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A Shoe To The Head For Game Journalism
On Wednesday we reported on an editorial by EGM editor Dan Hsu making claims that publications and web sites were 'selling' reviews for ad revenue. Shoe has since posted the original editorial to his blog, along with some commentary on why he makes the claims but doesn't name names. From the article: "My industry pisses me off. I was a little suspicious of the cover choices one of our competitors was making, so I checked in with a contact of mine from a major game publisher. 'Yes,' he confirmed. 'We can pretty much get whatever cover we want from that magazine. All it takes is for us to meet with the publisher, promise that we'll buy some ads, and discuss the details from there.' So...that magazine's cover stories are for sale. Great." Kyle Orland's VGM Watch steps in for some commentary on the broader picture.
I'm surprised this is considered newsworthy. Magazines devoted to video games are going to have a very vested interest in making the game companies happy, and vice versa. If "GameD00d" does nothing but rip on/ignore every game EA makes, EA can respond by pulling their ads, and GameD00d takes a serious punch in the economic teeth. On the other hand, if GameD00d knows that EA will throw some extra cash in their Christmas stockings by making a slightly-bigger-than-usual deal over "NFL Deathmatch Blastoid 2009" then *of course* they're going to do so. Let's face it - what is going to be the "next big game" is largely subjective anyhow. Nothing in the world sways a subjective opinion quite like money. So I say again: Exactly WHO didn't already know this?
The ability to communicate well does not directly correspond to the ability to communicate intelligently.
Welcome to the real world!
ANY and EVERY review magazine of ANY kind that boasts even one page of advertisement is bound to be corrupted.
And guess what, ads are an important part of the revenue stream of these publications, and it's not going to become any better. Even BLOGS are goin' adsense!
Do you know where that leads? Here's a fine example :
"If you give this game less than a 95% rating, I'll just buy my 12 pages of ads at $1,000,000 each at another gaming magazine.
- MMMph! *slurp, slurp* I couldn't talk with my mouth full, O benevolent games publisher!
- I thought so too, slave."
Okay, maybe with more cocksucking from the magazine's part.
If any of this makes your blood boil, nd you can't stand living in a society in which everything works through corruption and money talks, head over to http://www.adbusters.org/
Is it because they enjoy reading about stuff that is 2 months old?
Web publications are where real gamers go for their gaming news and reviews.
Zoom! That's the sound of the headline going right over your head. The author of the piece in question was Dan Hsu, who's last name is pronounced "shoe." (Native speakers might quibble that it's not precisely "shoe" but it's close enough for the pun."
Companies are selling out to the highest bidder, and tailoring their content to be as favorable as possible to the people that back them financially!
Honestly, I didn't realize this was anything new. I always assumed that video game rags were pretty much like every other magazine out there. You throw some money around, get the coverage you want and ride the wave to profit. Just like pretty much every other publication out there. I'm sure we've all heard stories about reviewers coming clean about getting a lot of swag from game publishers that helps up their review a bit. Why would the magazine really be any different?
The days of being able to realistically expect unbiased reporting from anywhere are pretty much long gone.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Was there ever any doubt that this kind of thing happens occasionally in the game review business? Thankfully there are alternatives to basing your purchases on these big-name low-integrity publishers. Websites like http://www.metacritic.com/ or http://www.gamerankings.com/ provide averages of many collected reviews, and cannot be corrupted as easily as if you trusted a single source review. You could also take your reviews more personally and visit one of the smaller Blog type sites like the one I write for, http://www.thegamechair.com/ A volunteer run sight like ours has a double advantage, no bribery, and all of the writers are passionate about the games they play.
only one everything
All the trade rags are the exact same. Car + Driver, Computer Shopper, etc etc. Why should video game magazines be any different?
Any magazine that reviews a product that features a single ad for a product it reviews is tainted.
This is why I never trust any reviews from any magazine but Consumer Reports (who buys the products they review through normal channels via secret shoppers, and who do ntot accept any advertisement swhatsoever in their maagainze, and who do not allow their reviews ot be used in advertisements).
The only web reviews I trust are blogs or reivew sites where I know the reviewer purchased the items themselves.
There is no other way to ensure journalistic integrity.
Seems a bit amusing to hear that sort of thing from EGM (no doubt referring to Game Informer) when EGM is often knocked for praising Sony excessively while trashing Microsoft. Of the publications out there, GI has far and away shown the least amount of bias, and in fact I seem to recall there being an award given to the entire GI staff last year for best video game reporting or something along those lines. GI also has the least to gain from bias, because it is a division of GameStop. If GI took a slant towards one publisher or another, then other publishers might decide not to give GameStop the volume price discounts that, say, Best Buy would get. Same with Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.
"In our interview, Hsu refused to go public with the names of the magazines and publishers mentioned in his editorial. He did note that the outlets in his examples did not include IGN and Game Informer, "who were often accused by some readers." Hsu defended his silence by saying that naming the outlets would look petty. "While I want to call them out because I want the industry to shape up, I don't want to get into petty fights. I feel like we're above that." Hsu also worried that an investigative piece looking at these accusations would not be a good fit for an entertainment magazine like EGM."
http://vgmwatch.com/?p=917
AKA Gun Tests magazine. It is simple plain white paper with BW photos, no ads. It is the only publication I know where the reviewers will actually say something like "This gun sucks. Not only does it not shoot straight, sometimes it won't shoot at all. Don't buy it".
/. goes, we all know where they stand. While suffering the same lack of any mystical "journalistic integrity' as most other news pubs, at least they are transparent and they do publish ALL the "letters to the editor" AKA the junk we write.
I wish I knew of an equivalent subscriber supported rag for cars, audio-video, etc...
Only other thing I can think of that approached this level of gall was S&E with their now legendary thumbs up or down movie reviews.
As far as the rep of the editors at
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
It looks to me like he's trying to stir things up in order to boost readership.
I never liked game magazines, hell I don't like most magazines, because they're nothing but advertising. Considering the amount of advertising in some of these magazines you'd think they could distribute them for free. I find game magazines to be some of the most obnoxious on the market, topped only by the "lifestyle" crap.
I haven't seen anything in EGM that would indicate they're any different from the rest. Even if they're not directly influencing a review by buying ad space they're doing is with all the free stuff they hand out.
A company sends you a few gifts along with a new game to review. There's a general sense of good will towards the developer that sent the nice stuff. How can they not be biased even on a subconcious level? And, that doesn't even take into account the fact that these guys don't have to pay for these games out of their own pockets.
If they want to do convincing, reasonably unbiased reviews they should be forced to go out and pay for these games out of their own pocket. When they're spending $50-$60 on a mediocre game lets see if their reviews are as positive as they are now.