L.A. Times on Game Reviewer 'Playola' 177
madmancarman writes "Celebrity parties, target practice with automatic weapons, and free trips to spend the night in haunted castles are just some 'perks' game reviewers enjoy as described by this article from the L.A. Times. The reviewers say this has no effect on their reviews, but we've all heard politicians say the same thing with respect to their jobs. Maybe Ion Storm should have spent some more money on Daikatana junkets?"
Daikatana perks? (Score:4, Funny)
What, Ion Storm was going to send reviewers 50-pound sacks of buffalo crap in anticipation of Daikatana's release?
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:4, Interesting)
As a former reviewer, I hate to burst anyones bubble, but nobody in the industry cares about honesty or integrity. Basically they want a free advertisement for their game, no matter how crap. If you play nice and give good reviews, they'll pat your back. If you are honest however, they will shank you the first chance they get as I discovered.
No more review copies, removed from press release lists etc... Basically they act with the maturity of a spoilt 10 year old who takes their ball home.
In other words folks, ignore reviews. The review could very well have been bought since most companies go out of their way to screw you and get you out of the game, even going so far as to trying to get you fired (which with me they failed, despite my editors having no fucking backbone. Fuck you J and J).
So to anyone who's surprised by this payola, what rock have you been hiding under? The review business is as corrupt as politics.
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:2)
Glad to see a real report about it finally making light of day.
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:2)
Regards,
J.
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:2)
Even....PCXL?
But....Ass...Awards....
...and mocking and ridiculing games of ass...
...
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ONLY sites you can probably trust are like GamesFAQ's [gamesfaqs.com] which posts actual user reviews. I've based a lot of my decisions on what I've read there, and it very rarely steers you wrong, unlike magazines...
Re:Daikatana perks? (Score:1)
He he he (Score:4, Funny)
Joe Carnes
Journo's are Journo's (Score:1)
Re:Journo's are Journo's (Score:2)
If the game is good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If the game is good (Score:2, Insightful)
Game PREviews versus Game REviews (Score:2, Interesting)
At a minimum, these activities surely dilute the pen's proverbial poison when games are finally reviewed. Now I know why magazines like Gamepro, EGM, etc. rarely give a score under 6 on a scale of 1-10...If they give low scores to games from a big company they might not be invited to hang out with Heidi Klum at the Namco mountain retreat.
-Aaron
Re:Game PREviews versus Game REviews (Score:1)
Can you say "Turok: Evolution"
Re:Game PREviews versus Game REviews (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because the "game media" measures quality with the dollars*polygons number. More money = better game. More polygons = better game. No story, gameplay or anything genuinely new? Who cares?
By the way, I'd guess 90% of the "mega-polygon-fests" are now done almost entirely with standard toolsets. The engines, sound, models and animations are almost all done in slick, automatic GUIs with full 3D view options and instant in-engine integration. Very little actual "down to the metal" programming going on, and if there is, it is wasted effort, since the graphics almost all look the same from a technical standpoint.
Not that there's anything wrong with this, of course. I just wonder sometimes why it takes 14 full-time people two years (and $15M) to do ten levels of artwork and customize an engine.
Re:Game PREviews versus Game REviews (Score:1)
1.8 years of talking about the project. 0.2 years of development. 14mil of embezzlement, executive bonuses, "business development", and 1mil to pay rent and employees.
Game Testers (Score:2)
Shouldn't there be more stringent requirements for this? Like, shouldn't you need a degree to basically have fun, or are we leaving all the moderately-paying fun jobs to the lose dropouts (excluding those that become *nix sysadmins, of course).
Re:Game Testers (Score:1)
I used to think that game testers had it good, but if you know of a job available as a vagina tester (that does not require you to have responded to thoose penis enlargement spams)..i would sure love to hear about em!
Re:Game Testers (Score:2, Insightful)
Being a game tester basicaly entails going through the same damn game a few hundred times until you know every kink of the game inside out, all while having any of your data erased at any possible time (or at very least rendered useless) without warning when the latest build comes in.
It means documenting every last little damn thing that you do every damn time that you go through the game, comparing and contrasting the most minuet of detail, and oh yah, did I mention that you get to do it over and over and over and over and over again?
Even if the game SUCKS?
A _LOT_?
Sure being a Beta Tester for a game like Fallout 1 or 2 or Arcanum would rock, but what about if the company you worked for put you on duty testing out the latest barbie game? You think being a game review would be fun then?
It is not like with closed betas were you get to sign up for a game, heh. Its more like your an employee of a company and you get assigned whatever you get assigned. ^_^
Re:Game Testers (Score:1)
I dunno, I still think being a beta tester for even a bad game would still beat the crap out of being, say, a shoveler in a uranium mine or a carcinogen tester at Phillip Morris.
Re:Game Testers (Score:3, Offtopic)
Its UI testing of the most henous kind. Its a testers nightmare because reproducability is next to none. To quote my friend "It makes you hate playing games."
On the other hand being a game reviewer would be total rock, you get to play the game a few times and tell the world what you think.
In short the parent post is 100% correct, testing sux, reviewing is much cooler.
Re:Game Testers (Score:2)
Damn Straight It's Not That Easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or better yet, take a game where you've beaten the crap out of a game...I mean, totally played it to death, as part of your entertainment life. Then you get hired by a company to do the expansion pack, and the first thing you have to do is look through the previous version of the game for bugs...that the dev team won't fix now.
