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Ethics and Video Game Reviews
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.
"I've never played such .. astounding .. fun."
"Incredible!"
"This game exemplifies today's total lack of .. so many bad things to say!"
"I will never have this .. much fun."
These junkets happen in almost every facet of the entertainment industry. Movies and TV especially. For more information, check out some of the features at Hollywood Bitchslap, they'll give you the straight dirt on that whole mess, including "quote whores" and tidbits on spin-meisters using message boards and chat channels to schill movies the rest of us wouldn't even consider seeing...
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The good news is, most of us are aware of the keywords in game reviews.
"Stylish"
"Action Packed"
"Best game of the year"
Are just a few of the key phrases that send us into bullshit mode. Everything afterwards ends up sounding like a grown-up from peanuts.
Unless you know the reviewer personally, never trust a reviewer that may have a conflict of interest, even Consumer Reports. Online reviews such as those at imdb.com, amazon.com, etc.. are usually the best for me. Newspapers prove this point best, it's not just the news anymore, too many (not all) writers spin the news to further their cause.
...this is one of the reasons that their user review system is actually a Good Thing(disregarding problems with abuses of the system, which in the large scheme is pretty insignificant). Game reviews can be good to read, especially if you find someone who has a history of praising games that you have enjoyed and criticizing those which you did not. But really what you need to do before buying is harvest some information from amateur reviewers. Certainly some of them will be idiots and a lot of them will have different tastes from you, but at least they have no vested interest in saying that something is good.
disclaimer: Of course, USENET is also great for this purpose and predates Amazon, but Amazon is more in the public consciousness these days than USENET is.
lysergically yours
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
That is one of the bonuses of living in Britain and getting games later than everyone else, i can speak to my American friends who inevitably have the game months before its out here, and they will tell me if its worth buying or not.
I generally will not trust a review unless i have read many, many others that agree with it.
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.
Sometimes the reviewers do not take enough time with the game to get the full picture. A classic example is the progessive game like Simcity 4. This thing got practically glowing reviews, but come to find out it was a sluggish, bug ridden piece of junk as soon as the city got to any reasonable size. At that point certain buildings wouldn't show up and the frame rates dropped to around 1 fps - even on 2Ghz plus machines.
While most of the issues have been addressed in a patch that was released almost 3 months after the game was - it should have been panned by anyone who took more than a few minutes with it.
Chris...
It does not matter what you do, it's wrong.
I write for a mainstream, general circulation newspaper with a daily circulation of about 300,000 readers. The influences of freebies are mitigated by my newspaper's policy, as well as our shear size.
In essence, the paper's policy says that if you review the game, you can keep it. We handle reviews of music CDs the same way. If you don't review the game, it goes in a charity auction that is held four times a year.
I have never felt the need to give a game a better review than it deserved just because I knew I was going to be able to keep it. In fact, I've told PR flacks over the phone dozens of times that I thought their games were of poor quality, when that was in fact the case.
In my situation, games from the industry have never stopped arriving, and if they did, I'd simply call and say I was interested in reviewing a specific title. I actually prefer that way to the flood of unsolicitated titles, which are inevitably followed up by an annoying phone call sniffing for coverage. I'd rather just review what I think my readers will be interested in, and leave the rest for what I call the "enthusiast" media.
As a professional journalist, I am of the opinion that junkets where members of the "press" are invited to participate in spectacles such as a paintball outing are simply unprofessional. While having face time with game industry execs and developers is extremely valuable (that is what I use e3 for) I would never participate in anything that was clearly tied to covering the news, and I would suspect any journalist with any training in ethics would agree with me.
Now that being said, there are gray areas. Sony, Microsoft and other big game publishers will be having receptions at e3 this year with free food and drinks. Will I attend these? Absolutely. Why? Because it gives me access to players in the industry I would otherwise not have. Will I drink a bottle of water while attending these receptions? Sure. Why? Because I will likely be thirsty.
It's not just about avoiding impropriety -- it's about avoiding the appearance of impropriety, too.
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.
And I have to tell you, even in my really limited exposure to it all, that TRUTH and FACTS will get you farther than HYPE. I played a game that sucked, control=crappy; premise=retarded. I deemed it necessary to say so in my review (and no, I won't tell you what it was that I reviewed).
Shock and horror! I got nasty emails from not only the site owner but from the manufacturer. Reviews like mine didn't sell games. Selling games makes money. Money that goes to making more games, which in a trickle-effect helps sites that do reviews, and the reviewers.
But I didn't give a shit. Know why? Because I was unpaid. It didn't effect my bottom-line at all. I spoke the truth as I saw it. Still do.
But notice I don't review games anymore.
Ask Billy "Wicked" Wilson, he'll tell you the same thing. Why do you think he hasn't made a return yet? His new site is "ready to go" but he's lost the drive to do so: the shit you have to go through just isn't worth it.
I worked for a small (6 employees) developer. We made low-budget ($150k or so) titles, but they were solid, fun to play and a good value, IMO. But plenty of reviewers felt free to completely slam us. Some reviews were positive and fair, some were negative but fair, but a good number were excessively negative to the point of being completely unfair. Some looked like they hadn't really played the game much, or had maybe only played the demo. Some had plagiarized stuff from other reviews. At least one reviewer was clearly having hardware problems, which are as likely to be the drivers fault as not. Also, many of the reviews have suggestions that would be impossible or very expensive to implement.
The reviews that are the most objective, I think, are the ones in PC Gamer, and Computer Games magazine. Gamespot is usually ok too. The rest of the stuff on the web could just be any 14 year old with an agenda.
I expect a reviewer to be honest. I know that's like expecting a three-year old not to eat the donut the minute you leave the room, but that's how I feel.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
They don't accept any form of advertisement, and (unlike any other review source of any kind I know of) do not allow ANY of their reviews or material to be used in ANY advertising campaigns. They instantly go after any company that attempts this. Also they aren't afraid to pull punches, and are often instremental in getting things recalled that have saftey implications.
Not only that, but they lobby the government for lots of consumer protection and saftey regulations from everything from auto saftey, and childrens toys, to DRM (yes, consumer union is fighting for us in the DRM arean as well).
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.
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
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.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga