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Game Journalist May Have Been Fired Over Negative Review
It started as a rumour post on Kotaku and a Penny Arcade comic strip: reviewer Jeff Gerstmann was fired from the gaming news site Gamespot for giving the co-op action title Kane and Lynch a low score, and snarking on the game in the review. The catch? The firing was dictated by games publisher Eidos, who didn't appreciate the veteran reviewer's tone in the piece. Their ad campaign (spread across the entirety of the Gamespot site) may have been used as a bargaining tool of some kind. Joystiq has a lengthy, detailed summary of this event and its implications, which is no longer technically a rumour. Gerstmann confirmed to the blog that he has been let go from the C|Net-affiliated site, but as of right now can't talk about the details. "The ramifications of the story, if true, are huge. Readers should fairly expect there to be an inviolable firewall between advertising and editorial in journalism, and game journalism (yes, that includes "just reviews") is no different. While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety, nothing so far has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Giving a publisher the power to fire a senior editor is a line no outlet should be willing to cross." Update: 11/30 17:40 GMT by Z : The Joystiq story continues to be updated, and Tycho has put up what the PA guys heard about the tale in text. Joystiq also has an additional post about the story, with a brief (noncommittal) response from Gamespot.
Censorship is something that is big in corporate america these days it seems. Being Republican myself, I do not like censorship, which I guess is an oddity perhaps? But firing someone because of a review is disgusting. I have been "talked to" myself by management of places I have worked at in the past when political discussions arise. I live in NY... highly liberal... I voice my conservative opinion and management calls me in afterwards to tell me I am wrong and I should take the same stance on political things having nothing to do with work... Ah well. As for the reviewer, its a matter of opinion. The company hired him for his opinion on the games they want reviews on... To fire him goes to show "We want ONLY good reviews, keep the money coming in!" ::Fist on desk::
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
"While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety,..."
Actually, I think your industry has its fair share of genuine corruption. What make you think you're any better than other industries?
why else are there so many fawning reviews of hardware in computer magazines... and why else doesn't Linux get any real press in the same magazines when there's no advertising money in Linux anyway... just remember the "Golden Rule" folks... who pays the piper calls the tune... magazines etc. are not gonna jeopardise their major advertising accounts... when it comes to the crunch, they'll buckle...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I frequent Gamespot often enough that I set up a Firefox quick search ("gs gamename" in my address bar), and I recognize Gerstmann as one of their senior, more talented writers and personalities. I actually thought he was one of the founders of Gamespot, considering his seniority and tendency to review many of the more anticipated AAA titles.
The site won't be the same without him. I may even change my quick search to 1up.com or metacritic.com as a result. I can't attest to the veracity of this gossipey claim in the article but Gerstmann has earned enough journalistic integrity that I'm not surprised that he'd review high profile games honestly.
Really, is getting fired for accurate journalism a curse or a great bullet point on your resume? I'd wish Jeff luck but thanks to his outstanding track record I'm sure he won't need any.
...but it has not been the case since, well, forever, when you are talking about online gaming reviews. Every serious gamer has been burned by reviews on sites like gamespot, years ago. I'm shocked there are actually people left that take them seriously.
The only reviews that have convinced me in the past decade have been the gaming experiences of clan/guildmates, and even those I take with a grain of salt.
One would hope this would be a wake up call, for the gamers and the publishers and the "journalists" that it is time for change. Make a good game, a fair publisher will give it a good review, well informed gamers will give it a try. Let's work on that model going forward, instead of the lie your ass off and try and buy your way out of bad design theory.
I really enjoyed listening to Roger Ebert's opinions when he was alive and doing his movie review show. I also love the Filthy Critic and his lively take on modern movies.
But as much as I like them, I find that I disagree with them almost all the time. My own movie experience is so different from theirs, my reaction to the movies being sometimes in direct opposition, that the only benefit I get from reading their "reviews" is the entertainment value.
I can't imagine how much more divergent something like a game would make these types of opinions. After all, you're not just a passive viewer of a game anymore. You're actually taking part in it and shaping the outcome as you play. How can someone's impressions of something as personal as this be of any value to anyone else?
I like gamespot reviews because they're usually quite tough with the games. Most games get an inferior mark on gamespot that in most other sites, which I find nice. I like to know that if they give a game an 8, it's probably a really good game. And that if they give it a 7, and I like the genre, it's a solid buy too. Now I'll start questioning their reviews. If I see a game advertising at gamespot, then I'll go to read that game review somewhere else, just in case.
The has never been, nor will there ever be a separation between advertising and editorial.
We like to think that they live separate lives and are ethically policed, but this is a falacy.
Advertisers know this and have meny different ways of "influencing" things. A sacking may be too far, but what can we do?
D
From Joystiq:
Update - 7:12 AM EST: Jeff has confirmed his firing to us via e-mail, but says he's "not really able to comment on the specifics of my termination." He added that he's "looking forward to getting back out there and figuring out what's next." We're still digging.
I haven't given Gamespot reviews any real thought in a long time, due to the massive amount of advertising games would get on the main page at the same time the review was out.
rm -rf
A publisher might spend $10M to promote a big game.
A reviewer might make $100K per year, but I doubt it.
Why is anyone surprised that the big money pushes the reviews upwards?
still no sig
Some of the review sites really are in the pockets of advertisers. Newspaper reviews and reviews on other sites can survive it. They have advertising revenue, and other revenue streams, from companies other than the ones they're reviewing. Even movie studios, typically, release so many movies in a year that they don't care is some review site pans one of their movies, and there's no sense in retaliating.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
How many gamers here haven't been suspicious of Gamespot being influenced by their advertisers, I stopped going to their site for reviews after feeling burned a few times by the reviews and wondering what the hell that person was thinking.
To me, this doesn't really represent any kind of crisis of gaming journalism, so much as it just highlights how pointless most "magazine" game review sites are. Does anyone still go to Gamestop caring what one of their reviewers think of a game? Or IGN or Gamespy or any of those places? What do I care what one guy who is trying to play through a game on a deadline thinks about it?
Say what you will about amateur game reviewers, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to games, the wisdom of the masses usually holds true. If I'm not sure about a game, or I have a choice between two similar games to make, I'd much rather go look at GameRankings, or heck even the GameFAQ's reviews.
There's no reason to consider it if they don't offer a free demo, preferably one that has some lasting value in and of itself such as Shadowrun, Lost Planet, Phantasy Star Universe. And when you have people you regularly play with someone will rent or buy something and tell you all about it. I heard all about how horrible Kane & Lynch is almost the day it came out. The other good games, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, they suck people out of the group you regularly play with. It's a beautiful beautiful thing to have people inadvertently spend your money more efficently as a by-product of natural behavior. All hail the network effect.
This is what happens when companies start valuing advertising revenue above all else.
To be honest I've avoided Gamespot for a while. Partly this is due to the increasing trend of locking away everthing to subscribers only, but mainly it was because I've read several reviews there that I felt were far too generous towards inferior games - and this was backed up by much lower scores on other sites.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that advertisers have had leverage over Gamespot reviews for quite some time now (ever since the CNET aquisition maybe?) and that we're finally seeing the fallout of that.
It's a double kick in the face really - not only are they selling out their core values and business, but they're effectively cheating their subscribers out of what they are paying for.