The biggest problem with being a game tester is that the clueless people above you, you know, the Marketing types responsible for shipping your games out ahead of their completion, think the same thing, that you're just in there playing games. Most companies exclude QA from the perks, respect, and courtesy provided to even the temporary secretary.
QA is essentially a thankless job, a job that every one out there playing a game thinks they can do better than you. Take Fallout 2, for example. Remember how buggy that game was? How it would crash right off, and the back half of the car would travel with you wherever you went? Well on the Message Boards who did everyone blame? The developers? Marketing? No, they blamed the testers, as if every tester cooped up at Interplay for 12+ hours a day didn't notice the back of the car following them along on every screen. And Interplay never said, "Wait, this isour fault in upper management...we pushed the game out too early." They just sat there and let QA take it.
The sad fact is, that a lot of people in QA are seriously unqualified for the position. You get high school dropouts and the like in there. The company I started testing with asked that we all have some sort of college. All you people who run around in Counter-Strike and can't tell which "your" to use, or which "its", you cannot be game testers...grammar and spelling are important parts of game testing, and probably result in over 50% of all bugs written up for any given game that isn't fighting.
Not to mention that no company makes 100% hits. Wanna spend the next 6-9 months of your life telling John Romero that Daikatana sucks while he does nothing to fix it? How about playing some Chocobo Racing or Chocobo Dungeon 2 for 3 months? And who wants a nice big side of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 3D? Remember, a lot of the video game companies don't make just games...they're edutainment companies, too.
Re:Damn Straight It's Not That Easy... (Score:2)
I mean, I understand that bug in Final Fantasy 8, where the testers had gotten "too good" over there, and didn't test one part of the game with a timer...if you failed, it hosed your saves...but nobody in the testing department bothered to fail that section...
This is totally different...every tester in the room must have been pulling their hair out or asking to get their names removed from the game...
Re:Game Testers -- Yes Education and Experience! (Score:1)
I imagine it would be hard work and very tiring.
What you actually want to be is the person who is control of things like game-play. That way you play the game and only have to come back with things like, the green monsters are two easy. You run out of Ammo all the time.
Game testers on the other hand come back with, if you shoot the green monster with a rocket against the red wall it causes the blood to be splattered on the door behind that wall, blood should not appear there. Here is the following way to reproduce... step 1, step 2, step n, step 100
Not my idea of fun.
Give me a bucket load of money and let me play computer games.
Re:Game Testers -- Yes Education and Experience! (Score:3, Insightful)
reviews? (Score:3, Interesting)
I never really understood the need for game reviews. The reviews, in my experience, never come close to when I actually play the game. It goes without saying that games are subjective and everyone's initial reaction depends upon a bunch of random variables. I always keep this in mind if I ever read a review.
Besides, I always have some friend who ends up beta testing or just buys the game, and that ends up being the best review I ever get.
Re:reviews? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are one of the few who actually PAY for their games, you might want to find out a bit about it, if its got a crap interface/buggy code etc..
If a review holds back on its opinions in regard to major playability issues coz the company has sent the guy to Aspen or whatever then its nothing more than a commercial...
Besides, I always have some friend who ends up beta testing or just buys the game, and that ends up being the best review I ever get.
but does that guy check the reviews before he forks out his hard earned dough or does he go into the shops and buy every $50 game on the wall??
Re:reviews? (Score:3, Insightful)
And about 100 things I forgot. Not everyone has 49 bux to drop on the 10 new games that come out each month, some guide helps pick out the good games and dump the crap.
BTW, power to the reviewers.. Let them get all the goods they can, cheap hookers, booze, whatever. I think I'll notice when all the reviews sites say a game suck, and JoeBlow reviewer says its the greatest game since quake10.
-
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. - Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Re:reviews? (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you ever noticed that nearly all games (especially from the major companies) get reviews of average or better? Does this mean that no games actually just purely suck? I don't think so. It's pretty rare when a major mag or site gives a review that says something like "Don't buy this game," and why not? We all know that reviews like those are subjective.
Movie reviewers, on the other hand, are willing to step up to the plate and tell you when they think a movie blows chunks...and a movie costs $10 or less.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and now we all know why. Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely to change. Movie reviews have a modicum of independence because they aren't directly funded by movie studios (in most cases, though I know Shalit's in somebody's pocket). Even if this "playola" is stopped, there's still the simple fact that game magazines and websites (the majors at least) are funded by advertising of video games. Perhaps we need a "Consumer Reports" for the video game world to give us honest takes and give us the real scoop without endangering someone's source of income.
-Aaron
Re:reviews? (Score:3, Insightful)
Back on-topic, I'm still waiting for my swag, dammit. I get free games, but that's it.
Because there's no PC game rental (Score:3, Interesting)
I never really understood the need for game reviews. The reviews, in my experience, never come close to when I actually play the game.
Because it's illegal to rent PC games in the USA, that's why. The first sale doctrine (17 USC 109 [cornell.edu]) makes an exception for copyright holders of PC software, allowing them to monopolize all rentals of their software. (Rentals of software designed for computers sold explicitly as Video Game Consoles are subject to ordinary first-sale rules.) Yes, in theory, it's possible to license those rights, but I've never visited a rental shop that has done so.
Because not everybody has eight hours to spend online downloading a 120 MB game demo, and not everybody has upwards of $200,000 to spend on moving to an area where broadband is available [pineight.com].
