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Editors Get an Earful
Gamedrool.com (via Kotaku) has the text from a letter to Gamepro from 2001, sent by then-president of 3DO Trip Hawkins. It's a hilarious look at what kind of flack you can get for offering up an opinion in a public venue. From the article: "I would hope you can recognize that I do not love all my children equally and can be objective about both good and bad features in a game as well as games that are of quality and those that are not. I do not send messages like this to you after every review. But this happens to be a game that I have played all the way through and beaten on all difficulty levels and I know the game intimately. I also have seen the profound positive effect this game has had on my children. "
"I personally think we made a game that hard-core adult male gamers would enjoy. But I can understand that some of them would reject it the same way some adults reject Shrek or Beethoven. But personally, I think that really means there is something wrong with a man like that, not with Portal Runner. " So... Bad games aren't bad, they just have bad gamers? Fitzghon
compared to some of Derek Smart's insightful remarks.
This is nothing more than a CEO complaining that Gamepro didn't "return the favor" and give a crappy game a good rating. He mentions that 3DO is/was a major advertiser for Gamepro, and that (paraphrasing) Gamepro should been a "better" friend and given the game a "better" score.
I'm very responsible, when ever something goes wrong they always say I'm responsible.
... he started threatening them with cut advertising.
I was actually kind of with the guy on the whole "Find audiences for a game instead of just assuming everybody is like you" concept of reviewing, at least if it's a mainstream site. But when he cut into the threats about biting the hand that feeds you, well, I completely lost touch. The last thing a reader wants from a review site is a bought reviewer.
Of course I'm not the audience for that letter, I wonder how much their bottom line was actually affected. So the real question becomes.. how much does that sponsorship affect reviews? Is it possible to quantify it? If you compare reviews for games on sites that have ads for those games to reviews on sites that don't, can you find a coorelation that cross cuts many games? Common sense says that such a coorelation is so likely as to be obvious.
If that's is the case, that really doesn't set up the writer of this letter for ridicule. He's behaving accordingly to the climate. Who's more unscrupulous? Those that accept a bribe or those that offer it?
You are so much better if you let us keep face, take your paycheque home and don't make waves?
In the letter, he says that a pro-game advertisement running alongside a poor review for the same game makes the reader think the review is honest and advertisement is biased, and claims that usually it's the other way around.
I'm sorry, but every single advertisement ever written for anything anywhere, is biased. To claim otherwise is ridiculous.
It's not the reviewer's job to find an audience for the game -- that's the marketing dept's job. Gamepro was a journalistic publication. They're job was to report on the industry, not to be lackies for 3DO like Tripp wanted.
Reviewers who don't consult with the game publisher about the intended audience, and don't attempt to position a game in terms of who might like it and who might not like it, are unprofessional.
Let me translate for you:
Game reviewers who share their true opinions instead of trying to push units and help even the shittiest of games turn a profit are unprofessional.
What children are we talking about here? Children-as-product, or children-as-kids? The confused nouns in Paragraph 1 indicate his tone and mood for the entire misguided letter.
Plus, points off for mentioning "God." Twice.
or slashdot? ;)
From the article:
The audience for games no longer consists of one iconic block of angry young men who cannot get a date on Saturday night.
and more:
dominated by angry young men that are poorly trained and represent a narrow and anarchistic element of the world's population. They have a negative attitude and are looking for what is wrong with something, instead of looking for what is right and who might like it.
It reminds me of boys at junior high school dance. With their fragile egos, they stay on the sideline and say the band sucks, the girls are ugly, and that those brave enough to dance are lousy dancers.
One of the points he makes is that reviewers assume that they are the be-all and end-all of the video game consumer. I have seen many reviews lately of games intended for children that either fail to take this into account at all, or dismiss it as not an excuse for simpler controls and/or gameplay. It doesn't seem helpful to anyone to pan a game in gamespy or ign or whereever, when its intended for individuals who don't even read that site. If these sites insist on reviewing the game, and the reviewer doesn't not possess the expertise to put themselves in the head of the intended player, why not let a little kid write the review? At least it will be funny, if not more accurate.
Any magazine that ranks 1 through 5 with different levels of colorful smileys and has JD Roth from Fun House reviewing the latest games probably doesn't deserve anyone's time or money to begin with.
