Jimquisition: Review Embargoes And Why They're Okay Sometimes

kaocrat

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There are a lot of things which should become standard practice across the board in terms of the formatting of game reviews. Somewhere near the top of the article there should be a section which discloses the hardware the game was reviewed on and maybe the circumstances in which it was reviewed (i.e. if it was reviewed at a "Review event" vs at the office vs at the reviewer's home). It might even make sense to disclose what kind of display is being used (this will become more important in the future as games add support for 3d displays, head mounted displays, etc). I would also like to know whether or not a review copy of the game is being played with or without all of the day-1-DLC unlocked. I know some sites do some of these things sometimes, but I would really like to see it as a consistent standard because it would go a long way towards making good use of the review.

Other things which should be reported in *every* review, either as part of a checklist on the sidebar or in the body of the review:

? How the save system works
? How the DRM works
? Whether or not cutscenes can be skipped
? Whether or not cutscenes can be paused
? Whether or not cutscenes can be replayed
? Which difficulty settings are available at start, and which must be unlocked
? Any gifts the reviewer received from the publisher

If a games review site were to consistently implement these standards into their reviews, they could break all the embargoes they want to and get blacklisted by every publisher, and it wouldn't matter, because I would always wait for their review to come out before buying any game.
 

Thanatos2k

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bojac6 said:
Or the consumer could refuse to pre-order anything until the first reviews come out. That'd put market pressure on the problem.

...also I'm really enjoying playing Destiny, but that's neither here nor there. It reminds me of college when we'd co-op Halo all the time.
Hey, *I* don't preorder anymore. But publishers have countered this by locking content out UNLESS you preorder, which is a despicable practice of its own.
 

OldNewNewOld

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DeepSilver and Nintendo are really confident in their games (for damn good reasons) so they don't have any problems with giving you enough time to review it. They know/believe that you will enjoy it so they will give it. Activision on the other hand is confident that it will sell, but they aren't confident in the actually quality of the game, which sometimes makes no sense because despite not liking CoD, I think it's a well made game.

And then there is Konami as you said... oh well, it's Konami. You really don't need to say anything more than just Konami and it's all clear.
 

Wulfram77

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One thing that kind of bugs me is if it seems like embargoes are stifling news that is also coming from other sources.

For example, there were quite a few indications that DA:I was getting Multiplayer, but all the major sites seemed to avoid talking about it because (it seems to me, since they all came out with stories at the same time) they'd been told about it but the news had an embargo on it.

Now, there's not really much compelling consumer interest in hearing about DA:I multiplayer a bit earlier, and maybe leaks and speculation about a feature in a game aren't big news, so I'm not saying there's a scandal here, but it bugs me, because it feels like it's giving a bit too much control over the news to a marketing department.
 

ajr209

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Strazdas said:
See, the problems with embargo is not that they are sooner or later to launch date, its that they... exist. embargos have aboslutely no reason to exist and you SHOULD break them and EVERYONE should breka them because embargos shouldnt be a thing.
Like Jim said it's a great trick but you can only do it once. Game journalism relies on developers and publishers being willing to work with any given media outlet, remember they don't have to as there are other ways to get the word out about their game. Sure a reviewer could break the embargo BUT that dev/publisher is going to be at best reluctant to give them review copies in the future, which they need in order to get their review out in time before all the other outlets get their reviews out making the ones that come after relatively irrelevant. And when the other devs/publishers get wind of them being the kind of person who breaks agreements they're not going to want to work with them either. And there goes that persons career right down the toilet. Please understand that what you are asking for is for people to blatantly throw away their jobs just so you can get sooner the same damn info you're going to get anyway. Not saying you have to like it or not to push back against the practice I'm just saying you're not exactly being particularly reasonable about it.
 

Strazdas

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ajr209 said:
Strazdas said:
See, the problems with embargo is not that they are sooner or later to launch date, its that they... exist. embargos have aboslutely no reason to exist and you SHOULD break them and EVERYONE should breka them because embargos shouldnt be a thing.
Like Jim said it's a great trick but you can only do it once. Game journalism relies on developers and publishers being willing to work with any given media outlet, remember they don't have to as there are other ways to get the word out about their game. Sure a reviewer could break the embargo BUT that dev/publisher is going to be at best reluctant to give them review copies in the future, which they need in order to get their review out in time before all the other outlets get their reviews out making the ones that come after relatively irrelevant. And when the other devs/publishers get wind of them being the kind of person who breaks agreements they're not going to want to work with them either. And there goes that persons career right down the toilet. Please understand that what you are asking for is for people to blatantly throw away their jobs just so you can get sooner the same damn info you're going to get anyway. Not saying you have to like it or not to push back against the practice I'm just saying you're not exactly being particularly reasonable about it.
you can do it once if your alone, but if all journalists would do it together they could not really do anything about it. worst case scenario they abandon journalism completely and dont send review copies, thus loose publicity, best case scenario we actually get reviewers to review games when they want.

