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The Integrity of Game Journalists
ScoobyScooby writes "An interesting story went live on Games.net yesterday in response to a 'letter from the editor' penned by Dan Hsu of EGM. In his letter he accuses a number of publications and publishers of being essentially buying coverage and vice versa. A Games.net editor responds with his own take on things and the resulting comments and discussion are worth investigating. Are veiled accusations about improprieties really helpful at bringing gaming journlism to a more respected level? Or, do such accusations hurt more than they help? The Blame Game: Where Do You Keep Your Integrity?" GameSetWatch has commentary.
At a tiny game start-up where I worked in the late 90s, one of our beta testers let us in on this dirty little secret. The big game publishers "buy" reviews of their products by purchasing sufficient advertising. Of course it's never officially acknowledged, so as a start-up you can't just call up and ask how much advertising you need to buy to get a review. They'll just insist that's not how it works. So unless you're already on the inside, you can't get in. Not surprisingly, the game didn't get reviewed in any U.S. magazines.
Really, did anyone not know that this sort of thing was going on? I mean, just look at the coverage of the three new consoles, and you can easily tell which "news" site is being paid by which manufacturer.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
What? You mean, if we state that it appears that someone has a particular bias towards a certain product because we suspect they appear to be getting kick backs that we are no better than them?
Even if we have proof?
I would think that if had knowledge of such behavior that it would be in the best interest of everyone to know about this..
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Black & White. The original game. Glowing reviews and yet some time later virtually everyone acknowledged that the game kinda stunk. To much micro management, bad interface making it hard to do your task (praise or punish your pet) and generally just not worth the scores it got.
So explain it dear game reviewer who gave this game and others like it such high scores? I can think of three reasons.
Frankly I don't care anymore, wod of mouth is worth far more to me. Friends will tell me about games and luckily as an EU customer I usually can wait for the time it takes for worth of mouth to start taking effect because games are released a few months later anyway.
Game review sites are little more then ways to keep track of release schedules and beta signups. Judging wich game I am going to buy has stopped long ago.
Oh and game companies that want to know how best to get a good review of your game? Playable demo. If your game is good a well done demo can create far more excitement then the best bought review.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Are you telling me that IGN's 9.0 review of Carrot Top's Mad Kareoke Jams was somehow tainted? Cause I was about to send the author hate mail for being such an idiot... but if he was just being a capitalist, that's different.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
It's no different from Payola and just as illegal.
I read his letter in EGM, and I have to say, as an editor for a magazine (albiet smaller) I fully hear where he is coming from. I am constantly being asked by assorted companies to cover their product, and in exchange, they'll "buy whatever I want them to" (actual quote). Now, that's all fine and dandy if they happen to have a kick ass product; more likely, their product sucks, and we don't want anything to do with it. Why cover something that isnt good? So imagine the frustration when you see that most/all your competition covers said product, and receive tons of ad dollars from that company (and they didnt pay a dime in your mag). Multiply this by dozens of companies, and editors of honest magazines (few and far between, it seems) tend to get pissy.
And the kick? Joe Reader doesnt know this is all going on behind the scenes, the companies are happy because their product is getting promotion and the dishonest magazines have a bunch of cash.
It's the same thing with newstand sales. Magazines love to hype their print numbers, but one look at their actual newstand sales can show what's really going on. Most magazines are lucky if 20% of their issues on the stands sell, but they don't pimp that, they just talk about the total issues out there. So if your average magazine sells 10-20% of their huge 200,000 presence, that's only 10,000-20,000 magazines in the hands of readers, and Activision isnt about to drop a $40,000 full page ad for 10-20,000 readers.
Driv3r controversy.
This report makes the online review sites sound more honest than print media which I don't think is all that true these days. (Yes, web sites with massive flash ads every 5 pages and their software bundled with games, I'm talking about you.) It was fun watching the people from the UK's biggest games magazine publishers getting caught in their lies in the forums though.
Observe the following list from Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel's The Elements of Journalism (Three Rivers Press, 2001). Note #4 and #5. 1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth. 2. Its first loyalty is to citizens. 3. Its essence is a discipline of verifications. 4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover. 5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power. 6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and complaint. 7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. 8. It must keep the new comprehensive and proportional. 9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. http://mattpeckham.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=622404 2&publicUserId=5653164
Sony and Microsoft pay for this kind of crap all the time; they can afford it.
Nintendo does not have those financial resources.
... Or the "society page" folks: games pubs need access to a group that in turn needs them. There are strong financial pressures for folks to be buddy-buddy. And the journalists will argue that the Sports and Entertainment audience demands and even expects the journos to be in cahoots with their subject. After all, who reads the sports pages? Sports fans! They don't want an impartial assessment of anything. They want opinionated bits of blather by moronic columnists coupled with "behind the scenes" peaks at the lives and games of their favorite stars.
Same for games journalism, they will argue.
The result? Uh -- don't read the reviews uncritically. Don't trust previews to show you anything. Don't whinge about the hierarchy at E3. For that matter, don't pay attention to any of the coverage of E3 or any other media circus.
But real journalism? not from these guys. There's too much money at stake, and since nobody seems to bu these publications, someone has to pay for them.
Discovered this one in the same way as the original commenter.
There are certain UK stores that stock games in a "top 10 chart" arrangement. These charts are calculated by sales on a weekly basis - with one exception. Several publishers like to have their game "debut" at number one in the chart, and they can, with the simple expedience of paying for it. So, if you go into Game two days mid-week, and the number one game is not the same on the second day, you'll know why...