Gamespot's Editorial Problems in Perspective

Sam Kennedy is a guy you can respect. As the Editor of the 1up site, he's overseen some great features and some unbelievable breaking news; he also has a great point of view on the games industry. So his massive blog entry posted today talking about Gamespot's sad state of affairs post-Gerstmann-gate is something you should take seriously. Sam runs down the sordid affair itself, the changes to C|Net and Gamespot management that led to unreal expectations at Eidos, and what this could mean for the future of game reviews. "Shortly after Gerstmann was fired, I got a call from a friend at one of the major nationwide news networks asking me what I knew about what happened, as he was considering trying to pitch a story to his editor. You want to know what it was? 'Game Reviews: can they be trusted?' Basically, 'You're a parent and you're going to buy a videogame for your kids this holiday season, but can you trust those reviews you're reading on the web?' That's why this story matters so much. Gerstmann-gate ... made him want to give the industry a nice kick in the pants. I applaud his motives, but again, it's a shame to have this sort of doubt hanging over us all."

Comments

Speaking of good journalism...

[RockMFR]

"GameSpot's cheat site" is called GameFAQs. The poll wasn't "hacked" - an employee apparently created it as a joke and let it go up on the site for 45 minutes, either intentionally or accidentally (the official story from Allen Tyner, the GameFAQs editor, was that it was accidental).

Gamespot sold out. That's the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

We all realize the importance of advertising; we're Slashdot users. We've been wallowing in it ever since CmdrTaco sold us out as a userbase to VA Software, a public company concerned only with the bottom line.

But Gamespot went over the line.

It's one thing to inundate users with annoying ad after annoying ad, as Slashdot does, and quite another to modify site content to pander to advertisers. It's the difference between barely-watchable, ad-saturated broadcast television and unwatchable, ad-saturated broadcast television with product placement.

Re:Gamespot sold out. That's the problem.

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"Its one thing to honestly point out flaws in a product, which he did and I'm not saying it wasn't a bad game. Its quite another to tell people that something is terrible and they shouldn't buy it."

Yeah, that is different. What's your point? Ostensibly, if a reviewer says a game is terrible and no one should buy it, he or she should be able to point out flaws with it. On the other hand, pointing out flaws doesn't mean that the game is not worthy of a purchase. I don't see your point because your statement is flawed. The two possible positions on a game you cite aren't mutually exclusive. Now, as far as the F-word being used in his reviews - that's up to an editor to handle. If Gamespot doesn't want video reviews with the F-word in it, that's fine but the editor would make that happen.

What exactly is your point? Ebert tells people not to go to movies all the time and calls movies terrible. Are you saying Ebert deserves to be fired?

Re:Gamespot sold out. That's the problem.

[Entropius]

I think that the product that Gamespot sells most effectively is... ... Firefox Adblock.

Gamespot corrupt? What is the world coming to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least I can still trust in the objectivity of Nintendo Power.

A reputation

[cgenman]

The value of a reputation is difficult to quantify. Blizzard has a great reputation because all of its games have been solid. But what is the value? A Blizzard title may sell just as many as many other titles that year. So suits may look at that and say that the reputation itself has no value. They they calculate the profits from a cheap spinoff title, and release Starcraft:Ghost.

Except they didn't, because they realized the value of their reputation. Ghost may have made a chunk of money in the short term, but it could have tarnished the reputation. And reputation ensures that the next great Blizzard game cuts through the noise and makes it to the top of people's shopping lists, instead of becoming yet another Ico or Beyond Good and Evil.

A reputation does not ensure a hit. But it does ensure that things deserving of becoming hits, do so.

GameSpot isn't selling advertising space. It's selling viewers. Its reputation as one of the better news sources out there draws in viewers. Selling off that reputation in the long term sells off viewers, and reduces what they have to sell.

I hope GameSpot finds itself soon.

