I hear about paid reviews all the time, but sometimes, I wonder in each particular case whether a reviewer was paid off, or if they are just easily pleased. I was wondering, is there any, beyond reasonable doubt, instances of a paid review? No, I'm not doubting they exist, I'm just looking for examples is all.
Paid reviews
- Thread starter Buccura
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Look up the case of Kayne and Lynch with gamespot I think it was. That's a very famous case where gamespot were paid, the reviewer gave a bad review and got fired.
I doubt that any magazine would actually admit that they where paid off, i think the best evidence you can get is when a site or magazine has tons of adds for a particular game and then give it the highest score possible or if they get a exclusive chance to play the game before it comes out, of cause they can still do this without getting bribed, sometimes the game is just that good, though it can still look suspicious.
A very easy example would be the escapist, for awhile i have only seen dragon age 2 adds on here and according to metacritic they are the only ones who have given it a perfect score.
p.s. I'm not saying that the escapist was paid off.
A very easy example would be the escapist, for awhile i have only seen dragon age 2 adds on here and according to metacritic they are the only ones who have given it a perfect score.
p.s. I'm not saying that the escapist was paid off.
The review has been taken down from Metacritic by the looks of it. THE PLOT THICKENS!Swaki said:
I seriously doubt the 'Pist were paid off. The do very honest reviews and prob just loved the game.
The biggest risk gamemags face have is not getting their review done in time, if they don't get a review copy, before the game is on the shelves, so they get fewer views than competing mags.
Then there's also the possibility of losing the advertising money if a publisher is angry with them and that money is keeping them afloat.
So more a case of conflicting interests, rather then outright bribery usually.
Because of that I trust user reviews more than gamespy, ign, etc. Then I trust their scores even less than what they actually write about a game (which may be far more negative than the score; recent example of this is DA2: many big scores, but average descriptions inside).
Only Destructoid is sometimes honest and a low score on there is a reasonable indication for me.
Other 'official' scores are worthless. Low average user scores are only a warning. To get more out of reviews you have to find reviewers who have similar tastes as you.
Then there's also the possibility of losing the advertising money if a publisher is angry with them and that money is keeping them afloat.
So more a case of conflicting interests, rather then outright bribery usually.
Because of that I trust user reviews more than gamespy, ign, etc. Then I trust their scores even less than what they actually write about a game (which may be far more negative than the score; recent example of this is DA2: many big scores, but average descriptions inside).
Only Destructoid is sometimes honest and a low score on there is a reasonable indication for me.
Other 'official' scores are worthless. Low average user scores are only a warning. To get more out of reviews you have to find reviewers who have similar tastes as you.
Not much point talking about the specifics of this sort of thing on a game forum. If you do then the viral marketers or whatever will be all over it like flies on shit doing damage control. But in general the games sites live or die based on access to the big publishers and their advertising so it's in their interests to have a happy relationship.
The review is still there.MiracleOfSound said:
I'm not sure what sort of rational is behind scores most of the time, and so I try not to out and out question ethics. But it does bother me when a score seems inflated or deflated in general. The thing that really gets me is why metacritic would use The Escapist's reviews at all. A score based rating is really only meaningful when rated out of a higher number like 100, which the Escapist clearly doesn't do. The bottom score, a single star, would be interpreted as 20% on metacritic, when The Escapist defines it as: 'no redeeming qualities'.
All in all it's rather scandalous (especially considering The Escapist's former 'no rating' policy).
I'd be of the opposite opinion to be honest, I think a 1-5 numerical value is much better than a 1-100 as it give as more general idea of how the reviewer felt about the game's quality as opposed to an exact and definitive score.arealperson said:
The only problem is when a site quotes you as 100/100 when you may have done a review that did not imply the game was 'perfect'.
Most intelligent people, however, know that a 5-star review usually just means the reviewer thought the game/movie/album in question was outstanding and great.
It's not as simple as bribery. The publications want to stay on good terms with all the various developers. If they don't the the devs won't give them news stories. For instance I believe Sony stopped giving exclusives to Kotaku because of some critisism Kotaku had of them. So basically publications have to resort to being a cheerleading squad for developers because they're counting on the developers to give them their stories.
Do you not remember the Call of Duty: Black Ops reviews? Yeah, they didn't "pay" the reviewers, they only paid for a weeks vacation, flew them around in helicopters, put them up in a 5 star resort for a week, paid for the highest price escorts in the business, bought them all military CoD style helmets with their gamer tags engraved on them (to keep) and let them "review" the game in a completely Activision controlled environment.
I'm not so sure our opinions are opposite. When I meant a larger score was more meaningful, my intent was to reflect on a purely score-based, comparison oriented perspective as is the context-case with MetaCritic. I don't really think are 1-5 based scores are more meaningful... but they do work on a more short-term and intimate relation; They operate in a recommend/don't recommend fashion, rather than an objective analysis. As to what the terms are in a objective analysis and what is the right way, I'm not prepared to go on a limb, but I do believe they can be done. The most important analysis is always a personal one, of course.MiracleOfSound said:
I'll also agree that the perception of perfection can really be too overbearing for any work, but that the feeling should not be ignored, when one can point to no single flaw having the ability to detract from an experience.
Perhaps the use of the word scandal targets The Escapist a bit too much, but I find it very odd that they are one of so few to have their score abused in this way. It's probably a case of The Escapist being too popular for its own good, but in light of this, I wish they would retract their scores or get in touch with metacritic to prevent this.
Yeah I think we're thinking along the same lines. Metacritic's system is fundamentally flawed anyway due to its huge basis on numerical scores, a general reaction score (general acclaim/middling/poor) would seem like a better idea to me, though then I suppose you're getting into the semantics of how to classify each area and that might prove too controversial.arealperson said:
I'm going to stop thinking about it now as it's too early and it's making my brain hurt
