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Games The Media Entertainment

Famitsu For Beginners 36

Posted by Zonk from the strange-and-mysterious dept.
Via Kotaku, a post on the forums at the selectbutton site that may interest you. Famitsu is the gaming bible for a lot of people, but not all of us have the language skills required to follow it. Many more are confused by what's seen as 'buying review scores', a practice that's more about the realities of the magazine's role than about corruption. From the article: "What Famitsu is -- and you wouldn't know this unless you've held a heavy issue in your hand on a tired Friday morning -- is straightforward (if not entirely honest) PR in a pretty, meaty, high-quality bundle. It's an advertisement feast. If the western concepts of 'journalistic integrity' are distorted and twisted within its pages, they're done so very lovingly. Because, you see, that degree of over-thinking really doesn't exist here. You can cry 'viral!!!!!!!!!!!!' and 'TEH PAID!!!!!!!!!!' all you want at Famitsu's features and articles. However, you can't change that it's a hell of a thing to look at on the train on Friday morning, or at lunch on Friday afternoon; it provides stimulating topics of conversation (for geekos) over Friday dinner." So, as Kotaku's Luke Plunkett says '[This is] why we all ignored the scores they gave Sonic, but paid attention when games like Blue Dragon and Lost Planet won them over.'
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Famitsu For Beginners More

Famitsu For Beginners

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  • Which is better? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Monday December 18, 2006 @02:15PM (#17290064)
    Which is better, a company which openly accepts money in exchange for better reviews/hype or a company which (behind closed doors) exchanges better reviews for money; because that is (pretty much) what print game magazines all are.

    With a few exceptions, you will notice that many magazines have a tendency to give higher reviews to games that have "invested" in several issues worth of full page advertizements.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WormholeFiend ( 674934 )
      This is not limited to gaming magazines.

      IMO they should drop all pretense and instead of reviews, have in-depth descriptions of games.

      Hardly anyone believes reviews anymore anyway, and rely on fellow gamers' opinions on forums
      • This sounds a lot like Computer Shopper to me. Before the Internet (and pricewatch.com) hit it big, CS was the best way to solve all your computer needs. The issues were easily hundreds of pages long, with pretty much nothing but advertisements. There were one or two token articles, but you really bought it for the advertisements. It was great! :)
      • A lot more people may put faith in reviews than you think, unfortunately. I hate to say this, but there are a lot of people out there that aren't as smart as you. Man, I do totally agree with you, though... The internet (among other things) would be a much cleaner place if the stupid review system was dropped in favor of pure description. Then you don't get opinions of people who have different tastes than you, which are completely meaningless.
    • True about few exceptions, but the ones that did exist are sorely missed. I miss the Russell Snipe/Johnny Wilson Computer Gaming World. It had real integrity and was a quality read. The late Nineties was really a painful period in the games industry, Sony and the 3D revolution cost us much more than anyone is willing to acknowledge. Scorpia, one of the very first female Gaming Journalists was fired due to orders from Ziff-Davis higher ups.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ClamIAm ( 926466 )
      With a few exceptions, you will notice that many magazines have a tendency to give higher reviews to games that have "invested" in several issues worth of full page advertizements.

      Are the results of your research available online? They're not? Oh.
  • But it makes sense. If it is true it answers a lot of questions but raises one last one. Why the fuck do American news media keeping posting their scores? It really does sound like a hype rag.

    Personally Famitsu has had decent ratings for a lot of games, however they tend to have higher then normal ratings, which means higher then IGN, which is higher then gamespot (though gamespot has little basis so it's not as good as IGN according to me) which is higher then .... you get my point. Over inflated ratin

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by badasscat ( 563442 )
      But it makes sense. If it is true it answers a lot of questions but raises one last one. Why the fuck do American news media keeping posting their scores? It really does sound like a hype rag.

      It is really no different than EGM in any way other than being a) physically bigger, and b) published more frequently. Their "journalistic standards" are no better or worse, their reviews no more or less bought and paid for. Which is to say the NY Times they ain't, but neither are they paid shills.

      There's no real mea

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by apoc06 ( 853263 )
        anyone care to discuss the difference between courtesy scores and something on a more grand scale like say the whole neverwinter nights2 debacle? perhaps within the confines of a certain culture or even genre the game takes on higher meaning, and thereby more flaws can be overlooked.

        NWN & NWN2 appeal to certain core demographics that can appreciate the game and the potential that lies within. the reviewer sits with the disc for a few hours and writes about what the disc presented across his monitor at t

  • Enlighten Me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Omestes ( 471991 ) <omestes@nOsPAM.gmail.com> on Monday December 18, 2006 @02:17PM (#17290108) Homepage Journal
    How did this end up on the front page? All I got from this is that "Japan has a big gaming magazine, that is biased, but Kotaku and Zonk like it. You should read it, but you probably don't speak Japanese". I think this is the worst front page story I have seen on /. in my umpteen years of sifting through drivel.

    So what is the news? Japan has paid for review magazine like the US (and rest of the world), but people expect this and don't complain?

    Wow.
    • Heh, yes, agreed. Hell, I had to read it about three times just to begin to understand it. "Via Kotaku, a post on the forums at the selectbutton site that may interest you" - still, I suppose it puts you in the right 'Engrish' frame of mind.
    • /. is on the take from a big gaming magazine published in Japan!

      Heh.
  • But does it come in Esperanto?
  • the biased japanese game magazines read YOU!
  • It's like how Nintendo Power used to be?
    • Sounds about right- hopelessly biased reviews, but most entertaining magazine in existence. My brother has most of the old copies- those things are so fun to read, even now, because of all the cool stuff it has inside, even if just for the sake of advertising. Particularly, the extensive and graphical maps fascinated me as a small kid.
  • Nue Jerundo Jin Desu. Poster-San wa Baka desu.
    • >>1 is not entirely stupid. 'Kay the article might be a bit boring... (The rants of a new user. Please note he is not a Japanese.)

  • Cosmo for games? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rtechie ( 244489 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @12:29PM (#17301480)
    Call me crazy, but isn't Famitsu just Cosmopolitian magazine (or any of those other women's magazines that are 90% advertising)? Most of the "content" of the magazine is ads, and the "articles" and "reviews" are thinly-disguised ads. Famitsu is so popular in Japan in part because of the general Japanes fetish for magazines, and partly because the are MUCH bigger whores than then Western gaming press. It's a lot cheaper to put together a magazine if all of your content is submitted by advertisers. The comparison to GameSpot or EDGE isn't correct, Famitsu is more like "Official Playstation Magazine" or Nintendo Power.

    Now maybe you WANT 250 pages of ads, but I doubt it.

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