GTA3 (Score:5, Funny)
Man, and I was wondering why all of the game reviewers kept obsessing about that "pick the hooker up in the car" trick.
Bangkok Knights (Score:1)
Re:GTA3 (Score:2, Interesting)
"Take Two Interactive [developers of GTA3] hosted an event in the Arizona desert to promote its new combat driving games. Writers, dressed in camouflage, practiced drive-by shootings with 9-millimeter Glock handguns while driving Jeeps at high speeds."
Man, where's my payoff? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, while there is the danger of that - and I've been to a few events (like when they brought out the models dressed like Hooters girls to promote the terrible Hotters racing game) that do offer goodies.
The problem is, both reviewers and companies know you won't last long if you give a good review to a rotten game. It does happen that a reviewer likes a game that nobody else does, or hates a game that everybody else seems to like.
But most of the time, reviewers have to be honest, or else nobody will respect them, and then you lose readership. So all that these perks is that when you say "This game fucking sucks", you say "I just didn't seem to get into it". Instead of "The AI was dumber than Cattottop on Crack", you say "The AI wasn't challenging".
Lucky for some of us who run web sites out of our own pocket (yes, I'm self promoting damn it, and sorry about it), but at least when you don't actually "work" in the industry, you're allowed to say that the best part of Final Fantasy X was Lulu's cleavage every time she bent over. The rest of the game was so-so, but that alone kept me playing.
Re:Man, where's my payoff? (Score:1)
Shortly before this article was posted, I canceled my subscription to PCGamer after 5 years. Of course, it had only partially to do with their inaccurate reviews. Mostly it was because they started printing two commentary columns per page instead of one (thus, less commentary), are doing less reviews, and what little they do write is crammed full of crap about "TheVede"'s last lunch break. I'll just stick to J101 [joystick101.org], thanks.
Re:Man, where's my payoff? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is, both reviewers and companies know you won't last long if you give a good review to a rotten game. It does happen that a reviewer likes a game that nobody else does, or hates a game that everybody else seems to like.
I actually appreciate it immensely when a reviewer doesn't like a game that's popular or is able to appreciate a relatively unpopular game.
Sometimes it's needed. Often in gaming reviews, it seems like one of two things happens way too much: (1) a single game gets way too much momentum in reviewers' minds, who get carried away it and overrate it immensely, or (2) they get caught on some formula that they can't seem to get out of and underrate a relatively innovative game. I appreciate the reviewer who's able to step back and offer a different opinion.
Some good examples of this are Black and White, Max Payne, Deus Ex, and Project Eden. The first two in my mind, while excellent games, were nonetheless entirely overrated and overhyped. The latter two, in my mind, had problems with reviews that I felt were somewhat unjustified. I'm amazed at many of the negative reviews Deus Ex initially recieved, most of which were by reviewers expecting something less RPGish. Project Eden, whose combat admittedly sucks, didn't get adequate attention because the emphasis is almost entirely on ingenious puzzles--and we all know you can't have coherent, challenging, pragmatic problem solving in FPSs.
Anyway, I think if anything there needs to be a bit more diversity of opinion in game reviews, and a bit more openness and thoughtfulness. But that's just my two cents.
Re:Man, where's my payoff? (Score:2)
How about half of the game reviewers do their testing at the Colorado ski chalet test center, and the other half do their testing at the Hawaii test center.
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Something's fishy (Score:2, Funny)
Posted by chrisd on Friday April 12, @01:09AM
Evangelion Reviewed In LA Times
Posted by Hemos on Thursday April 11, @10:46PM
Two posts in a row with "L.A. Times" in the title. They must have some damn good writers or something.
Anyway, I just found this interesting and it's probably a simple coincedence. Off to bed...
:-)
Feeling Lucky? [google.com]
Re:Something's fishy (Score:1)
Games reviews reflect on other reviews too (Score:1)
I would like to review too, take home a new system and say that P runs fastest on Q and is more scalable than R (where P,Q,R are anything you want to be)
perks? (Score:1)
and after a bad review? (Score:1)
I'm curious - I wonder if he goes on next years 'junket'.
Re:and after a bad review? (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever actually played the game?
It's like saying the plot for quake 3 was thin, yeah, sure, it was...
So?
Perhaps this is why (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, one could argue that Q3A was just another Quake, but it got all kinds of press. Kohan, though, was a great game, but very few people have ever heard of it.
Also, there are several great open source games (Crystal Space, FreeCiv, BlueMango, FlightGear, Frozen Bubble, etc.) that are really good. Of course, since they're open source and can't afford to send out "press kits" to magazines and reviewers, they never get reviewed, and never get seen outside of a very small niche.
White Hat Research [whitehatresearch.net]
Geek clothes at Low Prices. WHR Swag and more [cafepress.com]
Re:Perhaps this is why (Score:2)
smooth (Score:2, Funny)
Not all its cracked up to be. (Score:1)
Disclosure (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe too, people are going to hold back on reviews that shitcan bad products for fear of litigation (PetsWhoreHouse etc...). It does seem that a lot of big game sites tend to get more sychophantic as the years go on.. especially to the big software houses.. is that because of either a) Advertising Revenue (Biting the hand that feeds) or b) the junkets get better..
It gets harder to find objective reviews ESPECIALLY in print magazines..
But what can you do???
sigh
I just. . . . (Score:2)
(that and I avoid sports games. Unless they include killing or serious maiming, because killing and serious maiming are always cool. RobotWars forever!!! w00t! Man I _SO_ want a Baseball game that I can just pull a Glock out in the middle of and shoot that bastard running to third.
