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.
'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.
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.
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.
It's extremely rare that one of those games gets a good review in the following issue.