Ever notice that the actual 'average' scores are almost never given? If a review ranks games out of 10, and there are 100 games reviewed, you would expect about half to be 5 or lower, an half to be 6 or better, with most games falling between 4 and 7.
Instead, you see most games ranging from 6 to 8.
You will never see a truly negative review for a game unless that game is indefensible. Game mags cannot afford to offend advertisers.
END COMMUNICATION
If you disagree with me, you do so at your own peril
Anyone else picturing an evil bald guy sitting in a black chair, stroking a white cat?
I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
... so I could stop buying their games
If you compare reviews for games on sites that have ads for those games to reviews on sites that don't, can you find a coorelation that cross cuts many games?
That is something I've thought about a lot. But the realization I've come to is that ad-revenue backed sites tend to at least be accountible for their scores and reviews.
I've seen so many forum posts and independent websites that fall into the general industry memes and hype that predetermine a game's fate before it is ever picked up.
Not to say the major sites don't do it as well, but at least I know they have an editor.
Right. Now it's all seven days.
Now... about that date..
All your base are belong to Google.
Man, and to think -- EA didn't really start being evil until after Trip Hawkins left.
...at least, he's right when he says a kids' game shouldn't be slammed for being a kids' game.
A reviewer has to assume that anyone reading the review is at least mildly interested in the game. If the game is a niche game, then he has to assume that he's writing to a member of that niche audience. He should write the review as if he's talking to the person for whom that game is intended. Or more accurately, he should write the review as if he's talking to the person who is most likely to consider buying the game.
If it's a kid's game, he should write the review as if he's talking to parents--the people who buy kid's games.
"Know your audience" is a fundamental principle of any writer and game "journalists" aren't exempt.
...when you have to go back to 2001 for reading material.
You are so much better off if you do not bite the hand that feeds you. And do not patronize me by telling me the reader is the customer--your real customer is the one that pays you your revenue. And it is game industry advertisers. If you need to be able to be constantly negative you need to accept that you are like a parasite that is killing its host.
as far as I see it, gamers are the real customers. game developers and game magazines don't exist without the gamers.
I love the fact that GamePro did this. I tried at one stage to review a game for a really big online review site here in New Zealand. I wrote a review, had it read and was told, "that's great, but we don't have a good relationship with the publisher, so we don't print any reviews of their games." what? In other words, they don't get given freebies.
Stupid arrogant bunch of fucks.
Message to wankers like Trip - get over it. If you make shit games, then nobody gives a fuck about you or your whining. Just because you idiots spent loads of money and time developing it doesn't instantly make it worthy of everyone's praise.
Message to wankers like GamePlanet (oops, I mean, unnamed NZ review site) - all your reviews are now soiled. The gamers cannot trust your judgement any more. You are going to tell us all games by a publisher you like are good, regardless of whether they are or not. You don't gain the trust of your bread and butter (ie, the gamers) like that.
All of you cocksuckers think that the advertisers are the reason why the magazines and web-zines are alive. This is so far wrong that I propose you all instantly find work in another industry.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I've had the bad luck of working for Trip Hawking. If you think this email is funny, you should have seen the drek he sent out to everyone in the company every few months.
I said it in the subject and I'll say it again. Trip Hawkins is a first-class asshole. Buying any product with his name on it supports his self-centered egotistical rampage that has cost people their jobs, money, and self-esteem.
Of course I'm not the audience for that letter, I wonder how much their bottom line was actually affected. So the real question becomes.. how much does that sponsorship affect reviews? Is it possible to quantify it? If you compare reviews for games on sites that have ads for those games to reviews on sites that don't, can you find a coorelation that cross cuts many games? Common sense says that such a coorelation is so likely as to be obvious.
I worked in the marketing department of a major game publisher for a few years - one of these days I'll finally feel comfortable in naming them, but for now I'll just say they're much larger than 3DO ever was. I can tell you first-hand that this sort of thing is the norm in the industry, and that while Trip's letter was pretty ridiculous in some ways, it was more symptomatic of what's wrong with the entire publisher/media relationship than of anything unique to 3DO or Trip Hawkins.