Hopefully this will generate enough negative publicity (and drop in subscribers) to make the management team wake up and realise that they've completely lost the plot.
You'd have to be seriously naive to think that such a thing would be true. Maybe I am cynical, but I think that realistically one can expect no wall at all. Any separation between money and journalism is out of the norm, and should be a pleasant surprised.
Pretty much everyone knows that game reviews have been co-opted by advertiser bias, and that this has been a problem since pretty much forever, although things always seem to be getting worse. Reviews are simply not looked at as though they were objective works of criticism, but rather as more advertising and hype masquerading as information. It's an intolerable situation, and the wonderful thing about it is that the days are numbered.
It's the easiest thing in the world stop paying attention to reviews, turn off the hype channels, and buy games based on information that you can trust. Word of mouth from friends who game is hugely more trustable than a game magazine or web site. Rent the game or download a demo and play it before you buy, or watch a video of the game being played on YouTube. Suck can't hide from direct experiences like that.
Maybe some day the video game critic will be able to throw off the oppressive advertiser dollar and write finely crafted reviews that read more like serious art and film criticism than they do press release and ad copy. Maybe the way to start is to start selling advertising space to people advertising stuff OTHER than games. Sell more ads to Doritos and Mountain Dew, they don't care if $newshineygame sucks or not. It's possible to sell adveritising and maintain a certain amount of independence and objectivity. It's not easy, but it is possible.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
There seems to be a huge community backlash in the user scores section: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/players.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;yousay
I've always ignored the Gamespot review score and just looked at user reviews. Nothing more honest than a pissed off user spilling the beans about bugs and crashes and what not.
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
Please see: GameSpy's 3DAP. The entire site was shut down a few years ago, along with all of the staff, so that the parent site could control who recieved what kind of review. The staff was informed about the closing about a month in advance, with a reason given as something along the lines of "content issues."
I was involved, anon for obvious reasons.
Now Gamespot users are doing their own protest by rating the game 1.0: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/players.html?tag=readerreviews;alluser
Are we suddenly expecting Gamespot to be Consumer Reports?
...someone other than bots reads Gamespot? Now that's news.
I can understand being upset but things like this should surprise no one. Businesses that do print/TV/news/reviews need advertising dollars. This happens all the time and always has. If you want a review from someone not getting paid you can maybe get lucky at Slashdot now and then.
It applies to politics the same way. Listen to every political debate this year and see how many times a candidate says he is going to do something about China. Of course none of them are actually going to do anything - not until you have more money than wal-mart. But they have to say it.
That the majority of online game review sites ARE biased by their advertisers. Its why I still trust the reviews from PC Gamer over any other venue.
Seriously - if your headline for a story contains the word "may", you're a lazy journalist.
But this has to happen once every few years, everyone needs to blow off steam.
here it is.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Gamespot sucks, they have been sucking since they started wanted people to pay for free content like demos and files and pictures which you can get elsewhere legally,why bother with this company.
Now they cant honestly criticize a game, wow, i'll stick with reviews of non-paying erbsite where the adds people are not from game companies.
I once worked for a Village Voice Media publication and a music writer was fired for giving a bad review of the local musical venues... advertisers. The clients were livid and the sales team did everything they could think of to appease them, but in the end, termination of the writer was all they could do.
It is a terrible thing when journalistic integrity it compromised by selfish business interests. But then again, it's terrible when selfish business interests compromise the integrity of just about everything. There should be SOME drive to make profit and all that, but there should be some understood limits to what a company can or should do. Unfortunately, it would also be bad to legislate morals and ethical behavior into law. But still, if someone were to pass laws stating that business interests cannot be allowed to influence government or journalistic integrity, I'd be all for it. Not gonna happen I think... at least not until we can get a more interested public.
And where is the original review by the above persons ? Or how one can see it in some sort of internet archive if it was deleted ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
I know to take reviews left on online retailers with a pinch of salt, ie they are probably more shills writing for most products than genuine reviews - how many times have I left a +ve review? None. How many times have I left a -ve review? Often. Even when reading reviews written by supposedly authoritative journalists working for supposedly independent journals, one must always my mindful the likelihood that the author is not just writing out of a passion for the subject, but just because he has been financially rewarded for writing +ve spin to his/her readership. Evil I know.
There is a magazine in the UK called Which? I believe it is a not-for-profit organisation that carries out reviews of a wide range of products. I recommend.
[I didn't get paid by Which? to say that]
"but in the end, termination of the writer was all they could do"
That's funny. I would have thought journalistic integrity could have been on the table. Tell the advertiser "no, you can't influence our reviews, take your business elsewhere".
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If this was the financial sector and our Games analyst was a financial analyst: 1 He would be suing successfully for xxx Millions. 2 Anyone connected with the decision would now be arrested. In the uk they would be looking at 14yrs + an unlimited fine. 3 The authorities would have closed the company down pending legal action. What makes it ok to do this sort of thing when selling games (kids make up a large element of the customers) but not when selling stocks and shares (you also go to jail for selling those to kids).
ook ook
In Soviet Russia, Game reviews you!
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
My own opinion is that if you continue to read Gamespot that you should take note any game that is prominently advertised on their site, by means of flash ads, wallpaper or whatever. Then go read the review of that game and automatically deduct 2 points from that game when considering to buy it. A 10 means 8, an 8 means 6 and so on. After all, if Gamespot is the go-to place for shill reviews, you simply cannot trust the score they give and it must be modified accordingly.
Better yet, ignore Gamespot. There are plenty of other game sites and some of them care a great deal about their editorial control. Send traffic to those sites and show the likes of CNET and Eidos that such strongarming does not pay off in the long term.
I don't think we can really legislate ethics, but we could at least legislate disclosure. If you're selling subscriptions, I don't think it's an unfair burden to disclose at purchase time whether or not your writers have editorial independence. Extending that to anyone posting their opinion on a forum somewhere would be a tad overboard though.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I went and skimmed the actual review and found this little gem at the bottom:
"The 10 Worst Games Ever: Read a Canadian review of the top 10 worst games ever! pcworld.ca"
surprised by payola? well son once you leave the tit of your wet nurse it is easy to see this goes on in all aspects of the media and is nothing new.
...it'd be one of the most ironic things ever. Publishers are the #1 reason most games are rushed out and patched later. No developer wants to put out crap because it stains their reputation, not the publisher's. If Eidos pushed the game before it was ready (and from all reviews it sounds like there are plenty of reasons to think this), you'd think they might realize it's their own fault.
Call and Email CNET's management and let them know that they are essentially out of business - no one will ever trust their product reviews again
Investor Relations Contact Information
Cammeron McLaughlin
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Phone: 415/344.2844
E-mail: cammeron.mclaughlin@cnet.com
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Phone: 415/344.2975
E-mail: Gloria.Lee@cnet.com
I've always found it odd that games with massive advertising budgets behind them always tend to get VEEERY high scores from the mainstream gaming sites. Case in point - Halo 3. Ok, so I haven't played it myself, but a perfect 100% score on some sites? There is NOTHING that can be better about this game? Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame put this best. He argues that the 10/10 score is especially strange since they go on to say in the review that the single player campaign is flawed, but the totally awesome multiplayer "makes up for it". If the game was really perfect, it wouldn't need something to "make up" for any flaws.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
...Is the game as bad as he said? Is this guy dead on with his review?