Its not about the info. its about the fact that gaming industry can think they can censor peoples reviews (which embargo is - censorship til certain date). and that has to go. it has to change as a culture, and no single reviewer is going to do that, for that you need them all.
 

ajr209

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Strazdas said:
ajr209 said:
Strazdas said:
See, the problems with embargo is not that they are sooner or later to launch date, its that they... exist. embargos have aboslutely no reason to exist and you SHOULD break them and EVERYONE should breka them because embargos shouldnt be a thing.
Like Jim said it's a great trick but you can only do it once. Game journalism relies on developers and publishers being willing to work with any given media outlet, remember they don't have to as there are other ways to get the word out about their game. Sure a reviewer could break the embargo BUT that dev/publisher is going to be at best reluctant to give them review copies in the future, which they need in order to get their review out in time before all the other outlets get their reviews out making the ones that come after relatively irrelevant. And when the other devs/publishers get wind of them being the kind of person who breaks agreements they're not going to want to work with them either. And there goes that persons career right down the toilet. Please understand that what you are asking for is for people to blatantly throw away their jobs just so you can get sooner the same damn info you're going to get anyway. Not saying you have to like it or not to push back against the practice I'm just saying you're not exactly being particularly reasonable about it.
you can do it once if your alone, but if all journalists would do it together they could not really do anything about it. worst case scenario they abandon journalism completely and dont send review copies, thus loose publicity, best case scenario we actually get reviewers to review games when they want.

Its not about the info. its about the fact that gaming industry can think they can censor peoples reviews (which embargo is - censorship til certain date). and that has to go. it has to change as a culture, and no single reviewer is going to do that, for that you need them all.
Well that's a bit tricky. First it would have to involve every game critic doing it all at once, which would imply they all not only know each other but know each other well enough to ask each other take a potential career ending stand and trust each other not to chicken out and leave one or two schmucks holding the bag. It would also rely entirely on every reviewer feeling so strongly about it that they are willing to lose their career over it, while many don't like embargoes I think it's safe to say that if anyone felt that strongly about them we would have seen that stand taken already. and lastly it relies entirely on the dev/publisher side of the industry buckling to the collective stand. While reviews and metacritic are an important asset to selling a game it's not the only one and at the end of the day the reviewers need the devs/publishers more than the devs/publishers need them, as has already been pointed out in this thread devs/publishers still have a product to sell without the reviewers but without that review copy the reviewers have nothing.

to sum it up great trick but without everything needed for an absolute best case scenario falling right into place you can only do it once. No offence but it's a lot more complicated than you're seemingly taking into consideration.
 

Strazdas

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ajr209 said:
Well that's a bit tricky. First it would have to involve every game critic doing it all at once, which would imply they all not only know each other but know each other well enough to ask each other take a potential career ending stand and trust each other not to chicken out and leave one or two schmucks holding the bag. It would also rely entirely on every reviewer feeling so strongly about it that they are willing to lose their career over it, while many don't like embargoes I think it's safe to say that if anyone felt that strongly about them we would have seen that stand taken already. and lastly it relies entirely on the dev/publisher side of the industry buckling to the collective stand. While reviews and metacritic are an important asset to selling a game it's not the only one and at the end of the day the reviewers need the devs/publishers more than the devs/publishers need them, as has already been pointed out in this thread devs/publishers still have a product to sell without the reviewers but without that review copy the reviewers have nothing.

to sum it up great trick but without everything needed for an absolute best case scenario falling right into place you can only do it once. No offence but it's a lot more complicated than you're seemingly taking into consideration.
its only tricky when it means taking a stand for the betterment of industry. they seen to have aboslutely no problem doing so when its a suicidal jab at its audience (cough, gamers are dead, cough). Also you dont need a coloboration of everyone. just all the majors that has 90% of the traffic anyway.

