Slashdot Mirror
On Early Driv3r Reviews, World Exclusives
(54)T-Dub writes "SPOnG has a very interesting article about Atari's latest iteration in the Driver series: Driv3r. Back in May there was a SpOnG messageboard post claiming that Atari was demanding a 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. In the heated race for the early reviews, two UK-based Future Publishing publications, Xbox World and PSM2 ran cover stories for Driv3r, and coincidentally gave the game a 9/10 score. XBox World even dubbed it 'the new GTA' while PSM claimed to have 'the World's first and only review' of the PS2 version. As earlier reported on Slashdot Games, subsequent reviews for the quite buggy Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game have hovered in the 60s. Having shipped 2.5 million copies it's estimated that Atari is gambling over $60 million on this game." While the source is hardly concrete, and claims of 'bribery' are likely overblown, it's interesting to ruminate on how getting an "exclusive review" affects game scoring, a phenomenon not limited to Driv3r.
What would you say if I told you I received a blowjob for giving the original Redneck Racing a 10/10?
'Cause it sure as heck doesn't look like a honest reviewing process to me.
At the very least it's dishonesty. They're lying to their readers (in the case of their sites) and to their customers (in the case of Atari.)
It also goes contrary to all that a review was supposed to mean. At that point, it's no longer a review, it's a paid _ad_. Just when I thought that the lame-ass ads disguised as reviews (some with ludicrious scores like 110%) of lame ragazines of the past were finally dead and burried, here comes an even lamer variant. One that even in the fine print isn't actually marked as an ad.
Lame. Real real lame.
Personally I'd like to see a list with sites which do this kind of crap, just so I know never to read them again.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Magazines like Consumer Reports have bent over backwards to give unbiased reports, and readers feel that they can trust them. Could CR have sold out and given better reviews in return for "donations?" Sure. Would it help their immediate revenue? You bet. Would it still be credible now, 40 years (whatever) after they came around? Not a chance.
This kind of bs doesnt just happen in the game industry, sadly enough.
These marketing tactics are used to promote everything from computer parts to cars to movies...
There are even survey companies who have unscrupulous practices, such as giving clients the survey results they want to get, as opposed to what people are really responding, because clients would otherwise go from one survey company to the next until they got the results they expected.
There are even other less scrupulous "award/review" companies who hold "best business" surveys, then call each business in order to tell them they were "chosen". If this business accepts to pay the fee, they can put the Award logo up in their ads, on their premises, etc. If the top business declines, they just go on to the next one, and so on.
Never believe the hype.
not news at all, not in any sense.
it would be news if the mags made real reviews.
but if you're gambling 60 million why not go the extra mile and hire some guys to make the game a good one??
.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When they say they shipped 2.5M units, does that mean that there are 2.5M games sitting in homes? Or does that mean that 2.5M units were shipped from Atari to retailers?
If it is the first one, then fine. If it is the second one, then big deal. On an unrelated note, I thought the commericals for it on TV make it look really stupid. Like a quarter-assed version of GTA. The first driver on the PS1 was "ok" but GTA's game play is about 10000000 better not to mention the graphics.
I find it hard to believe that Atari would be stupid enough to make an explicit demand like that. Having said that, no game reviewer can stay in business without access to games, so there's no doubt that some game reviewers may temper their opinions a bit.
:-)
Hell, it's no different from any other kind of journalism. You think that Michael Moore gets a seat on the press bus for George W's campaign? Preserving access to sources is a consideration for anyone in this business - except maybe restaurant reviewers.
I'm OK with a reviewer who thinks that a game is the worst PoS published in the last decade toning down the rhetoric for publication and saying the game is "bad," or "unenjoyable," or "not recommended," but in the Driv3r situation, the reviewers do seem to have gone beyond being tactful into blatantly wrong/misleading reviews. As someone earlier suggested, these sites/magazines won't stay in business too long if they develop a reputation for being unreliable, so this may be a self-correcting problem.
Despearation makes people or companies do stupid things. Like realise that their next game is unfinished, unplayable, hugely expensive and that they need a big "opening weekend" before players catch on and kill it with word of mouth, in order to recoup their investment. We got Driv3r in the mail Saturday, and boy did it suck. Shading issues, clipping, poorly envisioned and executed code, terrible animations for charaters, the list goes on. The worst part was that we wouldn't be able to get the piece of crap in the mail until Monday, thus annhiliating our chance of any new gaming fun this weekend. I cannot believe that any reviewing body or publication would not advise ATARI to open up that mine where they dumped all of those E.T. cartridges and top it off with Driv3r.
Irrelevant. Game reviews are subject to the same sort of bias as are news reports on TV. Welcome to modern day media! I expected more from slashdot.
That's why I never believe "Previews" because I'm sure they had to get some PR's shlong all sloppy just get the preview and promise to do the same for the game. Reviews should be a different matter though.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
So how's the game? Anyone played it? I was shopping this weekend and was tempted to buy it, but spent my $49.99 elsewhere.