"Perfect Collection" (Score:1, Informative)
Several years ago some idiot decided to translate kanzen as perfect because it sort of made sense to call a game guide book a "perfect guide". But not we have "perfect sets" "perfect series" "perfect collections"... the whole thing is just BAKA.
Re:"Perfect Collection" (Score:1)
..and these 'perks' or whatever are nothing to worry about, magazine reporters used to whore just for a preview look before...
Just goes to show (Score:1)
No wonder why most employers want people who are "happily married". Most magazines, whatever their area is, are useless junk because their staff is bought out by companies.
If someone wants real critics' writings or fair comparisons, just pick that magazine wich dares to point weaknesses on every product. There's no weaknesses in some products? Well then that's not good enough 'zine, choose another.
There's ALWAYS something wrong, just remember that!
Amiga Power (Score:1)
Re:Amiga Power -check out pczone (Score:1)
- its parent mag is CVG and own the website- multiformat - but pcz reviews can be found there in abundance.
Re:Amiga Power (Score:2, Interesting)
There was another comapny fuss with them as well... Don't remembe the name of the company but the game was called "Valhalla" Top down game thats main points were that it was coded from scratch in a week and that the main character talked at everything he did - AP gave it 18% while every other mag gave it in the 90's.
And AP were right, the game did suck.
Amiga Power WAS funny though - remember Isabelle Rees? The Matt Bielby golden era? Cam Winstanley's cries of "Hoora!! Tankie Tankie!!" (and his breakfast sandwich recipie)? Stuarts hair?
Thems were the days.
Confessions of a (former) game reviewer (Score:5, Interesting)
Our mag was not one of the biggies, though we had a pretty fair readership. Aside from the publishers sending us games, and hardware companies sending us joysticks and stuff for review, there was not much else. Much of the hardware had to be returned after the write-up, but the games didn't. So, sure, I didn't buy a game for a couple years, and ended up with a few controllers and even a few sound and video cards.
The print guys definitely got more attention from the publishers, especially at E3, where they all got the special invitations to the vendor parties, and they may have even gotten some of the perks that the article implies, I don't know. The parties we did get invited to were often much like those timeshare gigs where you have to listen to a bunch of marketing hype in order to get a few chicken nuggets and two free beers, and maybe a can cooler printed with the game logo.
There was no real incentive to skew reviews. We got more games than we could reasonably play, and kept getting them from a publisher even if we had just poo-poo'd one from that publisher. One thing we tried to do, was to be objective. No game is completely bad, and we tried to point out any good points, even if the overall score was low. For instance a game might have had crappy controls, bad graphics, poor AI, and even an ugly box, but if it had good audio and soundtrack, we said so.
Then, the publisher would quote the line that said "Killer soundtrack and realistic audio effects..." on the "press" section of the game's web site and they just wouldn't mention that we thought the thing was sheer tedium to play. And they would send us another box full of games the next week.
If I had not written fair, honest reviews, pretty soon, no one would believe me. It makes no sense to lie to your readers. It was funny, I would usually head out on the web to read the other site's reviews of a game after I had posted mine. More than once I would flame a particularly bad game, only to find that some other guys were raving about it. I wondered at the time if there was some sort of "playola" going on or if my opinions were just that much different. But I never ran across any proof.
Incidentally, as for game reviewing = "vagina testing", well, allow me to dispute that somewhat. First of all, I often had been assigned two or three games per week. Which means I almost never finished a game, since I also have a day job and a family. Had this been my living, I imagine I would have had considerably more assignments, and so the result would have been the same. Also, you have to write the reviews, which takes time, writing skill, and overall, a desire to write. I dare say that not everyone who wants to play lots of games also wants to produce the equivalent of an english paper after each one. Luckily, I can spell, and write reasonably well, and so I enjoyed the writing as well as the game playing.
Of course to write a critical review, you must do more than just play. You must play while honestly evaluating the various elements of the experience, and maybe even pausing to take notes, or replaying a section just to verify some item or glitch you did not get a good look at the first time.
Often you are playing beta or even alpha quality games for previews, and so crashes and configuration hassles are not uncommon. You don't generally have time to play much on advanced levels, because you want to get to as much of the game environment as you can in a short time.
Yes it was a lot of fun, especially at first, and rewarding most of the time, but it was definitely not the easiest, sweetest gig you could imagine. Eventually, I burned out, and bid the reviewer's podium adieu. It was at least a year before I played another computer game after that.
You are what pisses me off! (Score:2)
The game companies count on loosers like you doing the review, always looking for something good to say, and not finishing the game. The big companies do a great job on the game intro, so anyone who just played a few minutes thinks their great. Arcanum comes to mind. It starts out great, but turns into garbage real fast; no doubt the reviewers were like you, and only played the first couple of minutes.
Re:You are what pisses me off! (Score:1)
Same goes for fighting games, casino games, etc. Adventure games are an example of ones I would try my best to finish (though the previews of those were often not finished, since the game itself was often not complete). But even games that were complete crap, I would play as much as I could stand, just to try to be as fair as possible.
Like I said, it was a hobby, and I never claimed to finish a game if I didn't.
Re:You are what pisses me off! (Score:1)
Yes, that is exactly what he is saying. If a book can't get its hooks into your intellectual, emotional, or psychological interests or even mantain a consistent or palletable footing in the first chapter I highly doubt the succesive chapters would be any better. A book is all about keeping one interested enough in the material to continue, how many books have you only partitialy read?
Re:You are what pisses me off! (Score:2)
I get a press book that has the plot story, all the names, background infos etc. etc.
Having said that. On an AVERAGE day you have a movie review, if summer comes around or christmas it get's worse, my personal record were 15 movies in 5 days (that makes it 3 movies a day), tell me how YOU can sit in a theater for 6 hours a day doing nothing but watching (mostly) bad movies and THEN sit down for another 3 hours and write a review?
Re:You are what pisses me off! (Score:2)
Game Time to Complete: 30 - 60 hrs (depending on which version)
Time to Write a Complete Review 60-65 hrs (Have to do all of the side quests, reach max level, etc... to satisfy your requirements for a "complete" review)
That's EASILY a full time job in hours. If you have 3 days to write the review, WTF are you going to do? Play for 20 hours a day? A review is NOT supposed to be a complete writeup of every aspect of the game. It's supposed to be a brief description of several aspects of the game. To expect reviewers to play every game they get through to completion is completely unreasonable. When I read a review I just want to know what the graphics/sound/gameplay are like, and maybe a little insight into the storyline. I don't need the reviewer to give me a blow by blow analysis of every part of the game.
Kintanon
Re:Confessions of a (former) game reviewer (Score:2, Funny)
Those two sentences strung together are possibly the most hilariously pathetic I've seen in several weeks. And I thought that nobodies in LA mentioning that they were "in ths biz" was bad.
Sorry, this wasn't that nice of me.
Re:Confessions of a (former) game reviewer (Score:2)
Its not subtle at all.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's Black&White which won best PC game of the year from several places is nearly impossible to control, and while cute, has little real gameplay.
On the other hand, there's Gothic, a German import, which was great, and if it wasn't best game of the year, it was far better than the two mention above, yet it got terrible reviews by the rags.
Its infuriating because I went out and bought those games on the reviewer say-so, and would never have even looked at Gothic had I found the others so bad I needed anything for a fix.
I think the article really only touches the surface of the problem. Many of the rags are completely in the pocket of Sierra and EA its clear. Another problem is that they rate games before their release, based on beta copies. Thus there is absolutely no way they can honestly rate the games because they only get through the intro, which in fact is nearly always good in the big name games.
Also, I have seen obvious ballot stuffers and fake raters on the web sites, even the 'honest' ones. The game companies (one starting with M comes to mind) clearly stuff the votes with gushing reviews that pretty much quote their own marketing hype, and never say anything specific about the game. For example, go find the first-day reviews which mention no load screnes for Dungeon Siege. No gamer would ever rate that as a priority in the game, especially after the first game..obvious stuffing.
Re:Its not subtle at all.. (Score:1)
Re:Its not subtle at all.. (Score:2)
Re:Its not subtle at all.. (Score:2)
Reviews at a Glance (Score:2, Informative)
Movie reviewers get the same treatment (Score:2)
Submachine Gun Course (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.frontsight.com/1day_smg_course.htm [frontsight.com]
It's done by a company called FrontSight and it's free. The course is about five hours training (most of it on the range), and then a two hour pitch about signing up for more courses. You don't have to stay for the two hour pitch if you don't want to.
I was in Vegas for a bachelor party and attended the course, and I must say it is very well done. The instructors are actually very nice, normal people. What really surprised me about them is that they are extremely courteous and helpful. They won't yell at you when you do something wrong like a lot of ranges. (I assume with the obvious exception of things that are outright dangerous)
Re:Submachine Gun Course (Score:2, Funny)
Too bad they don't play the games... (Score:2)
And before you blame me for accusing them, trust me on this one. First of all, I work in the video game industry. A lot of people I've worked with used to work in magazines doing reviews and such. Needless to say I was a bit shocked (though looking back I shouldn't have been) to hear them all ADMIT that they've reviewed games based on the box art, intro sequence, or just what they think it'll be like.
Ouch
Never have I heard of a sports-caster go home during half time to write up a review of the game, but this is what the game industry does regularly.
Re:Too bad they don't play the games... (Score:2)
I read quotes from Ronald Reagan when he talked about working as sports commentator in radio that he often winged it, I could try to dig up a few references. But there have been cases of sports reports where a newspaper has reported a totally different result than the actual one because the sports reporter thought nothing would alter the result in the last quarter or whatever.
Re:Too bad they don't play the games... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too bad they don't play the games... (Score:2, Interesting)
He rapidly gave up on me, because I'd just answer "I don't know, I've only seen a still" He didn't seem to be able to understand that, and kept asking me what I thought about the game. My supply of Tees and mugs dried up right about then, but colleagues who were willing to humor him still got rewarded. Guess I learnt not to hit the red button with my beak.
Slurp! The sound of me drinking out of my old Team17 mug on my desk.
I wonder why this is a big surprise to some people (Score:1)
BY ALL THAT IS HOLY, I'M GONNA . . .
Alright, enough theatrics.
Seriously though, I think that this goes along with what others have mentioned. Some sites (that maybe perhaps have the letters I, G, & N in their URL?) seem to blatantly worship at the altar of big publishing while others (Gamespot comes to mind) seem to have well thought out reviews and the opportunity for users to rate games alongside the "pros". This balanced approach seems to paint a truer picture of the game than other sites.
