Ethics and Video Game Reviews

Obiwan Kenobi writes "Online Journalism has an excellent article on video game reviewers and the ethics of such a position. It includes comments from the editor of gamespot and insights from well-known movie critics who are subjected to the same junkets that try to influence reviewers into writing good things about terrible products (or just mediocre ones). Inside I talk about my limited experience in video game reviewing and the influence free stuff can have."

Obiwan Kenobi continues:

The junket used in the article as an example was Ubi Soft's recent Rainbow Six: Raven Shield launch, where the writers got to dress in SWAT garb and have a paintball battle against mock terrorists and disable a dirty bomb. Things like this happen all the time, even more so in the movie industry (which the gaming industry is quickly mirroring).

Not that I was a big-time reviewer or anything. Back in 1997 or so, I ran a small website of my own (hosted on my ISP webspace) called Obiwan Reviews. Since I was just getting out of high school and into college (read: broke), I reviewed Quake mods, such as AirQuake, Quake Rally, After the Fall and others. Soon I tried to spread my wings a little and get a gig at a real gaming site, which would give me the ability to review retail titles. I found that site, frag.com, and the position was given to me by Jonathon "ZyFly" Works after many requests. Though the site itself is no longer with us, the experience was certainly eye-opening.

Technically I only reviewed two retail titles, Tomb Raider 2 and the X-Men Quake mod. I also got Dungeon Keeper and its expansion, The Deeper Dungeons, though I never got around to writing about that one.

In my first "professional" review, I lavished praise on X-Men, which deserved about 75% of it, and the last 25% was, I fully admit (now that I'm nowhere near this "industry") given just because it was free and I'd never gotten a free game before. Yes, it was unethical as hell, but I was under the deluded thinking that if you trash a free game the free games stop coming. I wish I could tell you I knew better, but back then I did not.

An upshot of that bloated thinking came a week later when I got an email from the guys who made that X-Men mod. They thanked me for the kind words and the payoff for some of their hard work.

This is not something that a biased reviewer needs to hear.

This put me in the mindset that "everything is great, just tell em what they want to hear." That way I could get in the industry and be loved by all! Or...so I thought.

After Tomb Raider 2 dropped on my doorstep, I played it for a few days and was very disappointed. Terrible clipping, clunky controls, sometimes buggy levels and graphics. Not that it was all bad, I still had a good time with a few levels, but the majority of the game was a misfire.

But this didn't stop me from hyping it up, telling everyone it was the greatest thing to come out yet.

A week or so later I got another email. Not from the developer, but from a reader. And he was pissed.

While I don't have the email any longer, I certainly remember the gist of it: He bought the game and he saw through my candy-coated review in about thirty minutes. He had trusted my words and was out $50 thanks to me.

I felt terrible and conflicted. I wasn't sure I wanted to review any more at all, considering that I knew there would be others who would purchase titles based on my words. And if those words were false, who was gaining here? The studios producing the titles or myself? The guilt was tough, but the review had ran and a retraction of my gushing paragraphs would mean that nothing I did from then on would be taken seriously. Not that those who purchased TR2 because of my review would do so any longer, but hey, I've got the rest of the readership to worry about.

After some soul searching and mid-terms, I made my decision.

That was my last review for frag.com, and my last video game review. Though I have since written hundreds of movie and DVD reviews, I still look back on those reviews for a free humbling experience any time I need one.

The points that are brought up in articles like the one at Online Journalism are very much factual. If you let yourself be taken in by the free food, games, flights, and gala of a modern-day junket, your reputation is at stake. Roger Ebert has since stopped letting movie studios pay for anything in regards to press gatherings and interview sessions, and I highly commend him for it. Everyone else would be happy to throw a few hundred loving words toward a bad movie because they got to shmooze with the stars and eat an expensive meal alongside them.

This thing happens all the time.

Trust me, I know.

Comments

Do people still read game reviews?

[Jason1729]

I've bought enough computer games over the years that had rave reviews and turned out to be total crap that I don't even read reviews anymore.

Black and White is a recent example. The reviews made it sound like the best game ever made. Then when I played it, I found out the UI is horrible, the gameplay is tedious, and the characters treat you (their god) like a child -- If you eat your vegetables, then you can have Ice Cream.

I just take it for granted now that game reviewers are lying when they say a game is good. Jason
ProfQuotes

Hypocritical.

[InnovATIONS]

One thing I noticed was that the one publicaiton said that only their editors went to the events but that their writers could not. Who actually decides which reviews get published and which placement? The editors of course. If anything journalistic integrity is MORE important to an editor than a writer. Or maybe it was a matter that if the writers couldn't go to the junkets there would be more spaces available to the editors? "You guys can't go on these biasing publicity events" the editor says as his bags are packed for the airport.