Game reviewers are like movie reviewers. There are the ones you trust. Then there are the ones you don't. Is this guy an asshat reviewer like Harry Knowles or Michael Medved? Or is he generally right on about the games?
Here in the Seattle area, we have local movie reviewers and game reviewers that I trust a hell of a lot more than some of the national ones. I only wish they'd get national attention, but maybe national publication brings with it the risk of being coopted by the purse string holders.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You know, I distrust all reviewers of any ilk. You go to a guitar magazine and all the ads for guitars and guitar stuff, same for computers and games and anything else you care to mention. Often times the paid for ad is on the page next to the review. Heck, I even saw on TV the other day Morgan Webb say how great Vista was. ???? All you do to yourself then is prove what we already knew, that you were a sellout and not to be trusted for an honest review. Game reviews? Are you kidding? You can gauge how big the swag bag was by the number of glowing reviews and 'it'll get better' reviews for what crap game you'll actually hear about in a few months after the release when you can read articles in those same magazines like "What went wrong with Halo" (looking at one of the new mags now). My other pet peeve with reviewers and critics is the 'I'm smarter than anyone else snarkiness' and the plain mean and nastiness disguised as 'cleverness' that is everywhere as well. So I'm not feeling sorry about this guy is he was mean and snarky in his tone. They should fire everyone who is like that. But honest and fair reviews and criticism? Why would they start doing that now?
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Which sites nail bad games? I notice long, long ago that you almost never see a bad car review at any of the big pages. I read "Edmunds" now, they don't seem afraid to say something sucks. Or "The truth about cars", it is rare when they say anything is good.
Where are the gamer equivalents?
Crysis was released as a buggy beta, with all of the nice plant/objects physics intentionally disabled in DX9 multiplayer (EA/Microsoft want you to buy Vista/DX10 to get that...) and a rushed feel and gamelogic bugs in the last half of the single player game. Result? 92% overall rating on Metacritic, indicating rave reviews all around. Bioshock was shipped with a really nasty DRM software made by Sony DADC, mandatory internet activation, a 5x limit on installs and uninstalls, no multiplayer, no widescreen support and garbageworthy framerates or crashes on a lot of hardware. Result? 96% overall on Metacritic, indicating fantastic reviews all around. Unreal Tournament III. Crashcity on many hardware configurations. GPU post-processing that makes everything look blurry. Just like Crysis and Bioshock, a forum full of disappointed or angry customers. Metacritic rating? 85%. Good to very good reviews all around. All of these games were promoted like crazy, rushed out the door with serious flaws, and the glowing reviews for them have obviously been paid for in hard cash. If you doubt it, Google for "Crysis support forum" "Bioshock support forum" and "Unreal Tournament III support forum". Count the number of people who have serious problems with these games or are angry about the state they were released in. So yes, game reviews are bought and corruption is the norm rather than an exception in the game industry. No doubt in my mind about that.
A more interested public would vote with their wallets and therefore deprive such outlets of their rite to exist in the marketplace.
on the larger available boards out there.
I know in IGN, their VN boards to be specific, that posts with negative comments about Turbine were regularly whacked and the poster banned as someone from Turbine made it known they would not frequent IGN or its boards unless some ground rules were in place : mainly no negative comments about the state of the game and no anti-turbine comments allowed.
It seriously tanked the boards. Needless to say within the year Turbine had their own boards as most sites balked at the restriction. Those that didn't saw their user numbers go down.
Game publishers hold big sticks. With professional level magazines they withhold money, with fansites, even big ones, they withhold their people. Works wonders until the word gets out.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There are very few companies who will actually continue to co-operate with you after a negative review towards one of their products. I tend to find that reviewing products by dividing reviews up into two 'categories' of target audience, you achieve better results. By saying
you make it look good... and then simply follow it by
That tends to mean you can average up your rating a bit... and no-one tends to notice - and your readers get to know your strategy after a while, resulting in 'accurate' reviews whilst keeping publishers happy.
Jeff Gerstmann, if he can't find another Journalist job, will most likely end up working PR for a video game company; the very same position that likely got him fired. Exhibit A: Luke Smith from 1up.
No reviewers I would consider at all "respectable" gave it higher ratings then that, and many lower. Gamepro, Gamespy, and Edge Magazine all gave it the SAME score as the GameSpot reviewer.
See the Metacritic page for more details.
From GameSpy:
From GamePro:
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I didn't rtfa, but most don't.
:)
Here's how it may have gone down.
Boss: Your review was really harsh on our biggest client.
Editor: So? The game was a festering turd with a large ad budget.
Boss: I don't like your tone.
Editor: F&*@ you, how do you like that tone?
Boss: You're fired.
Same end result - different reason.
Seeing that they're willing to can an honest (and talented) reviewer rather than risk losing an advertiser is definitely a disappointment, and I'm finding myself relying more and more on user reviews and Metacritic as a result. However, consider this point: Gamespot is a business; they're trying to make a profit. That profit can come from user subscriptions, and it can come from advertisers. Right now, I'd hazard a guess that something like 85% of their income is from ads. How much of a subscription fee would you be willing to pay to remove all software and hardware advertising so as to ensure that reviews would be unbiased?
Now, you may be thinking that game adverts could be replaced by non-tech companies as mentioned earlier in this thread, such as Frito-Lay, Honda, etc. Maybe that's doable, but pretend you're the head of their sales department, and you're trying to get advertisers. Would it be easier to convince Eidos to buy ad space on a game site, or Pepsi? Because Pepsi can reach a lot of its target audience on the websites for ESPN, mtv, etc. Eidos can't really have that same level of success shilling this Kane and Lynch monstrosity on, say, MSNBC. And, after all, pick up any car or motorcycle mag that does reviews, and you'll see a whole host of car or bike ads.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Political parties aren't teams... they're FAN CLUBS!
I.E. You're rooting for either the home team (incumbents) or the visitors (newcomer) to win. They're on "your team", but they are actually the football players, while you're merely turning out to put money in their coffers (just like real fans do, buying all that stuff and going to all the games.) This is fine and dandy, but the fools need to realize that the team winning is merely a way of living life without actually living it. The difference between WATCHING the NFL Cup, and PLAYING in the NFL cup is no difference than the schmuck criticizing a JV team without having even been on a middle school football team. There are those who live through others (fans, political voters) and those who actually live via the means of others (sports figures, political rulers, pretend representatives, etc.)
Hope that helps.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I was the head reviewer for AGN3D (allgames.com). I gave Turok 2 a fairly scathing
review and Acclaim contacted my boss (Jeremy Alford) and tried to have him pull it
or give it a higher rating.
Thankfully, Jeremy had high integrity and he stood behind my review.
We didn't say anything about the matter on the site, but now I'm starting to think
that all sites should expose publishers/developers who try to coerce review sites.
Which is why I tend to ignore the gaming press at large. I put a lot of stock in the opinions of the guys over at Penny Arcade but it's sad when they have to be apologetic about posting a good review. The tone of their recent opinion of Assassin's Creed sounded like "Yeah we know they advertise with us and we really tried to find something to hate about the game but it's just too awesome." And I agree, there are definitely noticeable oddities in how NPCs behave and occasionally your guy does something odd like spring off a wall you were trying to climb, but for the most part it really IS awesome. But gamers are so used to reading a good review and thinking the reviewer is a whore that any good review sets off alarm bells.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
On friday I had to wait a long time at the hospital so I bought a games magazine (Spain's Micromania) (I don't remember the last time I did that). I was completely shocked when I found that EVERY single game had a score of 90 or more. It just couldn't be accurate and, of course, it's not. Many of those games are given low scores on many sites on the internet.
