Slashdot Mirror
Game Reviewers Face Odd Bribery From Publishers
eldavojohn writes "You might be used to the idea that game reviewers receive games free and ahead of time, but Ars opens up a darker side to the mystery box. Like a $200 check from Dante's Inferno, reading, 'by cashing this check you succumb to avarice by hoarding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality.' Or how about a huge-ass sword from Darksiders. Or brass knuckles (illegal in some states) from the makers of Mafia II. Or rancid, rotting meat mixed with spent shell casings, teeth, broken glasses and dog tags from Bulletstorm. NCSoft gave out flight suits and trips to weightlessness. Nintendo apparently likes to send all manner of food, including elaborate cakes shaped as their consoles and games. Squeeballs sent a crate of stuffed animals. iPods from Activision and Zunes from Microsoft seem to be pretty tame bait for reviewers ... but there's one reason why this continues to happen: more news-starved review sites and blogs report on the extras and the publisher's game gets spread around just a wee bit more. Even if it is as freakish as bracelets from an insane asylum spattered with blood." I think we must be doing it wrong around here... we usually can't even get games before the release date, much less get free rotting meat.
Publisher: Give our game at least 8/10 or it's Two Girls, One Cup for you.
Reviewer: And if I refuse?
Publisher: Three Girls, One Cup.
Trolling is a art,
In these dire times, were I a reviewer, I'd specialize in Dead or Alive spinoff games.
Just in case they up the ante.
It's not (always) bribery, but just a PR stunt. They don't do these things for better review scores, but for media attention.
Serious, what good is "rancid, rotting meat mixed with spent shell casings, teeth, broken glasses and dog tags" or "brass knuckles"?
If it's not cash, or some other thing they can cash in then it's not really bribery.
Since you mentioned that you can't get any swag from publishers, here's the answer: get your reviews on metacritic.
That score determines a lot of things and you're much more likely to be bribed if you can make it look good.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Back in the day when everybody read Byte Chaos Manor was probably the most important place outside of the cover you could be.
Jerry Pournell wrote what we would the column based on what he used.
His system was simple. Send me your stuff and I get to keep it all.
If he didn't like your stuff he would say so or just not write about it.
If he did like your stuff it was fantastic for you.
Borland as a company pretty much was born when Jerry Pournell wrote about how great this cheap Pascal compiler called TruboPascal was. Borland to a loan for their first full page ad based just on that column.
Now that would be considered not legit but at the time no one minded. Truth is that his reviews where brutally honest and very good.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I don't play games very often anymore, but I've found the easiest way to get an honest opinion of a game is to do the following:
That works well.
Reviewers who scored a game low were not compensated by the publisher, almost definitely had to buy the game themselves, and usually point out legitimate flaws instead of glossing over them. It's a great way to innoculate yourself against hype.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Well, your gaming blog needs to seriously ROCK! If you don't influence enough of the worlds population of gamers into making decisions about game purchases, you're likely never to get a bribe, or even a goody for that matter.
Geekism is your _only_ God!
The rules are different at different outlets but you'll find most try to think about this subject and let their audience know how it affects or doesn't affect them. Giant Bomb are headed up by people who left after a related incident at their previous employer. One of the founders fought to defend their review against a publisher and editor who wanted them to give it a more glowing review, and their previous job was terminated for doing so, certain people quit in disgust and joined together to form a new site.
Twinstiq, game news
Are they giving away Time Machines with Duke Nukem Forever?
I've been doing game reviews for almost a decade, and while I receive free games in abundance (and Microsoft has been trying to send me a XB360 for several years now, but I only do PC game reviews), I've never received cash or other swag. in fact, most recently, I get Steam download codes or similar, and I don't even get a physical copy of the game anymore.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
Really? I always attributed it to outright silliness (or perhaps pride) on the publisher's part. I mean, imagine you just made some kind of hardcore cover-based shooter with, oh I don't know dinosaurs as handguns. Work with me here. This hypothetical dino-gun game is your pride and joy, and you want to make a good impression on a small subset of important reviewers. You don't want to bribe them, exactly, but you want them to know that you think highly of your game, and of their capacity as high-power reviewers. So you send them a knickknack of some kind. Like, a model replica of the basic pistol-type weapon. Or a fake dinosaur tooth, or whatever. The point of the exercise is to one-up the other weird knickknacks the other publishers send so that your knickknack (and consequently your game) stick in the reviewer's minds. Bribery might be an element to it, but more valuable is the sticking-in-the-reviewer's-mind part. Ever seen professionals auditioning for a part in theatre? They're all basically excellent choices, but they've all got some kind of gimmick to get the director to remember them better than anyone else. That's the objective, anyways. Same idea, different area. Not bribery, not really.