My two cents

[NetDanzr]

Currently, I'm helping out as a game reviewer at Netjak. However, I've been reviewing games since the late 1980s, and I have gotten my share of nasty e-mails, but very rarely have I seen a well-formed argument against my review. Most of the responses are from people who read only my review and trusted my word, without cross-checking with other reviews. While I am trying not to be influenced by the freebies I'm getting (yes, even such a small site as ours is a target of marketing campaigns, and yes, it is very hard to resist), I am the first person to admit that no single person can be objective. Thus, whenever one wants to make an informed purchase, he or she should consult various sources. Especially here, where the items cost up to $50 and most of the time cannot be returned to the store, relying on any single game reviewer is stupid and irresponsible.

Real Videogame Reviewers Are Not Biased

[GamezCore.com]

I have worked in the videogame industry for over 4 years now, and I am the owner of a 100% independent Playstation 2 website GamezCore.com

I can honestly say that any REAL, professional, videogame reviewer, not the I-wanna-review-games-cuz-I-get-em-free reviewers are about as non-biased as they come. As the poster of this article found in only *TWO* reviews, reader's will quickly smell bullshit reviews and your credibility is lost forever. For a professional in the industry, this would spell the end of a career.

In the end, however, reviews do come down to personal opinion... they are not scientific. I may find great joy in subtle nuances of a particular title, where another may not even notice. It is the same as an untrained eye viewing a work of art and an art historian... they will see two wildly different things. This is not bias, it comes from a deeper understanding of the material at hand. I tend to step back and review a game from a more general sense, rather than from my trained eye.

Where I think the videogame reviewing industry needs to change is in the scoring. On a scale of 1-10 almost 90% of games will fall in the 7-10 area. This span of three points is hardly a good way to evaluate 90% of the games out there, but it is where almost all game reviews fall. However, if I would give a game a 5 (which would be average) no one would ever even think of buying it... but 5 would be where many games would sit on a truly even scale.

Not too many professionals are going to risk credibility over a $40.00 game, and we at GamezCore have lost publishers over bad reviews, no big deal... we'll purchase the games if we have to and still review them as honestly as if we had received them directly. Bias is more to be found in the print media world, where hidden ties and money trails tend to cross more often than realized.

Re:Not Just For Video Games...

[ajakk]

This doesn't only happen in the video game industry. CNN announced today that they did not report lots of things in Iraq during the past 12 years because they were afraid of the consequences against their journalists. As opposed to doing the ethical thing and leaving Iraq, they decided to keep their access and only report things approved by the Iraqi government. Thus, they were getting access to a very important news story if they would only report good news. Note that this did not only happen during the current war (when it was expected), but during the past 12 years.

People Who Lie Suck.

[Alkaiser]

I've been writing game reviews on and off for 5 years now. I try to be as fair as I can, and I tell you for sure that freebies don't really influence my review.

I used to work for the now defunct Gameplayer.com, and I reviewed a title from Take 2 Entertainment called "Reah". I gave it a -3 on a scale of 1 to 10. It was Myst/Riven clone, only it was exceedingly lame with weak graphics, and the controls very nearly made me vomit.

I called up by Take 2, who complained about it. I didn't give a crap. I kept the score at -3. The other two times I got called were for slamming Titus' 1-button fighting game, "Evil Zone", and for ripping on Medieval: Total War, because I gave it the lowest score of all reviewers on Gamerankings.com.

If you're going to pick up a game, do this first. Go to GameRankings.com, a site which will give you an instant look at all the main reviews/scores for a particular product, as well as their user's rating for the game. Read a couple of the reviews from there. Then make your decision.

I'm honestly shocked at these people who are saying they were all up on some company's nuts just for a free game. Do you realize how much it costs them to send you a copy of the game? 50 cents for the disc and packaging and $4.50 for shipping. I appreciate not having to buy or rent your game, but if your game sucks, I probably wasn't going to buy it anyway.

I'm not selling my soul for $5, so I can get some poor kid in high school or college, who probably doesn't have so much disposable income, to dump $50 on a game I honestly think is mediocre just so I can get more mediocre games for free.

There are some people who praise game because they like the free stuff. There are others who rip games because they think it's fun or a power trip.

Then there are others, like me, who remember what it was like to finally have scrounged up $40 and walking into Fry's to see that there 10 new games that sounded interesting and knowing they could only buy one. We've been burned more than enough times by companies who release software that doesn't work without a patch, promises to have features that got stripped out just before launch, or just simply sucks. I don't want a company getting rich off of misleading the customer. If that sounds good to you...check out our site as one of the two or three you use to get an idea of what a game's all about. And, as always...rent before buying if you have your doubts. When you do buy, use Ebay. The testers on the game are always trying to unload their free copies.