But wait, this is the best part: Every game has positive points and negative ones, I was even more angry when the negative comment of one game was: "If you don't buy it you're gonna regret it". Come on!.
I knew there was some corrpution on the game reviewing business but I didn't think it was so deep.
Anyway, maybe it's only that this magazine it's the most corrupt ever.
i'm actually a paid subscriber to gamespot, and this would be some pretty upsetting news. I don't, however, go for just the reviews, or even let them seriously weigh on whether i get a game (i got Kane & Lynch.. yet to play though [too many games!!]), so this won't stop me from subscribing. The journalism (not the editorials) is what keeps gamespot on one of my most visited sites ever list. wasn't an article just posted about Area 51 getting bad reviews and them saying they deserved it? Oh well.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
Having worked with Eidos several years ago (on the game Omikron The Nomad Soul), this is no surprise for me.
Eidos only got one huge hit these last 10 years: Lara Croft.
They are trying desperately to get a new hit, and it's not as obvious as it may appear.
First, nobody speaks about Lara Croft anymore, since the game technology has much improved since its first release, but LC was always a step behind.
Secondly, the good independent studios don't sign easily with such editors (they prefer Sony, Microsoft or EA).
Now, let's suppose that you are in place of Eidos' bosses.
Your only Christmas' hope is this game (since all your other games are worst than this one).
You may have invested something like 1 to 10 millions of dollars on its development.
The advertisement budget is equal to the development's amount.
You cannot miss Christmas' sales, since it's the moment of the year where you get all the money.
You know that your game is not terrific, but its note will be between 7/10 and 8/10.
A known critic gives you a 6/10, because there are tons of better games that are also noted 7/10.
I think it's normal to protest, but I think it's abnormal that gamespot fires the critic.
Eidos should listen to these critics and try to:
- find better development studios
- stop trying to concentrate your game design on charismatic characters. Concentrate on making fun games ! Lara Croft is the past.
- stop throwing money in magazines/sites where they get bad scores
Finally, such methods will only alienate gamers, and paying for good critics won't sell more games if the game is shitty.
It sounds to me that Eidos is in particular trouble now.
rottentomatoes.com for games. A site that gathers all the reviews, big or little, and tallies the results.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Hit a few places that don't fuck around with ads and deadlines. Penny Arcade, Glide Underground, GamerDad, Curmudgeon Gamer and the like.
Do they always have a review of a game the given week it's out? Maybe not. Can you wait? Probably. Will they do a better job saying what's good and bad about the game? Likely.
As a general rubric wherever you go, if a site isn't willing to say "rent this before buying it" or "only for genre fans" as a recommendation, you shouldn't trust their reviews.
This is why I stopped reading PC Gamer.
... all the things PC Gamer used to scream about in game reviews, trying to protect the average gamer from crap.
... and it was crap. No where near living up to the promises.
When CIV 4 came out, I bought it right away. It was massively buggy, huge memory leak problems, was not ready for release
A large percentage of CIV 4 players could not complete a single game due to the problems that got worse and worse as the game progresses, even when setting the game to a gimped version with few opponents and low graphics.
But, PC Gamer mentioned nothing about the problems, except that it was 'a little unpolished'. CIV 4 got a great score just because it was another Sid Mieir Civ game.
Of course there was no reply when I wrote to them, my letter wasn't published.
I've checked back with them a couple times in the couple years that have passed since they stopped being fair and unbiased, and it all reads like crap. It's all slanted to who they are promoting. Dungeon Siege II was similar. A huge pre-release major story on the game
PC Gamer hasn't received a penny from me since.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The AP doesn't accept advertising like other publications because it's not a publication. Instead, it's a member-owned, not-for-profit news-collection cooperative. Even in that environment, the watering down of editorial talent, the elevation of business goals over integrity, and even the layout of head office in Manhattan speak volumes. Editorial integrity and talent is being chisselled away by the MBA's in the search for profit and power. The AP occupies 3 floors on West 33rd Street. The top-most floor is occupied by the president and his vps, the accountants, and the HR people. Why are they on the top floor? Aren't they 'farthest' from the news? There's even a loft, a patio, and a private kitchen and shower for the president up there. The next floor has all the computer geeks and artistic types. The lowest floor is where the action is - all the news guys. Of course this setup is typical of most companies. If you want to know what's left of your editorial talent - look in the basement.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
"Readers should fairly expect there to be an inviolable firewall between advertising and editorial in journalism, and game journalism (yes, that includes "just reviews") is no different."
I think this was an error. It should read.
"Readers should be fairly suspect that there is an inviolable firewall between advertising and editorial in journalism, and game journalism."
Same thing with any magazine or website. They are forced to serve two masters the readers and the advertisers.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Look at Jade Raymond. She works for a game publisher and is a personality on G4. Of course, G4 is just a mouth piece for the industry. Still they do run reviews and you would think that they would at least pretend to be independant.
I've been a reviewer for a major site for many years. Though I think we are very reasonable, I have had to re-draft reviews & alter my (ratings) numbers if they were too harsh or otherwise did not meet the rest of the world's view on a game. I have even had games taken away from me and handed to another for review- for mine being too harsh. That's rare, but has happened more than a couple of times over the years. I am a programmer as well, so I am not unreasonably harsh on most titles. I don't think there are many development teams out there that set out to make junk. There's no benefit from such. However, I live in the reality that I have to temper my honest feedback or face similar backlash. It is not my FT career, so I would not as impacted, but I enjoy doing it and would hate for it to end-- from the agenda of a company that got their feelings hurt. Garbage in, garbage out.
But I'm not sure posting it here will make a difference. Still thus, I will have a clear conscience... how did that fellow say it?
It went something like this:
"I'm not saying this because I feel responsible, YOU are responsible, I am doing this merely to be able to know that *your blood is OFF my hands*, how you live or die is not entirely up to you!"
If Ron Paul loses, it will do what is needed to prove our government is corrupt. If Ron Paul wins, he will merely give us a chance to spend another 100 years under a corrupt, slowly encroaching government. Frankly, I'm not sure if Ron Paul would get much good done anyways (short of mucking up the Federal Reserve) since the system is legislatively geared towards absolute takeover and will continue to swing that way unless Ron "wins" the presidency and actually rescinds every presidential directive (PD) and executive order (EO) that has been passed to date. The list is comprehensive and begins with such small abuses as George Washington's cancelling of Guy Fawkes day (replaced with elections, because GFDay offended the Catholics up north or some such excuse) all the way up to Jimmy Carter's founding of FEMA through presidential wriggling. This whole chain of events actually resembles what the detective sees in V for Vendetta when visiting Lark Hill.
"That's why I went to Lark Hill last night..." "I had to see it." "I suddenly had this feeling, that everything was connected. It's like I could see the whole thing, one long chain of events, that stretched back, before Lark Hill. I felt like I could see everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern, laid down in front of me. And I realized we are all a part of it, and we're all trapped by it."
