PR And The Game Media, The Rockstar Way

simoniker writes "Discussing PR and the media, former Rockstar Games PR rep Todd Zuniga discusses how the company tried to manipulate the game press as part of an in-depth article on how the two forces interact: "In part, it's a numbers game... Otherwise, it's history. Who wrote negatively about the games, and who hasn't? We never worked with [gaming website] GameSpot while I was there because 'they just didn't get it.'... Hilariously, we even had a list of journalist preferences: 'Likes cake, married, went to school at Indiana U'.""

Comments

The trick

[Pojut]

I know most of the major gaming website/magazines out there are payed in some way or another from publishers/developers/whoever, but I have found that using gamerankings.com usually helps bring things truth to light...besides, I enjoy reading reviews that are polar opposites of each other...it's similar to getting your news from different biases (left/right/whatever)...kinda helps paint you a full picture...between all the extra crap and spin thrown around from each news source, you are usually able to come up with some bit of middle ground that gives you an idea on what really happend (although that is becoming increasingly difficult)

Naturally, the best review is a play-through yourself, but that's not always viable (or wanted.) A very good way to get unbiased reviews is to look up personal opinions on various websites such as Amazon, Rottentomatoes, etc...