as far as publishers buckling, if everyone took a stand it wouldnt be a choice. they cannot afford to loose coverage of their games. you cant live off core gamers, as proven by Nintendos latests failure.
 

ajr209

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Strazdas said:
ajr209 said:
Well that's a bit tricky. First it would have to involve every game critic doing it all at once, which would imply they all not only know each other but know each other well enough to ask each other take a potential career ending stand and trust each other not to chicken out and leave one or two schmucks holding the bag. It would also rely entirely on every reviewer feeling so strongly about it that they are willing to lose their career over it, while many don't like embargoes I think it's safe to say that if anyone felt that strongly about them we would have seen that stand taken already. and lastly it relies entirely on the dev/publisher side of the industry buckling to the collective stand. While reviews and metacritic are an important asset to selling a game it's not the only one and at the end of the day the reviewers need the devs/publishers more than the devs/publishers need them, as has already been pointed out in this thread devs/publishers still have a product to sell without the reviewers but without that review copy the reviewers have nothing.

to sum it up great trick but without everything needed for an absolute best case scenario falling right into place you can only do it once. No offence but it's a lot more complicated than you're seemingly taking into consideration.
its only tricky when it means taking a stand for the betterment of industry. they seen to have aboslutely no problem doing so when its a suicidal jab at its audience (cough, gamers are dead, cough). Also you dont need a coloboration of everyone. just all the majors that has 90% of the traffic anyway.

as far as publishers buckling, if everyone took a stand it wouldnt be a choice. they cannot afford to loose coverage of their games. you cant live off core gamers, as proven by Nintendos latests failure.
That's a misrepresentation of the situation since a lot of that didn't come from game journalists but rather from guys like moviebob who already think gamers are scum and just wanted something that could be seen as a valid reason to openly say it. What did come from game journalists happened as a result of people seeing themselves, their friends, and their coworkers being lambasted over every perceived slight and seeing people run out of the industry on a rail over what in any other form of journalism would be non-issues. It was a massively poor handling of things and chances are the right thing to do would have been to simply ignore it till it inevitably went away rather than lash out the way they did but it wasn't the "derp imma piss on ma readers cuz lol" a lot of people like to make it out to be. And that's about all I'm willing to say on the matter.

Okay now that that mess is out of the way back to what we were talking about originally.

The gaming media doesn't have anywhere near as much power in the industry as you think. Take nintendo for example. In the lead up to the Wii U gaming sites and the handful of gaming mags that were still in print were all over it. They went into detail about what it was, what it would be capable of, what games it would have. Nearly two years later and sales are rather tepid. Why? well the "casual gamer" (AKA where the real money in the industry almost always comes from) doesn't really visit gaming news sites. So a lot of them didn't even know the thing existed and some who did didn't know what the hell it was, I remember being behind a lady a a game store who was saying to a friend that she wanted to get it but wasn't willing to run the risk that it was nothing more than a really expensive controller. Games media was all over the Wii U and it didn't help nintendo very much. My point is that the game media are not the end all be all of the industry, an industry btw that is finding alternative outlets like youtubers can be more effective, and game critics and journalists aren't on sure enough footing to be making any demands. Sure there's a chance they might make headway if the stand together, which I already pointed out the problems with that, but it's just as likely the devs/publishers would tell them that if the don't play ball they don't get anything from them. The devs/publishers would simply move on to other form of advertising but without the content provided by the devs/publishers game sites like this one would dry up and go away.
 

TheUnbeholden

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MoltenSilver said:
While I do understand the points made in the video I think the title could use a bit of tweaking:

"Review Embargoes: Why The Alternative Is (Probably) Even Worse"
I agree, and I see no reason why Embargo's can't be lifted a day before release. Otherwise it just seems suspicious to me. People won't forget about the game in one day, people will still be talking about it and its hardly "rushing things" after weeks or months of play time.
 
Aug 28, 2014
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Darth_Payn said:
At the end there, with Jim looking around for the fly he thought he saw, that may have been an excuse for Jim to show off his good side.
He does have a good profile, doesn't he? He should use that Inspiring Dictator pose more often.

In terms of visual perfection, the only thing that is missing now is for Jim to get anti-reflexive coating on his red sunglasses.