The same is true of what has been going on in our world.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
During the heyday of Ultima Online (I think in 2000), as a Seer (rpg volunteer), we had an event based on a group who worshipped an ancestor named Zog, which if I recall correctly, was the name of the first human in the Ultima mythos. It was a minor plot point at best.
This group of characters (the Zog Cabal) and their storyline was created by Origin GMs, and acted and fleshed out by GMs and Seers.
We never saw where the end of this story went (and it was one of the few that was actually successful, in my tenure), because one day, the GMs received a letter from Gamespot outlining some "concerns" players had had about the "Zog Cabal" actually being a veiled reference to Z.O.G. (Zionist Occupied Government), which is a slanderous name anti-semitic and/or white power groups give to whatever governments they oppose (generally, the US, which they believe is controlled by "Jewish interests").
It was utterly preposterous. Richard Garriot may be many things, but a racist or anti-semite he isn't. Most of his games have been highly derivative of Tolkien and Tolkien-inspired knockoffs, and having mysterious characters with funny names is a STAPLE of science fiction and fantasy, and X and Z being pretty popular letters to add a sense of "exoticness" to newly-minted names. Xenu anyone?
What was leaked to us by other sources in EA and in Gamespot was that the "players" whose concerns the Gamespot editor had addressed were actually other Gamespot writers: essentially, they were trying to make news instead of reporting it, by inserting themselves into the story.
While this isn't related to the current row, it lessens my ability to be shocked and horrified by the idea of editorial sleaze by the Gamespot staff.
I think the only reason why PC Gamer can probably a bit more....."autonomous" than other review magazines (well, at least gamespot) is that they usually swarm their magazine with hordes of hardware ads. Let's look at an example. Clive Barker's Jericho, for instance, had an ad that went right over the cover of their magazine about a month before the release of the game. What score did they give the game? I believe they gave is something in the upper 40-mid 50% score.
Does the expression "As bent as a box of bedsprings", or something similar, come to mind here?
(and no, Mr thicky Black thicky Adder fan, you can't say "as bent as a very bent thing". Not even "As bent as a hunchback who's just been made professor of bentness at Oxford University.)
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"While our industry has had its fair share of accusations of impropriety, nothing so far has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt."
That's total bullshit. Myself and others have spoke out about this before. Personally, when we were publishing our magazine, we specifically refused to take advertising from game companies except on a few occasions just to avoid this issue (in our mind we were trying to adopt more of a Consumer Reports approach). With only four exceptions in 5 years, we only took ads from retailers in our print magazine, and only ever ran two ads on the website. It made it REALLY hard to make ends meet though and was one of the factors that ended the magazine (in 96' we were running over a million hits a day in web traffic to our primary site alone and that wasn't cheap).
Even with doing that we had pressure on us to write favorable reviews or risk getting our preview status yanked. In fact one of the hardware manufactures recalled our Dev hardware that we were using to preview betas because of an unfavorable preview.
There is an expectation in the industry that if magazines want access to previews, and news leads that they better play ball or they will get cut out of the picture.
I will quote from this thread on Gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/kanelynchdeadmen/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-39530902&pid=934403 I'm sure some of you are aware Jeff Gertsmann, now the face of GameSpot is responsible for the review. It should come as no surprise he played this game on an Xbox 360 for the review and like most people with a 360 he has a GamerTag attached to his account... as I gazed upon his weak gamescore I found only two achievements had been unlocked. One for beating the first mission and one for trying the co-op. It should be noted that the OP is dated prior to the firing, so perhaps Gertsmann wasn't sacked for a bad review, but sacked for not doing his job.
Sigs are awesome huh?
A person who claims to have worked on the Kane & Lynch ads made a post on Forumopolis.
http://www.forumopolis.com/showpost.php?p=1869780&postcount=52
'The ads were originally supposed to point to the GS review page, as they sometimes do. When the review came out, Eidos was understandably upset, and yes -- they did threaten to pull the whole campaign -- but they eventually simmered down and kept the campaign. They had us change the clickthrough URL from the GS review to the official site, but other than that little changed. The ads went up and the Eidos brouhaha was settled over two weeks ago. Jeff got fired yesterday. Furthermore, I'd heard a few people tell that he'd already been skating on thin ice for "unprofessional reviews and review practices."'
The podcast has been slowly going down hill but no Rich Gallop AND no Geoff? WTF
I mean I prefer 1up and I prefer GFW but hotspot was still entertaining.
Geoff had been earning a reputation lately as being exceptionally harsh on games though - could be something with that.
Since EGM live is progressively more boring and kiddy, Gametheory (previously Next-gen) is just a little TOO deep each week, it seems that 1up, GFW and PC gamer remain the top casts out there.
(GFW is amazingly entertaining, even if you're not a PC gamer) PC Gamer podcast is great - they all seem to come across as genuinely 'nice' people with a passion for games.
As much of a whiny bitch that he was (as am I) I do still miss Luke from 1up though, he would tackle shit head on and call it like it is (well except his halo fanboy-ery)
My mornings on the way to work are going slowly down the toilet, soon I'll be listening to music!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Censorship aside, if this report is true, its the equivalent of gamespot committing suicide. Who is going to trust any reviews on the site now that this link is widely known. They would have been better off telling Eidos to go piss up a rope. Even if its not true, their reputation is probably irrevocably tarnished. I know next time I am trying to decide whether or not to buy a game based on reviews, I wouldn't trust their opinion.
Bad move on the part of gamespot.
People loves conspiracy. However, all it takes to have these kinda of things happening is ONE smart-ass manager/director.
I must have missed your point... because...your leftist bias is showing. You may want to chat with your buddies in China, they have job openings for propagandist authority worshippers, and you've so far been able to paint a lovely picture of it all.
:) Amazing? Not really. Its the way the collectivist/socialist (and at this point hybridized fascist) taxation system works. Your entire salary is based on the fact that your time is worthless so you're actually having a total income because your work is actually "worthless".
Regarding profit... why should a man (or woman for that matter) not profit by his (or her) actions? Is it a crime to actually get a good outcome from one's work? In your world it is. Its okay, government taxation ensures that only those who step outside their boundaries actually achieve any form of actual "profit". That is a given since 'income' is legally translated as 'profit' and since your entire 'income' is taxable, that must mean your time is "worthless" because all your salary is 'profit'
Cheers buddy. You already have what you advocate, you just can't recognize it.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Many other sites have probably been compromised or "influenced" by their advertisers. Consider Slashdot for example - notice the Games section of Slashdot - all of the stories are chosen by Zonk, and none of them are from contributors. Since Microsoft advertises quite a bit on the site, and the fact that Zonk is a XBox fanboy, it's no surprise to see most news on the Xbox 360 to be positive. People might point out to the other negative stories about Microsoft - well Microsoft might not care as much about it's OS or Office business, because they have a monopoly.
There are other gaming sites that have heavy advertising from Microsoft - you'll see that many of these sites describe Sony in a snarky tone, while giving a much gentler hand to Microsoft. This is no different when PC Magazine had many, many ads from Microsoft, and you wouldn't be surprised to see Word, Excel, and it's other Office products rate consistently above WordPerfect, QuattroPro, and so on - based on dubious factors as "ease-of-use".