This is typically done with a poor game, so that they have a chance at getting the ignorant sales before their game gets torn apart by reviewers.
Obviously the bribery case is much worse, but this is another example of publishers being sneaky.
I rented it, played it a little, hated the on-foot controls and the lack of basic game options (e.g. display mini-map, invert Y axis, etc.) and decided it wasn't worth the 3.5 gigs it would have taken up on my hard drive.
This is the reason sites like this are created: GameTab Driv3r Reviews
The CIA helped Saddam come into power.
Ever notice that the big 'ol double truck ads at the front of the mag, and the stuff at the back, like the Dell ads, are always for games that somehow seemed better in the first five minutes than they did at the last five?
Magazines are losing readership like crazy, and newstands are increasingly pointless. Advertising dollars pay the bills. this is why a certain publishing house routinely gives out scores no worse than 6/10 in its console mags.
If every fucking game you review is an 8/10, then what the fuck is the baseline for your evaluation?
Don't Crease the Weasel!
...or at least something similiar: They released four or five new screenshots for HL2 and allowed only magazines that would make a cover story out of it to print them.
So, most of the magazines just took an old story about the game, rearanged the words a little and put the new screenshots in it. On the Cover you could read "NEW SECRET INFO ABOUT HL2. EXCLUSIVE IN $MAGNAME!".
I don't know if I should find this disgusting or ridiculous.
Now defunct PC Accelerator had the balls to give crappy games crappy reviews. They even went so far as to graphically mutilate a shoddy game disk each month.
Of course, they managed to go under after they alienated too much of their advertisers. Apparently, game producers don't like it when you rag on their shitty releases. Go figure.
--LordPixie
Maybe bribing and/or blackmailing of reviewers rised a bit after this?
of two Atari employees, talking as they dig in the desert:
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Not really, it's been over twenty years."
"What a waste."
"Yeah."
"Did you ever play it?"
"What, ET? God, no. I've heard horror stories, though. One guy said his brother was playing it in the dark at night and got sucked into the 7th circle of hell."
"That right?"
"Yep."
"Ok, well this is about as close as I remember. You have the discs ready?"
"Driv3r, meet ET. ET, Driv3r."
Yeah, that would be the ideal situation. If any game actually ran two reviews for any game, a regular shiny happy one and a "bitter gamer" column telling me in how many ways it sucks... well, I'd send the money for a lifetime subscription right now.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
M$ did the same thing. Nothing new here.
Unlike Cartman, I sometimes do things only for the money and review games for a widely circulated TV mag in Canada. I've turned down multiple offers for expenses-paid junkets. I refuse to sign anything related to games coverage. If some company won't to send me a game based on a past review (they never come right out and say this, they just ignore you, at least in the passive-aggressive Great White North), I'll rent it.
The idea of appeasement in mag publishing is not new (what kind of dealing goes on at Vanity Fair for those ghetto covers they do on actors/rockstars/It people I shudder to contemplate), but gaming mags are the most eager pubs on the planet in agreeing to play cellblock prom queen for a few smokes. Stories on previews? Give me a break. That's like reviewing the new Beastie Boys record five months ago, WHEN IT WASN'T FINISHED. Call it the Harry Knowles-ization of pop cult reviewing.
But losing access to review copies and rubber-chicken dinners with plastic PR reps (who keep files on reviewers/media types, no joke) is the least your worries if you run a game mag. My mag doesn't print v-game ads, but that's what gaming mags rely on. Trash a game, potentially say goodbye to that $10,000 four-colour center spread. It's not like there aren't a thousand other pubs that will play ball by your rules.
To quote an old university editor who hated my first-ever record review, Better wipe the cum off your chin before rewrite this. Oucha.
Why would he want to?
Having said that, no game reviewer can stay in business without access to games
Hmmm.... Edge has a good reputation of reviewing games as they find them, ignoring outside influnces. But they are under Future Publishing. I think if you manage to get a reputation as being reliable and an important voice in the gaming community, it's hard (or at least harder) for publishers to fob you off.
For some STRANGE reason the number 1 most popular game at GameFAQs is .... you guessed it, Driv3r.
Why someone would need a FAQ about a racing game is beyond me. Maybe Atari is running an automated clicker to run up Driv3r to the top? I wouldn't put it past them.
They lost me years ago by giving different scores to identical items with different labels (say, a GE dishwasher and the identical model from Sears with "Kenmore" on the door instead of "GE").
That's because the items may not in fact have been identical. Consumer Reports publisher Consumers Union buys its products to be tested 1. at retail stores, 2. at retail prices, and 3. in plain clothes. This means that unlike with commercial product review magazines, the CR reviewers get a representative sample of what you'll actually buy rather than "best of the lot" production samples. There might actually have been something wrong with either the GE or Kenmore unit that a reviewer purchased, which speaks volumes about a particular brand's quality control; some manufacturers sell their seconds under a different brand name.
Plus, they're self-proclaimed experts on everything from toothpaste to transmissions
It would appear that they employ experts in each department.