Silentpony said:
Not to bring #GamerGate into this, because Jim doesn't want to comment on that anymore, but doesn't the idea you're offering Jim kinda' reinforce what the protesters mean? The gist of embargoes, as I understood it, was 'trust us, we're not corrupt' and that's about it. I mean yes you did say no favors for reviews, but again, we're only taking your word for it. Now I do trust YOU specifically not to, but the industry as a whole? Are we supposed to look at the obvious backdoor dealing here, review copies, free games/consoles, private time with producers, etc...and just shrug and say 'doh well, that's how it goes."
Isn't the whole idea of 'self-regulating journalism' one of the problems the #GamerGate crowd is pushing against?
Yeah but what are you going to do about it? In this specific case, the publisher/developer's PR department makes the decision, not the reviewers. The reviewer can make a choice in this situation as much as any person on the wrong end of the barrel of a gun.


themilo504 said:
01.24 I?m very disappointed Jim, Guo Jia is a much better strategist than Zhuge Liang, his death is pretty much the only thing stopping cao cao from taking over china, and his weapon is a cue stick that shoots magic pool balls at enemies. #I stand with Guo Jia
HERESY!!!

Lightknight said:
... I'm not going to lie, it's really comforting to have good ol' Jim back and not harassed-by-gamergate-stuff Jim like we had for the past couple weeks.
Please refrain from commenting about things you clearly do not understand.


Fappy said:
Solaire of Astora said:
I definitely understand that, but the fact that publishers and developers have so much influence just gets under my skin a little. Maybe too much, I admit.
Unfortunately publishers/developers have absolutely no obligation to provide any early access to anyone if they don't want to. If the press wants in on the action they will have to play ball. I don't like it either, but short of choosing not to play ball with them (and sending them a message in doing so) there's nothing that can be done about it.
Do you think that if reviewers can outright refuse to review games whose review conditions are not optimal?

For an instance, say "BC Games" wants you to review it's game "UFO: Cosmosoldiers" and will send you a copy a week before the release date and embargo your review for the release date, to help their market campaign.

Now, a week to review a game is usually not enough time. How many times we have seen Yahtzee say that he could only play less than 10 hours of a video game because he has a weekly release schedule to follow? We know for a fact that certain games like Final Fantasy XIII require at least 13 hours of gameplay for the game to kick into full speed.

In this case, could reviews just state that they it will require a full month for their release to be ready, and instead of rushing to deliver the review as soon as possible, just simply take their time and release the review almost a month after the release date?

grimner said:
So in that sense, yes, this should be the sort of thing that hastage was about. These issues are longstanding and have been denounced by a lot of industry "figureheads". Erik Kain mentioned it 2 years ago in the wake of Doritosgate, Jim has pointed out various attempts from devs to manipulate (both legally and otherwise) the scores, and Eurogamer has had a longstanding policy of disclosing whenever reviews are done in the sort of "friendly events" controlled by the publishers.
From my understanding review scores are a legacy from Video Game Magazines, back when you had a limited space to write about the game and couldn't expatiate too much. Here in my home country we had entire reviews done in half a page for most games, and a two-page (or one page) for bigger titles, so the review scores helped to convey a what the reviewer thought about the game, usually divided between Graphics, Sound, Gameplay etc and a final score.

Right now I think people gotta ditch not only review scores but the entire review model.

Currently there's one guy speaking about the game just like old times, and his opinion is the opinion of the institution reviewing the game, but there's many other things that can be done to play around with the concept. You can break the review in parts (plot, mechanics, sound etc) to have more in-depth opinions about the game, and they don't necessarily have to be done by the same person. You can even get one specific segment of the review where all the people involved in reviewing the game have a brief discussion about their opinions, so the consumer have more context to understand the review and what goes through the mind of those reviewers. You can even include a let's play as part of your review. It's the equivalent of ditching the two-page format review and launching a ten page review and a walkthrough.

But these are just ideas from the top of my head, I'm sure if you bash smarter brains around reengineering the review format you'll get something better. But the thing I want to point out is that everybody seems to notice that there's something icky about review quality right now and nobody seems to be able to point it out exactly what it is or how to make it better.

kaocrat said:
There are a lot of things which should become standard practice across the board in terms of the formatting of game reviews. Somewhere near the top of the article there should be a section which discloses the hardware the game was reviewed on and maybe the circumstances in which it was reviewed (i.e. if it was reviewed at a "Review event" vs at the office vs at the reviewer's home). It might even make sense to disclose what kind of display is being used (this will become more important in the future as games add support for 3d displays, head mounted displays, etc). I would also like to know whether or not a review copy of the game is being played with or without all of the day-1-DLC unlocked. I know some sites do some of these things sometimes, but I would really like to see it as a consistent standard because it would go a long way towards making good use of the review.