A good coding project would be to come up with the rottentomatoes.com of the gaming world - perhaps sorethumbs.com?
My findings (Score:5, Informative)
The magazines I worked on didn't play that game but in the ultra-competitive British games magazine industry, there were several who most certainly did. I remember in particular being pretty sweet with GT Interactive's PR with regards to TA: Kingdoms. I was a massive fan of the former game and thought I had an understanding that I would review this game for our magazine first because I had the best background. Bingo it turned up on the cover of another magazine, exclusive review with a Big Score.
I couldn't even review the game, it had too many show stopping bugs namely the fact that it ran at about 25% normal speed. The game sucked anyway. Up until that point I was sufficiently naive to believe that everyone was like me. The process of getting reviews for the blockbusters is very much a business negotiation in the UK. Mags barter scores (I assume, although I never saw it myself), pages, coverdisk space and cover realestate.
Still, at the end of the day if you buy a mag and it says a game is great when it's absolutely crap - then you wont buy that magazine right? That's what I don't quite get about American magazines. They've always been very bum licky crawly to publishers, but then again their reviews are pretty useless coming out 2 months after a game hits the shelves anyhow...
Later on, after I escaped journalism to work in the games industry properly, I came to realise a real home truth. Actually reviews are pretty irrelevant. In this day and age, under 20% of those buying games have EVER bought a magazine for their console, still less have looked at a web site.
Re:My findings (Score:2, Informative)
as a developer this pretty much jives with my experience with print mags. it's not about the review -really- (because what's in them doesn't change that many purchase habits), the game publisher wants cover art and the mag wants exclusivity.
now exclusivity is sometimes taken to asinine levels... I remember once having to invent camera angles for each editor (there where about 10 print editors at the office) because they all wanted shots of the same effect, but definately NOT the same shot (or too similar). or each mag could only see one level and would get shots from that level. so bogus.
of course on the flipside, competing for cover art isn't just about the big picture in the middle (but it most often is), even the little pictures on the side (if they're there) are battled over.
game publishers just want to place an extra ad for their game on the rack by the counter at retailers. and convincing a mag to put cover art (even for mediocre or bad reviews) is an easy way to do it.
Pc gamer (Score:1)
I really do not get why a person with access to the internet would pay what
humor.
Re:Pc gamer (Score:2)
Don't you get it?!
IT'S FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When it comes to mags, you only need ask yourself a few select questions:
- Does it have a FREE CD?
- Does it have the word "Exclusive" somewhere on the cover?
- Does it have a "complete walkthough" of your "favorite game"? ("complete" being a relative term, naturally)
If so, you must buy right away, otherwise a competing magazine might have even BIGGER fonts and you'd waste your $13/8£ on the old one when you could get the NEW one now, I mean, then!PC Gamer (Score:2)
When the game was first reviewed, the game got an Editor's Award, or whatever PC Gamer gives paid advertisers. Then, 3 years later when they list their worst games of all time, which game is #1?
Outpost.
Publishing vs. Journalism (Score:2)
This is the never-ending battle between publishing, the business of running a publication, and journalism, the profession of writing. Journalists always bitch that the biz guys are muzzling them to keep advertisers happy, and the biz guys are always pissed that journalists don't get that it takes money to run the paper. They're both right, of course, but I think that commercial interests are often triumphant over journalistic ones.
This is NOT the entire industry (Score:4, Interesting)
Articles like this really annoy me. They take the actions of several PR companies, the reactions of certain journalists/game reviewers/industry observers, pick one or two of the more outlandish *stories* and then proceed to generalise across the entire damned industry.
Let me tell you right now: the actions of PR companies, game publishers/distributors and other parties interested in getting favourable attention from gaming and hardware journalists does NOT have much of an affect on the majority of the PC mag industry. At least, thats the case here in Australia.
Case in point: A company holds a press party for their latest game. They invite a bunch of journalists, put on free drinks and food, throw a few PCs around with playable demos of the code and generally hold a shmooze-fest. People eat, drink, be merry and discuss everything under the sun - naturally including the product they are there for in the first place!
Party finishes. Journalists go home. A few weeks later, the gold code arrives. Editor picks a staffer to review the game, and he/she takes it home to play the S*#T out of for a week or more - whatever it takes to finish the game.
The journalist then proceeds to write his/her review. Said review passes through subedit and a few other misc publishing routines, and appears in the next issue of the magazine.
In my experience, parties and junkets are the norm when a company wants to promote its latest product - whether that be the latest router or the next hot FPS shootemup. However, these parties usually don't promote the product they are organised for!
Damn near every promotional party/trip i can remember had one affect and one only - networking. The entire reason journalists turn up to these events is simply because they meet new people, gain new contacts and thus extend their usefullness to their own company! We emphatically do NOT think to ourselves "wow, that party/trip overseas/weekend in a hotel rocked! I'm going to give this game/hardware/widget 90%!"
Anyhow, to sum up: the article is pure BS. Journalists possess something called ethics. Those who don't, aren't journalists for long. Once you lose credability in this industry, no-one - and I mean no-one - will touch you. In short: you're fucked.
Don't lable an entire industry corrupt because of a few over-extravegant parties/trips. Fine, if one or two individuals bias their reviews due to trips/parties, then they deserve all the ridicule in the world. It won't matter all that much anyway, as they will be out of a job before long if they continue on that tack.
We have ethics. We have morals. We do not bias reviews based on how good a time a company has shown us previous to sending us product. And don't you dare bloody insinuate that we do!