If that's is the case, that really doesn't set up the writer of this letter for ridicule. He's behaving accordingly to the climate.
Well, the thing is, most of the time company CEO's don't go firing off angry letters to editors about their games, for a variety of reasons. It does at least open you up to ridicule, and depending on the position of your company, it also opens up the possibility of all-out war with the publication (or the gaming media as a whole - these guys all know each other and share war stories). If a company's obviously already on a downward slide, as 3DO was at this time, you're just as likely to hear a publication say "screw 'em" over something like this as you are to hear them cave. The publication will then ridicule the publisher at every turn, using them for comic relief, ragging on all of their games, and mentioning them negatively in completely unrelated articles. I've seen this happen, and I've even done it myself (I worked for an editorial web site before I worked for a game publisher). It's just not usually in the publisher's interest to say things like this.
This is what PR departments are for. My company got some scores that we considered "low" (in reality they were in the high 8 out of 10 range, at sites using that kind of scale, but we were expecting higher) and we did consider pulling advertising.
But this is where a good PR guy comes in. The CEO and the rest of the company could be ranting and raving about how they're going to walk over to GameSpot's or IGN's offices with baseball bats and billyclubs ready to bust in some kneecaps, but GameSpot and IGN would never hear this. Instead, they hear a carefully crafted, subtle message from a friendly PR guy who speaks in such a tone that you're not quite sure if he's threatening you or asking you out on a date. But you're left with the odd notion that something is not quite right with your relationship (and it is a relationship), and given the massive quantities of cash this company throws at you on a regular basis, maybe it would be in your (meaning GameSpot's or IGN's, in this example) best interests to fix it.
The real problem is not completely unique to the video game industry; it's true of all creative mass-market arts. Film, TV, games, they're all the same in that the media and the content creators rely completely on each other for their very existence. It's completely incestuous. All of the information in a gaming magazine or web site comes directly from a publisher, in one fashion or another. "Exclusives" are doled out in a manner that keeps everybody happy (over a period of time) and keeps everybody perpetually "in debt" to everybody else. Without content for their magazines or web sites, those mags or sites would cease to exist. And if a large publisher pulled its advertising and exclusives to one particular publication, that publication would no longer be able to compete.
By the same token, publishers need the media to build hype. Nobody just goes to a store and buys a game based on the box anymore; they buy it based on what t
This is why I am glad that there are publications like "Consumer Reports." All revenue comes from subscribers, and there are no ads that may 'influence' the results of the test. Of course, "Consumer Reports" generally only focuses on big-ticket items like cars and refrigerators, but when you think about it, $50 bucks wasted on a game is no biggie when compared to the purchase of a $20,000 lemon.
An entertainment journal set up like this might be cool, but it might be difficult to convince people to invest $30-$40 bucks a year to save the odd $50 wasted on a truly unplayable game.
The only reason Trip couldn't throw his marketing weight around here is that GamePro's editors knew the writing was on the wall for 3DO and didn't need to care about losing their advertising.
I've worked for games developers and I was always amazed at how prophectic the advertising department could be. They would show us early previews of their adverts and posters which would already have the review scores on them. Amazingly the scores exactly matched what the game got when we finished writing it and sent it out to the reviewers! Those marketing guys are really psychic!
Trip said, "If you need to be able to be constantly negative you need to accept that you are like a parasite that is killing its host. In God's millions of years he has not created nor evolved a creature that would have such a stupid strategy for survival. "
Oh really? It's called a virus, dipshit. And virii have been doing just great killing their hosts for millions of years. This doesn't mean I agree with Trip about reviewers and magazines. It just means Trip (as usual) doesn't have a clue.
The problem is, if you're passionate enough about games to dedicate your life to it, you're bound to be a fanboy for certain genres and franchises. Some can't filter out their excessive interest for the game and give inflated scores.
If you're the "RPG guy" in the company, it's cus' you love RPGs ...so if some ultra nichey game like Growlanser or Tower of Druaga is reviewed, chances are you're more inclined to like it than most. Either that or you assign games to those with no interest in the genre, which you'll have readers ticked at you too.
It's just a matter of finding the right set of reviewers that'll give an objective account--and when some gamers write 150 page college thesis papers on Final Fantasy, it's harder than you'd imagine.