What about the developer that gives your media outlet "exclusive" access only to be burned by a bad review? Will they continue to open those doors to that journalism group? Maybe they'll give those big scoops to those who are more forgiving and generous wi

Reviews

I might be some strange freak but I never read reviews on games or movies before I play or buy them. Why? because they are often laced with mild spoilers and tainted you by setting up or bringing down your expectations. They point out "flaws" you may not have cared about or noticed until they did this or they might be useless fluff. Similiarly I avoid trailers. I do read them after I have played them. But more often to see how others felt about what I liked/disliked. If I went to see Borne ultamatium I want to see reviews afterwards to see if others had the same impression i did. Sort of a anonymous one sided water cooler conversation. If I hated it I'd like to see others savage the movies/game. If I loved it I want to see what others liked or disliked about it.

I find I'm occsionally disappointed by spending when I shouldn't have (child of mana) but on the flip side I get gems that fit my gaming needs I might have otherised passed up due to low review scores (Izuna).

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Paying $10 for a movie is different than paying $60 for a game, that when you sell you most certainly won't get what you paid for. Plus, if the game really sucks, good luck getting decent money for it.

You NEED to get some grasp on whether a game will be go

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Paying $10 for a movie is different than paying $60 for a game, that when you sell you most certainly won't get what you paid for. Plus, if the game really sucks, good luck getting decent money for it.

Tell me about it... Notice how most new newly-released games are at the same price, whereas the used games apparently follow some kind of (twisted by EB/GS) supply/demand curve?

EB is like the new Follett... bastards.

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what would be good for you would be my suggested system:

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=265627&c id=20178377 [slashdot.org]

But I suppose to prevent spoilers, I should have different view modes:
1) All comments off in all reference groups
2) Comments from this

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I rent.

I rented F.E.A.R. after hearing all the "you have to play this game" hype. I played it. I was bored half way through. I looked up a walk-through to read the rest of the plot without dragging my fingers through the game. I read the reviews ... ye

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I've done this for Kingdom Hearts, including watching the ending movies, reading the script etc. Lovely graphics and soundtrack, and I was captivated by the story, but the gameplay sucked cold baboon piss through a straw.

What drug was the illustrator on?

Seriously, he just drew a bunch of pictures of bunnies, exclamation points, and boxes. They don't seem to relate to the story whatsoever.

And this is news, how?

Only those people under the age of 14 might not have figured out that the game magazines are all propped up fronts for the game companies. And it isn't just the magazines. Many of the on-line sites are just as guilty of sucking the tail-pipes of the game

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Every month a game magazine manages to come up with some "hot new title". Yet how many games each year are actually good?

12?

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

:-)

Overly positive reviews.

Even without manipulation on the part of developers, I still have a hard time completely believing reviews. The simple reason for this is that most reviewers don't have to pay for and live with the product they're reviewing. These publications get these ga

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Back in the day, there was a UK Amiga magazine called Amiga Power! who were vehemently against magazines being bought off for favourable reviews. They made use of the full review scale - 0% to 100% and railed against other magazines never going below 60%.

The summary vs. TFA

The writeup kind of implies that the article will be all about how much influence game companies have over reviewers. In fact, the article is about how game companies try to influence reviews, but the article points out that they are often unsuccessful. Fo

just wait for it

It's the natural consequence of an undeniable fact: The games press is almost entirely dependent on access to information, people, and products that only game publishers can provide. You want the latest details on a game that's still a year away from release?

Actually, not really no. I'm quite a frequenter of IGN during times of peak console output (I consider the current lag between console launches and actual quality software to be a real slow time so I haven't been to IGN in months). I just realized though,

Some thoughts from a reviewer

I review games for the Adrenaline Vault [avault.com] site, and I must say even I do not know how the whole thing works. I get sent my assignments, I play the game for a while, then write the review and send it to my editor. He hacks out the critical parts, and posts so