Other things which should be reported in *every* review, either as part of a checklist on the sidebar or in the body of the review:

? How the save system works
? How the DRM works
? Whether or not cutscenes can be skipped
? Whether or not cutscenes can be paused
? Whether or not cutscenes can be replayed
? Which difficulty settings are available at start, and which must be unlocked
? Any gifts the reviewer received from the publisher

If a games review site were to consistently implement these standards into their reviews, they could break all the embargoes they want to and get blacklisted by every publisher, and it wouldn't matter, because I would always wait for their review to come out before buying any game.
Great points, mate. I don't think that these need to become a standard into every single reviewer, but nobody ever points to these things unless they are such a problem that they stand out. Save systems are especially interesting because they are a big part of the punishment-reward mechanics.

And yeah, disclosing gifts received with the review copy. This should have gone without saying, but nobody ever discloses this. They don't necessarily mean that the reviewer will be influenced by their value, but I'm damn sure going to get more in the "mood" for a game if I get the game with collector's edition stuff instead of just getting a square plastic box with a disc inside.
 

bojac6

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Thanatos2k said:
bojac6 said:
Or the consumer could refuse to pre-order anything until the first reviews come out. That'd put market pressure on the problem.

...also I'm really enjoying playing Destiny, but that's neither here nor there. It reminds me of college when we'd co-op Halo all the time.
Hey, *I* don't preorder anymore. But publishers have countered this by locking content out UNLESS you preorder, which is a despicable practice of its own.
I absolutely agree that it's a bad practice. And I too no longer preorder either.

But it sucks, because the only way to fight it is to not preorder, and eventually publishers will realize we care more about not getting screwed with a preorder than the additional content. Unfortunately, so many people would rather have that bonus dungeon or extra skin and preorder.

So the solution is to just play Minecraft, because it's a small, independent gaming company with a good game that will never sell out and start.... oh
 

Aristatide

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Silentpony said:
Maybe? I dunno...wasn't there a problem with the review copies of Watch_Dogs running better than the commercial copies? I mean if I was making a game, I'd make damn sure the critics got a better copy of the game than the standard one.
This doesn't even track logically. If you can fix the errors in the "reviewer copy" you can easily fix it in release. The code would be the same across the board for any given platform. This isn't like sending out a better physical copy of, like, a handbag. You'd have to be sending along a whole different set of hardware for this idea to work.


balladbird said:
themilo504 said:
01.24 I?m very disappointed Jim, Guo Jia is a much better strategist than Zhuge Liang, his death is pretty much the only thing stopping cao cao from taking over china, and his weapon is a cue stick that shoots magic pool balls at enemies. #I stand with Guo Jia
Fie to you, dog of Cao-Wei! everyone knows the true force to be reckoned with was the team of Sun Ce and Zhou Yu! Had the former not died young, the era of three kingdoms would have been skipped in its entirety! #wupride
You're all ignoring the real issue, which is that Zhuge Liang had the best portrayal in John Woo's Chi Bi/Red Cliff, making him the superior strategist. Although Zhou Yu was by no means shabby in that, so I embrace my fellow fan who prefers Wu as we sneer at the forces of Wei. #turtle power

(Oh lord, let someone get that hashtag joke.)
 

RolandOfGilead

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It was nice to see some Section 8 footage, although I got confused when I saw a Forge Gun being fired (that's from Dust 514).
Oh man, if Section 8 or its sequel had had the forge gun, that would have bee awesome.
 

Lightknight

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AlexKerscher said:
Lightknight said:
... I'm not going to lie, it's really comforting to have good ol' Jim back and not harassed-by-gamergate-stuff Jim like we had for the past couple weeks.
Please refrain from commenting about things you clearly do not understand.
Maybe you can take your own advice and mind your own business instead of mine next time, eh? Without any sort of elaboration on what you mean or where you think my understanding is lacking then your post is pure personal attack and no content.
 

Shuu

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Jim, mate, you got some stubble going on. It looks good on you man.

As for jetting reviewers away to fairy land and pampering them in a nice hotel room for a better review, I've always imagined how much fun it would be to take all that, as they give it to you, enjoy it, have a nice time, and then shit in on their game right in front of them should it deserve it. Oho! I'm not falling for your game publishers! Thanks for all the cheesecake and wine though, still not sure what I did to earn it, mind;D