ARGHHHH.. (Reviews in general suck:) (Score:1)
The problem is, it was blasted for all of the wrong reasons. These people literally played the game on the easiest setting for 15 minutes and said "Geee, you can score like 80 runs in 3 innings!". Anyone who has actually played the game knows that hitting gets much harder as you up the skill level. They completely ignored the actual problems that present themselves as the game play goes on (runners cover the base paths in record time, so good luck on double plays.. for example).
The point? Besides the fact that I like to rant I just think its incredibly frusturating that people can give cursory reviews of products and make out like bandits because of it. I mean, if I did my job (Software Engineer) like that.... well I certainly wouldn't get a free trip to anywhere but the unemployment line.
second L.A. Times story (Score:1)
Re:second L.A. Times story (Score:1)
It makes me want to lock out all the spammers who want to take over my computer to steal my credit card info. But then I just get high and play "Smack the Anonymous Dumbass" and have a much better time.
From a friend of a game reviewer... (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, the reviewers there were bitching like mad about the article, because it was taken totally out of context - yeah, there's payola for front covers and the like, handed out to the high ups in the press, but the average reviewer is lucky to get a flight and a shared bedroom on a lot of the junkets.
On top of that, the reviewers don't typically earn very much at all - and the last year has been real bad because of the decline in content providers. I got the impression not many of them make over $30 or $40k... in a good year (my friend made $10k last year). There's free food and trips which make up for it a little, but no-one seems to do it for the kickbacks. The general impression was that for the LA Times it was an extremely unbalanced article.
Winton
Something of a jaded article... (Score:2)
Nothing new here (Score:1)
Real gear. Real world. Real reviews. -- The Sequel (Score:2)
It's good to see that this problem is getting more attention -- deservedly so -- and it's being recognized as such.
I wrote about it in February in response [slashdot.org] to a previous Slashdot article on magazines faking game reviews [slashdot.org]. But the larger problem is that this highly suspect practice is rampant with consumer technology product reviews. In a best-case scenario most so-called reviews are based on a cursory glance at a given piece of technology, instead of an authentic review.
In brief (in case you don't have time to read my somewhat lengthy previous comments), we started Geartest.com [geartest.com] because of the problem of fictional and heavily biased reviews that amount to regurgitated press releases. I wrote about some of the difficulties we've had in getting the cooperation of companies despite our growth and consistently high traffic levels, and some of the 'hints' we received about how we could get their cooperation.
Our review philosophy is simple: Real gear. Real world. Real reviews. No reviews of products based on press releases or in a pre-release stage. We use the products for an extended period in real conditions. Then we write about the results, with updates as warranted based on extended usage. That means if a product is good we say so, if it sucks we say so, but we also talk about the shades of gray where most items fall.
Now this problem of compromised 'reviews' and 'reviewers' is not new. The press covering the automotive industry has been criticized for similar problems but as that industry matured, reporters have -- for the most part -- come to understand that their only assets are their credibility and good name. Cautionary tale: Andersen with the whole Enron debacle. Though it reviewed and certified finances instead of technology products, Andersen went from being the most trusted and widely respected auditing firm to being poison because it compromised its integrity.
I'm reminded of a couple of items I saw on a regional TV newcast during the last year. The news program serves millions of people. The health and science report was a four-minute segment on a new breath freshening product under the guise of a report on halitosis -- bad breath -- after which the on-air personalities (I won't call them journalists) proceeded to try the aforementioned 'revolutionary' breath product. The segment was the only thing that was noisome. The second item, was a 7-minute segment on a brand-name SUV 'boot camp' that was being offered to consumers for 'free' -- except for the 1 to 5 hours required to complete various elements of the simulated off-road course while test-driving the SUV line-up for that manufacturer. Never mind the fact that hardly any SUVs see terrain more difficult than a gravel shoulder. It was just another puff piece that was free advertising for a company that wanted to get consumers to come to its facility where salespeople would have a captive audience.
Let's be clear: writing about an industry and its products is a symbiotic relationship by its very nature. If you can't get access to the people and products that you are supposed to be writing about, then it becomes very difficult if not impossible to review those very items. Conversely, without coverage of their offerings by trusted media, consumers might overlook a given company's products. At Geartest.com [geartest.com] we make it simple. Give us access to your product, answer any questions we may have, do not interfere with our process, and you will get a fair review. The concept that a fair review doesn't always guarantee a favorable one causes many to balk.
For some reason computer gaming seems to be among the areas where this happens most frequently. That industry is among the most resistant to provide access without a guarantee of a rave review. Our review policy instantly scares many marketing drones off when they are accustomed to dealing with pliable and willing 'reviewers.'
Of course you have reviewers at the exact opposite extreme that strive for excellence. Consumer Reports is among the best-known and most trusted examples of reviews with integrity. A healthy, skeptical and critical approach -- if not a slightly adversarial one -- is good for consumers, reviewers, and even for manufacturers who are interested in building high-quality products and a trusted brand.
One of our staff members is participating in a journalism conference next week where one of the policy sessions aims to (in part) address the problem of junkets and payola-based product reviews that amount to nothing more than free advertising. It will be interesting to see what the resultant ethical policy and statement of principles will say about reviewing commercial products.
Whatever the outcome at the conference, we're determined to stick to our review philosophy because we honestly believe it serves everyone's best interest. On another note, we're working on a new site design and have a number of products under review at the moment, with several more waiting in the wings. There are some managers out there who understand and endorse our approach, though it would be nice if there were more.
