278: Opinions for Sale or Trade

[Jim Sterling]

Opinions for Sale or Trade

Some people think that videogame review scores are for sale and Destructoid's Reviews Editor Jim Sterling thinks that in the case of "exclusive reviews," they just might be right.

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[Don't taze me bro]

Ah Jim. I enjoy your Jimquisition over at Dtoid. Welcome to the Escapist.

 

[Irridium]

A big example of this is the Gerstmann incident over on Gamespot about Kane and Lynch. Gerstmann game the game a pretty bad review, because the game itself was pretty bad. But since it was also advertised on the site a lot, its assumed that the Publisher didn't like the review, and put on pressure to fire him. Well whatever happened, he got fired, and his review was replaced with a more favorable review.

Gamespot lost any and all credibility after that day.

 

[Joe Kilner]

There is another factor here and one that is more subtle, peer-pressure.

If you hate/enjoy a game that has been praised/slammed in all the major outlets are you going to trust your own judgement, put your neck on the line, and submit a review to your editor that bucks the trend? Or are you going to play it safe and follow the herd? What if your review risks angering a major advertiser, are you still so sure that you are only one who has been able to truly see that game for what it really is?

I've seen games where an early review has contained a factual error that has been repeated in other reviews by other reviewers (it was about a feature that was "missing" but was actually pretty easy to find in the menus). I don't think people were deliberately copying the early reviews but having read a "fact", they just assumed it was true and didn't look for themselves. And if that holds true for objective things like menu items, what about subjective things like "there are too many cutscenes" or "the pace of the game is a bit too slow". It's very easy to be swayed, and little things can easily pick up momentum.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

I just read http://www.ag.ru/

Unbiased and cruel. Usually a bit late, but hell - even Halo 3 and Killzone 2 got torn to sheds.
As for exclusive reviews - check gametrailers, they're in Microsoft's pocket.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Oh, and about Game Informer's exclusive review of Aliens vs. Predator - it's hard to praise a game in which every single component is broken. It has sound and graphics. Gameplay sucks. Multiplayer is broken.

 

[EmzOLV]

I really enjoyed this, it was a good read. I think for me, I barely believe anything I read with 'exclusive' on it. It's just silly - this happens with music too. When I think of other festivals I used to work on who would liaise with major newspapers/magazines, exclusive was just a quicker way of saying "we wrote this and this magazine completely concurs with how awesome this will be". It's a bit sad really.

I got reeled into a game once because of it's amazing pre-launch review, pre-ordered it and absolutely hated it. Even the basics about atmosphere, character development, controls, weapons, were all slightly incorrect with how the game finally came out. Then out came all the real reviews by real people who also shared the same problems. Surely these problems didn't develop in the last two weeks of the game, and it makes you wonder if the reviewer even bothered to play it at all or just said amongst eating his cake "so give me a brief synopsis *burp* and I'll make it sound super awesome".

Oh, and blatently this:

[sub]Scrumpmonkey will give Modern Warfare 2 a 9.5/10 when Activision pays for his holiday, booze flights and hookers whist playing it. [/sub]

I'll give most games a 9.5 for all this - maybe even Fairytale Fights *shudder*

 

[More Fun To Compute]

The most novel idea for getting honest reviews were, I think, CRASH and ZZAP!64 magazines in the 80s. They brought in school kids to review the games after hours. It worked because it was cheap labour and the kids were too naive to know they were supposed to be dishonest. Jim Sterling is no Julian Rignall. Try harder to be Julian Rignall, Jim. I don't know who this Armond White fella is so forget him.

 

[Sebenko]

The most novel idea for getting honest reviews were, I think, CRASH and ZZAP!64 magazines in the 80s. They brought in school kids to review the games after hours. It worked because it was cheap labour and the kids were too naive to know they were supposed to be dishonest. Jim Sterling is no Julian Rignall. Try harder to be Julian Rignall, Jim. I don't know who this Armond White fella is so forget him.

Yeah, but kids will like anything.
And if kids like something, they tend to go "ZOMG 10/10!".

I'm willing to bet that at least one thing everyone liked would be shit without nostalgia.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

The most novel idea for getting honest reviews were, I think, CRASH and ZZAP!64 magazines in the 80s. They brought in school kids to review the games after hours. It worked because it was cheap labour and the kids were too naive to know they were supposed to be dishonest. Jim Sterling is no Julian Rignall. Try harder to be Julian Rignall, Jim. I don't know who this Armond White fella is so forget him.

Yeah, but kids will like anything.
And if kids like something, they tend to go "ZOMG 10/10!".

I'm willing to bet that at least one thing everyone liked would be shit without nostalgia.

Reviewers who actually sometimes like playing games? Never, not on my watch.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Funny you should bring up IGN's review of GTA4. While they were hardly the only place to make it out to be the gaming equivalent of the second coming of Christ, they were probably one of the first ones I saw. When I finally played that game, it bored the living fuck out of me.

 

[Cousin_IT]

the vast majority of us are normal gamers.

Might this be part of the problem? Not that I'm saying reviewers shouldn't be gamers, but the desire for exclusivity, especially how it's marketed to the readers/consumers, seems less about "we got to write about it first nanananananananana" & more "we got to play it first nananananananananana."

 

[FinalDream]

Ha, IGN, wouldn't trust a word written on that website.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Needed to be said, and I have been waiting for it do be said for a long time. Good show man, good show. I totally agree that most (if not all) reviewers are not paid off by those evil publishers, and you did bring up a good point about how suspicious exclusive reviews seem. Good read.

 

[darth jacen]

I really enjoyed the read. As a reviewer myself, I find it somewhat obvious when a review inflates a score, because they cannot justify it well. If I spot one of those reviews, I avoid that writer or just discount the score and read the review, which is an easy way to understand their opinion usually.

 

[gphjr14]

Only review I ever had a problem with was GTA IV. Prior to release many mainstream gaming sites had an ass load of ads for the game and upon it's release gave it high scores across the board. Meanwhile the gaming community especially veterans of the GTA franchise were disappointed with the lack of freedom and overly serious tone of the game. I recall gametrailers.com giving it a perfect score when the game was far from perfect. I feel that the more a game is advertised ($$) on a site magazine etc the more pressure there is for them give favorable reviews.

 

[ClanCrusher]

I'm actually surprised that someone was able to write about biased reviewers without bringing up that whole Kane & Lynch mess. That subject is a gold mine for the whole "Cloak & Dagger" rumors.