If you take a look at Halo 3 - look at the huge advertising campaign, full of schwag - people focused on the schwag, but the real dollars exchanged comes from advertising. It's not surprising that Halo 3 got perfect 10s, even though they criticized how short and repetitive the single player campaign was, and how the graphics were nothing special compared to other games. Mmny sites even claimed that Bioshock or COD4 were better.
Bottom line is, many sites are bought out by advertising, or behind-the-scenes bribes/schwag. Weblogs, Inc (Joystiq, Engadget), Gawker Media (Kotaku, Gizmodo), CNET (Gamespot, CNET) all have shown a correlation between the advertising dollars and reviews.
No surprise here. I thought it was pretty obvious this was how game review sites worked?
The game looks like shit anyway.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
The editors received an email from EA's press departament inviting them to a presentation of Comand & Conquer 3. They acepted, but a weed later they received the following email: acabo de encontrar estos artículos en vida extra
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/08/17-publicada-la-horrorosa-portada-de-fifa-07-en-espana
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/09/20-incongruencias-de-ea-con-fifa-07
http://www.vidaextra.com/2005/03/01-fifa-street-mejor-lo-olvidamos
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/03/27-ha-llegado-el-padrino-esta-a-la-altura-de-las-expectativas
como comprenderás, sois muchas webs de juego las que quereis colaborar
con nosotros, y tenemos que priorizar a aquellas que, a nuestro
modesto entender, nos tratan mejor
con artículos de este tipo hoy por hoy no es planteable que tengamos
una colaboración fluída con vosotros, queda por tanto cancelada la
invitación a pasaros por nuestra oficinas a ver C&C3
si os parece, dejemos pasar el tiempo, y viendo un poco como
evolucionan las cosas volvemso a plantearnos el enviaros materiales e
invitaros a esta clase de eventos...
saludos I will try to translate (sorry for my poor English): I have just found these articles in vida extra
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/08/17-publicada-la-horrorosa-portada-de-fifa-07-en-espana
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/09/20-incongruencias-de-ea-con-fifa-07
http://www.vidaextra.com/2005/03/01-fifa-street-mejor-lo-olvidamos
http://www.vidaextra.com/2006/03/27-ha-llegado-el-padrino-esta-a-la-altura-de-las-expectativas
As you can imagine, there are many game webs such as the yours willing to cooperate with us, and we have to give priority to those treating us better
with this type of articles it is no possible to have a fluent colaboration with you, so your invitation to see C&C3 has been canceled.
we will wait for a while watching your behaviour. We could send you material and invite you to this type of events again in the future.
best regards The letter was published in the weblog and soon after an EA representative contacted them apologising >-)
The Godfather?...maybe they played their own game for too much
Ok, stop there, I'm already laughing...
Now you FINALLY understand why Consumer Reports doesn't take advertising?
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Sadly or eidos (heh, heh), the news of the firing will ensure that everyone knows the game sucks. Had it not been for the firing and this subsequent article, I would merely have assumed as much based on the title.
I am extremely grateful for the negative reviews of things. There will always be people that like it just fine, and then there are those (like Mr. Cranky) that can find even more todislike than I can. They will tell you the things that irked them, that made them regret it, etc -- and that helps me avoid bad experiences.
If all I had were positive reviews, it'd be hard to narrow down the field of potential restaurants (especially in an area I am visiting), or games. If all I heard were negative reviews, I'd still buy things, but either expect them to suck (and then be pleasantly surprised), or just determined to experience them for What They Were.
At the same time, I'm grateful for dissenting views, even if positive. For example, I've been interested in Assassin's Creed for a while. (In case any readers aren't video gamers, it's a "sandbox" style game for the Xbox360 which has you tooling around in Crusades-era holy lands.) Many reviewers said it was very pretty, but that some things got repetetive (and didn't really like the combat system). I was worried that I might not like it, until I read Penny Arcade's "trust us, it does actually rock" post.
I appreciated Gabe's argument that reviewers don't play games the same way many of us do, and that the review process is poorly suited for sandbox games. Reviewers play with a deadline, whereas in a sandbox game the point is to take your time, explore, and find cool stuff. Perhaps even replay to do things differently. Gabe saying this, and his subsequent "real world" review (along with Tycho's explanation of the combat system), convinced me that I will probably greatly enjoy the game. (Assuming I manage to buy an XBox360 and the game. D'oh.)
So this is what Slashdot has become - reporting not news, but a rumor. Worse yet, what seems to make the rumor worth publishing? That a popular webcomic published it.
A sibling poster (Alzheimers?) mentioned Penny Arcade, which is big enough to be picky about advertisers. I concur, and I guess I might call them my portal to gaming news (besides here, of course). They filter out the crap, and I hear about things like this from them first, usually. It helps that the two principles, Gabe and Tycho, have very different tastes in games, but both recognize quality vs crap.
I'll also mention Yahtze's "Zero Punctuation":
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/
He doesn't review many games, but dear god when he does, it is brutally honest. He's also quite funny, even if not exactly worksafe. He exposes the weaknesses of things like HL2 which we put up with, and so forth. It's very refreshing. I wish I had about 10 times as many reviews from him, even about games I don't care about. I'd watch a Yahtze review of Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
For example:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2541-Zero-Punctuation-The-Orange-Box
"Lastly, let's talk about Portal. If you're a regular viewer, you'll recognize how INSANE these words sound coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it.... This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece."
(-:
It wasn't a PS3. There are rumors that he got fired for playing with his Wii.
...I have little doubt of the "darker" side of the Gamespot tale.
My own tale comes from what you might call the Dark Ages, back in the dim days of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, I was a monthly columnist for the now-extinct life-form known as a "programming magazine."
My specialty was comparative reviews of compilers -- back in those days, there existed A LARGE NUMBER OF CHOICES as to which compiler you could use for C or Fortran programming on PCs. And, in a review of Fortran compilers, I stated (correctly) that a certain vendor's product failed miserably at a well-known benchmark.
The vendor pulled several full page adds; I was fired. The editor was quite honest in admitting that my dismissal was entirely based on placating a disturbed source of income.
The purpose of any business -- even television shows, magazines, and commercial web sites -- is to generate REVENUE. They do NOT exist for the greater public good, or for the search for truth, or for any other reason than to make money.
What amazes me is not that someone is fired for telling the truth or expressing an opinion -- what amazes me is how many people EXPECT morals or ethics from profit-oriented entities.
All about me
No obligatory comment about Twilight Princess' score?
This is madness!
Fucking sucks!
It's worth noting that the large Game Review sites have put themselves in a very vulnerable position by reaching well beyond their supposed core product, the review of games, and instead becoming part of the entire game promo, news and asset cycle. They rely heavily on game producers for "exclusive" access to news, game development info, trailers, screenshots, etc. That makes it that much easier for the large publishers to squeeze off their liveblood if they don't get their way. If you can't get a response from the EA or Ubisoft teams while your competition can, and likewise can't get the newest trailer for the Next Big Game while the other guys can, there go your eyeballs, and there go your advertising dollars.
Tell the advertiser "no, you can't influence our reviews, take your business elsewhere".
"We'll be sure to have our columnist do a followup piece on how you tried to get him fired for not liking the taste of your bunghole, specifically listing any competitors who've earned earlier good reviews honestly. But if you back down now, we'll lean on him enough that when writing about this, he'll say in the interest of maintaining our journalistic integrity you reconsidered and withdrew your threat."