Driv3r

[Enderandrew]

I thought it was leaked that Atari out-right paid for Driv3r reviews, many of which were extremely high despite the game sucking. When it came out, many sites claimed they only gave high reviews because they tested an early very-buggy build for a few hours, and then was told all the bugs would be fixed before retail ship. When the game actually shipped as a buggy mess (not to mention, a piss-poor game) the reviewers were claiming they never played the retail game and gave a review based on hype and expectations.

Either you believe what I consider a lie, and then reviews are worthless because they're based on hype, or you call them liars and reviews are worthless because publishers pay for them.

Take your pick. Personally, what I'm looking for (and what I rarely see) is a good description of how gameplay goes down. I don't need an arbitrary score, because the reviewer and I might not have the same tastes. We all like differen genres of games. But if the review does a very good job describing objectively what gameplay is like, then I might be able to decide for myself whether or not I will enjoy the game.

Re:Driv3r

[argStyopa]

"But if the review does a very good job describing objectively what gameplay is like, then I might be able to decide for myself whether or not I will enjoy the game."
+1 Spot-On.

I wrote computer game reviews for more than 10 years for a handful of niche-market websites and even a magazine or two, more as a hobby than anything else. We were fairly small potatoes, and the money was trivial.
So I definitely had less riding on the reception of my reviews and my continuing as a writer for a specific outlet. But at various times I felt both the overt and implied pressure from games companies, one blatantly saying "if you don't change that review, you'll never see another game from us" - not much of a threat, since if we'd really wanted to review it we'd have bought it anyway and in any case they were really relying on US to get their game publicized. But the fact that they'd have the nuts to come out and say it was stunning.

From the point of view of someone who's been in that market, I'd make some recommendations:
- A review should state clearly if the reviewer or his firm was GIVEN the game or BOUGHT the game. The cost of an individual game is a meaningless amount of money for a business, yet there is still a large step up in credibility and editorial freedom when one is not beholden to the game company by even that small amount. There's a reason Consumer Reports has done it for all these years on all the products they review.
- the game reviewer's machine specs need to be stated clearly in the review. Optimally, the game should be run on both 'min spec' and 'recommended or better' machines.
- the game should be reviewed AS RECEIVED; no last-minute patches, no 'supplemental' disk that the consumer isn't going to get. Anything that's not a 'gold' version going on the shelves is a PREVIEW not a REVIEW. (Another reason why buying a copy off the shelf is a sound practice.) *Any* other swag from the company should be refused or donated away.
- I like reviews that set out the reviewer's bias at the beginning; it lets me know outright if they want to like the game or not. Usually that's clear from the text, but stating it explicitly is more transparent.
- As the above-poster said, a review is strongest when it's descriptive. Hyperbole should be at a minimum, and the best reviews never say anything as bluntly as "this is a good game"...such should be clear from the text.

Long-Term Impact

[kidcharles]

One thing Kennedy didn't address fully was the long-term impact on Gamespot of its behavior. In the short term, they can make some cash selling ads and boosting associated review scores to please game distributors. In the long term, if their credibility is shot among the community, they will see fewer and fewer website hits as people find their reviews elsewhere. As the hits dry up, so will the advertisement money. Internet traffic can shift quite violently when better alternatives come along (e.g. the "Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook -> ?" progression), Gamespot would do well to take heed and clean up their act before they become irrelevant.

Re:Gerstmann Was Nothing More Than A Halo Fanboy

[bigstrat2003]

Gamers want unbiased information about games... No they don't. They want the opinion of other gamers on games so that they can make a more informed purchase decision.

...how much absolutely loves his Xbox 360 and Halo 3 and thinks its the best game ever 24/7. If that's his honest opinion, then by God, he should be talking about that in his coverage of those things. And if you don't like it, that's quite honestly too damn bad for you, because he's there to express his opinion.

Some controversy

[elrous0]

For all this hand-wringing and talk about how this is going to affect Gamespot in the long term, I would point out that this "great controversy" barely even warranted a brief mention on Gamespot's wikipedia entry and had virtually no effect on their site traffic.

This controversy is only known to a handful of geeks and will be forgotten a year from now.