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Alienware Admit Trying to Fiddle Reviews
An anonymous reader writes "Alienware seem to have admitted threatening review sites with no future hardware unless positive reviews are written about their products. Hexus.net attempted to obtain a recent Alienware system and were rebuffed in an email claiming that their last review had scuppered the chances of them getting any hardware to review in the future. Follow-up emails confirmed this was part of Alienware's global marketing strategy. " I've read through the whole article and it would appear that the above is what the rep said. Now, granted, one would hope that's one person in that company, but still bad form.
I wrote for a couple of computer industry trade rags back in the early 90s and the editorial policy was that we never gave bad reviews. If a product sucked, the review was never published. We gave feedback back to the manufacturer but nothing got printed.
The reasoning was simple. If the manufacturer really wanted a review printed, they would fix their product (and some of them REALLY wanted good reviews and actually did make improvements). And if the magazine wanted to continue to get advertising dollars, they didn't print bad reviews. It was the unspoken quid pro quo.
Which is why Consumer Reports has always bought their own hardware. Review sites get customized, tweaked hardware, versions not sold in stores, and are effectively on the the dole by accepting both advertisements and "review" hardware from advertisers. The only thing thats surprising here is the the Marketing Drone actually let the review know the reality, not done for precisely this reason. Obviously this reviewer is new to the scene, in that he's at all surprised by this.
One of the car rags touched on this years ago, they described it as "damning with faint praise", when you get a bad product in you still give a positive review, but throw in lots of qualifiers. "Quality is what you expect at this price point", "Ample ashtrays are provided", etc.
They have always had over-priced, flashy cases with mediocre hardware.
And what is your gripe? Are you the reviewer? Overpriced, perhaps, but you are flat out lying with the statement "mediocre hardware". Premium hardware at premium prices is far more accurate, the one thing I don't recall them ever doing is skimping on the $5,000 desktops.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Is anyone surprised by this?
Apple has been doing this for years.... sites or publications that don't give glowing reviews are not invited to press conferences, don't get the cool swag, are excluded from preview announcements, don't get access to excutives. It's one way that Apple manipulates (influences) the press... that's why sites that always give great reviews (see Wall St. Journal) always have easy access to the newest equipment and executives.
Review sites are rampant with fradulent reviews on both sides. Manufacturers are giving hardware in exchange for favorable reviews and meanwhile many of the review sites are just shills for hardware vendors. It's always been somewhat true that the advertising side of publications had some influence over the editorial side, it's just gotten much worse (and easier to cheat
HardOCP buys their review systems through retail channels and tests their tech support while posing as a regular customer. They're one of the few hardware sites that reviews the "consumer experience" instead of just the hardware.