The problem is the dominance of advertising revenue. Short term, yeah, yanking a major contract will hit the budget hard. The key is, if you bend over to lick advertisers backside with everything you put out, your readership will drift away.... which more slowly but even more surely kills off the publication... and the taint sticks to those who move on.
The advertisers (in both cases) should have been offered a modest concession, like a chance to publish a rebuttal article disputing the points, but intimidiation deserves retaliation — such as offering an ad rate discount for a few months to any competitors who agree to say "We think OffendedCo are all assholes for not respecting your independence!" for the columnist's byline. Say, 15% off for other current advertisers and 30% off for new customers. Who knows? With luck, you might come out better funded than before... and less dependent on the impact of any single advertiser.
Maybe I've been perusing the BOFH archives too much? Nah, that would more probably have me thinking about a lime pit.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Ok, this may be a naive question here but I'll stick my neck out. I'm going to lump games, TV shows, movies, and music together here. They're all creative products.
Now, the cynical view says that there are certain games that are licenses to print money. A Harry Potter game, EA could have the programmers shit in the box and put it on the shelf and it would still sell. If we want to get all filthy and accountanty here, you could probably model a function here were you put in the price of the license and then the cost of making the game, figuring where the profit would be. I'm sure that the max profit comes in somewhere at about half the funding level to make a good game. So from their perspective, spending the money to make a good game is mismanagement because it cuts into the profits.
Ok, that may be the case. But what about games that don't have a license to go with it, where you are talking about the potential of creating a franchise instead of continuing one. If we look at movies, the script has to be the cheapest part of the production. When you're looking at spending a few million on a single stunt in a $100 million blockbuster, why not throw a million at the writers? Surely making the fucker good would be a better return on investment. If the movie is a brainless popcorner, you'll maybe get one viewing tops. But if the movie is fun and rewatchable, you'll get people buying it 20 years down the line. And to think that there's all this money spent on bribing reviewers trying to polish a turd, wouldn't it be easier if they were pushing fillet mignon instead?
Let's talk about games. When I've been blessed enough to encounter a new classic fresh on the market, I'll be evangelizing the fucker to my friends like a Jehovah's Witless on Saturday morning. They do the same when they discover a classic before me. When it comes to TV shows, networks don't see fans storming the gates when idiot knock-off comedy #3 goes off the air but they'll see the geeklerian jihad when a Futurama or Firefly gets canned. It's the quality that creates the rabid fans. So shit, if quality is what makes people happy, why don't the suits just go for quality? I still find it hard to believe that with all the money involved, it's more cost-effective to crap out a clunker than to craft a classic. I understand that you will run into clusterfucks from time to time when the team is given the proper time and resources to make it happen and things just fall apart due to personality clashes, politics, acts of God, etc. But I just don't get the willful disregard for quality that goes into most of these efforts.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Lots of stories are from Zonk (maybe the majority? I haven't checked), but I can tell you that not all of them are (I've even had a few myself).
It's good to find corruption where it is, but finding corruption where it isn't (or, at the very least, exaggerating it) hurts the cause.
By telling me something I know is untrue in your first paragraph, I have to doubt the truth in the rest of your post.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Jeff Gerstmann has slowly killed Gamespot. He's green lit (and written) reviews that grade games harshly. And while that's his job, he has allowed reviews to ding games a number of points off with out giving any explanation about it.
.5 increment style of reviewing games that overall leave a reader with out a clue how the reviewer is grading a game. He has reviewed a couple games and overall his reviews are unnecessarily harsh. He basically will ding game points with 0 negatives mentioned. It's also clear at times reviews are being written by people who don't enjoy the genre. That's fine if it's "my little pony" but can't Gamespot find one racing fan to review racing games? If a game is suitably big, what's the harm of letting someone who enjoys Japanese RPGs review a dragon warrior (or blue dragon) or someone who enjoys Western RPGs review Mass effect? These are all issues that Gerstmann should be in charge of, but instead Gamespot has taken a "what the hell are we doing" approach to their reviews.
In addition Gamespot overall has adopted a "no point breakdown"
Under Gerstmann's reign Gamespot has gone from mostly respectable to laughable, their reviews are weak and usually "harsh" to be edgy, rather than fair and balanced. When you see Halo 3 getting 9.5 and many other games far above average (and above Halo 3) not even able to hit 8.5 it's laughable. Gamespot and IGN was the place to get game reviews for the last 6 years, and now gamespot has fallen from grace.
I don't agree he should be fired over Kane and Lynch's review. I argue however he should be fired for general incompetence, and just running the review system at Gamespot into the ground with out considering the fact that his changes have not only hurt the site, but also the reader, and the developer (who have to consider the reviews as much as the sales).
Personally I hope he stays fired, the worst thing that could happen is he gets rehired because of this and the rest of his issues are allowed to slide because of the fallout from this one act.
Difficult to say if it is related to the events described above, but the editor Tim Tracy appears to be leaving Gamespot as well.
His (exceedingly brief) post on the site blog: http://www.gamespot.com/users/TimT/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25233420
A comment or two on destructiod.com http://www.destructoid.com/gamespot-drops-reviewer-to-appease-eidos-w-r-hearst-rolls-in-his-grave-56683.phtml
Look at todays headlines...Salt...oh my salt will kill you. Well DUH!. Everyone has known that for decades. But TV and MSM didn't go on a big campaign in the news on sodium levels in processed foods until...
wait for it...
the big processed FOOD companies had products queued up with "20% Lower Sodium!!" blazoned on the packaging...
So there, the big companies that advertise on national broadcast TV...Gen Mills, Kelloggs etc...all get FREE prime time advert on the national news...
TV news looks like heroes from saving us from the bad food companies that put too much sodium in food. The big companies look like heroes for giving us consumers a new product to save our life. The small companies lose what little market share they have as they re-tool for the new salt aware consumer. The big companies eat the small fish. TV makes big $$, big food makes big $$...the people are played like a cheap violin again.
yeah, they use PartnerNet to avoid problems. Although i think being able to check out a reviewer on Live makes a lot of sense (Gabe @ PA talked about this a few days ago).
my sig is an honor student
"Readers should fairly expect there to be an inviolable firewall between advertising and editorial in journalism, and game journalism (yes, that includes "just reviews") is no different."
Since when? You are an idiot if you trust reviews in magazines/web sites that have sponsored advertising. Publishers want you to believe the myth that there is some sort of inviolable wall. What do you think makes Consumer Reports somewhat credible? Because taking money from sponsors and reviewing their products creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. And the appearance of a conflict of interest compromises the trust in a review. Duh!
Hats off to any reviewer that is critical(that does not mean negative) in their review. A reader that relies on one source for their impressions is an idiot and has not been taught to think critically themselves.
The most interesting thing to come of this whole thing is that now -- only a day after the revelation -- people all over the Internet take the rumors as absolute truth. Now, even if it comes to light that Mr. Gerstmann was fired for killing children or eating kittens, since so many of the denizens of the 'net have latched onto the rumors as reality, they have essentially made their perceived reality THE accepted reality simply by force of numbers.
As a result, there's nothing but accusations and angry villagers ahead for Gamespot and Eidos.
Nex @ Destructoid
from the people who are saying that he wasn't fired over the review (including Cnet), if that's true, WHY WAS THE REVIEW REMOVED?