Please check us out [geartest.com] and let us know what you think -- What you like, don't like and where we can improve. After all, we're not above being reviewed ourselves. =)
Where's Daikatana (Score:1)
Pop quiz... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which magazine would you buy based on these covers:
Now, which one is more likely to be honest?
You see the problem yet? No? Look in a mirror.
Computer Gaming World (Score:3, Interesting)
I bought a subscription to CGW a year or so ago, and I was immediately impressed with the maturity, intelligence, and humor of the articles - but I didn't realize how rare these qualities were in the video game review business. More recently, I gained access to a number of other video game magazines, and the contrast is amazing. Most video game magazines seem to be targetted at 12 year-olds.
If you're a 30+ year-old gamer, CGW is an excellent magazine. Actually, I don't even play that many video games these days, but the entertainment value of the magazine alone keeps me reading it even those times when the content may not be relevant to how I spend my time.
I used to be a game reviewer... (Score:3, Informative)
After playing so many games, you start noticing what to look for, and it bugs you not to tell other people. Heck, I got the shit flamed out of me for giving Zelda 64 an 8.5 (which I still think it deserved.) I want to know where this "playola" was, and why didn't I get any? I have a feeling that this may be an isolated incident, because I know a lot of game reviewers working for prominent newspapers/websites, and none of them even hear stories of this stuff. Sure, there are some perks, usually a trip to E3 or Comdex or some other large expo, but nothing on the magnitude this guy is claiming.
If there are people out there who get this kind of treatment, it's sad. Most gamers I know don't even read reviews, game purchases are decided on word-of-mouth. Jedi Knight 2 is a perfect example. I didn't buy it because of the reviews, I bought it because everyone I knew was really excited about it and it looked cool to me. After I bought it I discovered it got rave reviews, but that was an afterthought. Gamers have an eye for spotting a good game, we don't need a reviewer to tell us what's good and what's not. Besides, mainstream media coverage of games is often horrible. I'll take word-of-mouth anyday.
Payola isn't the problem (Score:2)
Most reviews I read on the web make me cringe. Sometimes the reviewer has weird personal beefs, like Intel vs. AMD, nVidia vs. ATI, or whater. Often there are strange misinterpretations of technical issues, as if the reviewer really really wants to be a game developer but doesn't have a clue. "Bad art" is sometimes blamed on low resolution textures, low poly count, etc., when it's really just bad art. And it's just so easy for a great game to get blasted for some personal peeve, like a dead body having a leg that intersects a wall. If you get that anal retentive, then you're not going to be happy with _any_ game.
It's odd... (Score:2)
One of my favorite sites is Rotten Tomatoes [rottentomatoes.com]. Basically, they collect every movie review they can find about every movie that comes out, then rate each review on whether it is overall positive ("fresh") or overall negative ("rotten"). RT then gives the movie a rating representing the ratio of positive to negative reviews. So a movie that has 90% of the reviews marked as "fresh" gets a score of 90%. Movies that have a rating of 60% or higher are themselves declared "fresh", but 59% or below and they're "rotten". RT also takes a subset of the reviews for each movie, called the "Cream of the Crop," which represent reviews by "major" sources, like the LA Times, NY Times, Entertainment Weekly, CNN, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert), and so on, and calculates a rating for just those reviews. (The "other" reviews, which represent the bulk, tend to be from smaller, less well-known sources, and as such include people who are not necessarily career movie reviewers.) It's interesting to see the contrasts between the Overall rating and the Cream of the Crop rating.
I haven't done anything even remotely resembling a statistical analysis, but from my experience, the Overall ratings tend to be fairly well-distributed. I always see the claim that video game magazines tend to give better reviews because they fear that game companies won't advertise (or send them free games) if they don't give them good reviews (or at least if their reviews don't average up to "pretty good"), but since movie reviews tend to be in newspapers, AND since movie ads have the showtime listings attached to them, there's much less of a probability that "review well or we won't advertise" will happen.
As an example, there are 10 movies opening this week that have enough reviews for RT to give them an overall score (I believe that they don't rate a movie until they find 6 reviews for it). They are:
- Changing Lanes (75% Overall, 67% CotC)
- Frailty (82%, 100%)
- The Sweetest Thing (29%, 20%)
- New Best Friend (7%, 0% - ouch)
- Time Out (88%, 88%)
- The Cat's Meow (79%, 86%)
- Maryam (75%, 71%)
- The Piano Teacher (74%, 86%)
- Human Nature (29%, 29%)
- The Other Side of Heaven (23%, 0%)
Some movies won't have enough reviews to be statistically significant, but most movies will have 30-60 reviews attached to them by the time people stop reviewing the movie. (The numbers above may change as more reviews are found and added to their database.)
I find it a fairly useful site, actually, and RT's "meta-reviewers" do a good job -- I rarely find myself disagreeing with their opinion of the tone of a review (i.e. whether a review is overall negative or positive about a movie).
Anyway, I'm babbling, but back to the original topic... I wonder if there's any site like Rotten Tomatoes that does the same for video game reviews? I know of PC Game Review [pcgr.com], except that it consists entirely of contributed, player-written reviews, and not "professional" reviews collected for analysis.
Re:Slashdot is shit (Score:1)
HOLY C R A P I S T H I S P A G E W I D E (Score:1)