You should turn signatures off.
well, maybe not a Zune...
FGD 135
So here's the thing I've found, people want previews and reviews of games before they come out to figure out if they want to buy it.
In order to get that, companies would have to send me a game early.
For that to happen I would have to give people what they want (previews and reviews of games before they come out).
Yup, that'd be what's known as a circular reference.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
No, because slashdot has slow news days where one story pops up every 3 hours and it has hell-ass-balls-on-fire days where there's a new story every 10 minutes. There isn't a quota.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
But what is the rest of the coverage besides recycled PR anyway? Personally I just try and get a sense of a game I'm interested in and then stop looking at coverage on it. I just want to see the basic idea of the game and what mechanics it uses, as soon as I'm interested then I cut off coverage because I don't want anything spoiled, not even the introduction. In other media I also avoid trailers because of how much they will spoil the actual movie for example. The way a game starts is meant to draw you in and intrigue you, and if you hear a lot about it beforehand, it doesn't have the same impact when you actually play the game.
There have been situations with games such as Super Smash Bros Brawl where they drip feed you with information, every day you see a new character, or a new move, or a new item you will be using in the game. By the time the game comes out I'm sick of it already and I don't even want to see it anymore. Or sometimes development time will drag on and paying attention to a game's coverage is like torturing yourself, such as with Dragon Quest IX or Duke Nukem Forever. In that case, coverage will often turn me off of a game, and if I already know I want to play it, what's the point? I've got better things to do.
Nowadays I just listen to a few podcasts where people don't talk so formally about their experiences and they often talk game theory which is much more interesting to me compared to regurgitated PR. I would recommend A Life Well Wasted, The Brainy Gamer, Gamasutra Podcast, In-Game Chat, Irrational Behavior, Mobcast, and Retronauts. If you also like those, you might like Geekbox, RebelFM, 1up Oddcast, Weekend Confirmed, Player One Podcast, Joystiq Podcast, Gamers with Jobs, Drunken Gamers Radio, IGN GameScoop and CAGCast. Hey, it makes work and commutes go by fast.
Twinstiq, game news
it's widespread among all industries - which is probably why there are so few reviewers who have anything approaching credibility. (not sure about what it's like in your country) In the UK there is a standard for travel reviewers that they should declare who paid for the trip / accommodation that's being reviewed - maybe it's time any product review carried a qualifier as to what benefits or freebies the reviewer received, too.
As it is the only real indicator of whether a product is worth a dam' is from people who have bought it with their own money. Having someone who had a product dropped in their lap, telling you that it's definitely worth the money (what money?) is so hollow as to be laughable. Hopefully as more bona-fide owners write about their experiences, all these media-tart reviewers will be shown up for what they really are: entertainers.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
There used to be a time when those gimmicks would be included in the retail box of the games.
Infocom comes to mind.
ok,no rotting meat, but a blood splattered bracelet would SO be in Infocoms style.
bickerdyke
As someone who works at a healthcare company, this amuses me. Up till not too long ago, we didn't have a lot of rules on this sort of promotion in our industry. There is some now in terms of doctors and other clinical people, however, I remember my days as a tech, I used to love fixing PCs for the mental health clinics because... they had all the best toys. I think one of em gave me a "Wellbutrin brain" (plush brain with a "Welbutrin" stamp on the bottom).
Now, we actually sometimes have to send things back to well meaning vendors, we are not even allowed to accept a free pen. Gone are the days when consultants could take us out to lunch on their companies dime. It doesn't even matter that we are tech folks and don't make purchasing decisions.
In fact, they have even gone so far as to come up with complicated rules as to whether or not we can eat at vendor events that supply free food. Seriously. The company took the fact that gifts could influence a persons decisions related to a product, and went so far to the other side, that we made the rules so complicated that people now think the company is being stupid. Excellent way to develop respect for doing the right thing... by taking it so far that its stupid.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I hate it when my ass balls are on fire, but when they're hell balls it's okay.
Do you have typing Tourette's syndrome?