Jeff should sue both GameSpot and Eidos for this. Is gaming the only media where you are expected to suck the dick of the advertisers as long as you give them a 9.x or higher? Would a book, music, or movie reviewer lose his job for honestly panning a game? Message to Eidos: Kane & Lynch is a very average game and deserved the score it got. As for Gamespot firing someone who is a staple of their site... seriously piss off.
Jeff better get his lawyers ready.
If you think this kind of stuff doesn't happen all the time, you're fooling yourself.
Well ok, maybe ads does influence the webwriter...
But, hey, I was right on one point : This wasn't very subtil.
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
well now i know whether to bother going to gamespot for reviews anymore.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Hmm. Its worth mentioning that GameSpot was one of the last review sites to post a review for Hellgate: London, which also received sub-par scores. I wonder if the publishers of HG:L (Electronic Arts) called for a review delay due to the amount of advertising dollars spent on the game, as GameSpot ran numerous stories/previews/video demos on the game prior to launch (much like K&L) to hype it up, and even skinned the site on launch day (also like K&L).
That is precisely what I do.
I do the same with movie reviews, restaurant reviews, etc.
The temptation to "pollute" the review process for monetary gains is minimized when the people writing them are gaining NOTHING monetarily.
They write them because they either liked, or disliked, the product.
Nice attempt at a character assassination. But the review as I've seen on youtube seems honest and fair. The folks I've read who have also played the game say it's a honest and fair review. You don't have to stick a pile of dung very far up your nose to know if it smells or not. You don't have to play a game all the way through to the end to give it a fair review. What does stink is this whole thing. Firing someone for not giving a glowing review to a crap game puts Gamespot and CNET right up there on my "DO NOT TRUST or VISIT" site list. Gotta go delist some CNET podcasts from my itunes now.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I would contend 1864. Lincoln and Johnson, one a Democrat and one a Republican ran together on the National Unity ticket. They ran against a Democrat and a Republican who advocated peace. After the Republican was bribed to drop out, it became the National Unity vs. Democratic party, and the long, rich history of calling Democrats tratiors began.
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Why shouldn't they? Even advertisement revenue comes with the expectation that people will read the reviews on the site or magazine or whatever. If people think Gamespot is dishonest, they'll stop going to the site. If the readership drops then so does advertisement revenue, as it becomes more efficient to take out advertisements elsewhere. In short, it's in Gamespot's best interest to be honest.
How do you kill that which has no life?
While he made some decent points in the video, if it truly was a 6/10 game, then that review was more than a little over-the-top. Based off his video, I would say that Kane & Lynch was a 3/10 or 2/10. A 5 should be an "average" game of that genre. He said repeatedly it was not up to that standard (bad AI, no characters to root for, poor mechanics and crass dialog). Maybe that's his way of saying "yeah, I have to say it's a 6. It's not.".
But maybe not. And the whole tone of the review, to be honest, was lazy. Crass. Informal. It didn't seem like it was a review that he'd written down and practiced, just a "what can I come up with real quick", and he comes off as unprofessional and a bit of an ass.
(Disclaimer - none. I was trying to figure out whether I needed to cancel any of my magazines- I thought Gamespot used to be the web site for one of the video game mags, but that doesn't appear to be the case.)
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
After a while, people won't buy the magazine or look at the site because they know the opinions there are worthless. So why is it worth advertising somewhere that nobody reads anymore?
Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Previews are different from reviews though.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Previews, story leads and published timely reviews are the life blood of the gaming press. In this regard they are no different.
Besides a respected reviewer writing a brutal preview can diffuse the buzz on an upcoming title at the most and create concern at the least.
Yes but ultimately noone will fault you for being positive on a preview for a bad game but they will fault you for a review that doesn't reflect the quality of the game. Previews are done with early builds anyway so a low quality preview doesn't necessarily mean much. If a review is written about an incomplete version and makes assumptions about what will get fixed that's problematic though, should have waited for the retail release and test then.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Er, forgive me, that should say "if you're the holder of a tiny minority opinion in a group". But that should be obvious, no?
In fact, do better - print not only the negative review, but the story of the bribe attempt, the correspondence back from the advertiser, and records of the advertising, under the heading "Local Restaurant Attempts To Bribe And Threaten Us To Hide Shoddy Food, Poor Service".
The main reason why I never read previews is exactly this. Fault me for being an idealistic hippie if you will, but I cannot stomach sifting through two pages of mindless, blithering garbage about "Acclaim Signature Presentations Presents Super John Romero's Adaptation of Peter Jackson's King Kong: 2X Turbo" and how "exciting" the game looks. Either report openly about what's going on, report on what - if anything - is new and innovative and potentially earth-shattering about this exciting 3D action platformer, or don't call it journalism.
Print magazines are the worst. If a magazine is 100 pages long, 40 of those pages will be advertisements, 40 pages will be advertisements masked as previews or interviews (game "journalists" make Larry King interviews seem like hardball), 10 pages will be wacky and hee-larious videogame humor or useless opinion pieces from the same douchebags who spent 10 pages sucking off the latest uninspired bomb, 5 pages will be codes and tips (seriously - what the fuck), and all of 5 pages will be devoted to reviews.
Anyway, point being that there is a market for gaming journalism that's just that - journalism. Journalism that doesn't rely on exclusives, and which therefore may end up publishing the occasional incorrect rumor - but journalism, as opposed to glorified marketing. Lord knows I'd love to tap this market, but I really rely on the winds to get my thoughts into words.
For a computer game review, I thought it was pretty good. Despite the informal tone, he clearly defined what was wrong with it, what was good about it, and who it would appeal to. He _did_ say that there were some interesting and innovative ideas in it, which should add a point or two.
Based on the video review, I'd have expected a 4 or 5/10. He didn't really eviscerate the game (or if that's what the game industry calls evisceration, they're even more apologetic than I thought!), but it sounds like a pretty lousy waste of time.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Part of the problem, I think, is that you're applying terms like "corruption" to a branch of journalism that's essentially all about buying products or services. They are only there to answer the question "where should I spend my money today?" The shame of it is that this form of journalism is so prevalent in the current media environment that it's easy to forget that there is way more stuff to talk about than that.
Not long ago I interviewed for a position at the business desk of a major daily newspaper, where I would be writing about technology. "Sounds right up my alley," I thought. But when I went in and spoke to the people there, it became clear that management at the newspaper wasn't really interested in business, or technology, or ... god forbid ... news. Technology stories for the business section did not mean covering the strategies of Silicon Valley tech companies, or the SCO lawsuit, or data leak scandals, or what-have-you. What they were looking for, pretty much, was stories about the iPhone, reviews of Halo 3, stories about "technology art" at Burning Man, and holiday gift guides.
Do you see the difference? What was once ostensibly the business section of a major newspaper is now devoted to pretty much two types of stories: 1. "What should I do this weekend?" and 2. "What should I spend my disposable income on?"
This is actually pretty scary to me. OK, so the trade press allows their advertisers to color the review content that they publish -- deplorable, sure, but it's not like anybody's shocked. What IS shocking, and reprehensible, is that the major media outlets, the ones that SHOULD be publishing serious stories about all the thousands of topics that aren't about 20-30 year olds flinging their cash around on pointless consumer products, are instead allowing themselves to be turned into trade rags.
When the real news can be bought just as easily as a videogame review can, we're all in trouble.
Breakfast served all day!