Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[Average Manatee]

We reserve every right to delete comments that aren't helpful or on-topic

The question is to whom the comments need to be helpful. The answer is obvious.

 

[LundB]

The Limey is an unfairly forgotten movie. Just throwing that out there.

I feel more sorry for people who go on a trip and then spend their time in a hotel room. Who needs anything more than a bed?

I choose the rooms myself.

Even if you spend the vast majority of the day elsewhere, it's nice to have at least a small kitchen, and on longer business trips, a bit of space. If you deliberately choose ultra-budget rooms, your comment that the room's still damn fancy for a business trip doesn't stand up, since you're intentionally putting yourself outside the norm. It doesn't matter what people need or not, just what is the general standard. But whatever, the relevant thing isn't the fanciness or lack thereof, it's who's paying for it. The fact that it's games PR people is incredibly fucked up.

Update from polygon:

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We're closing this thread for now and will reconsider opening it later.

Funniest part is that they changed the article picture too. It used to be a huge Pizza Hut contest advertisement, but they switched it to some Halo 4 promotional shot.

 

[felipepepe]

From their own public Ethics Statement:

Our policies do not permit placements of advertorial on Polygon. We will endeavor to clearly mark any advertisement or "infomercial" (videos, Flash animations, etc.) shown on Polygon as an advertisemen.

Way to go Polygon, you're such a sold bitch you couldn't even keep up the farce in such a dangerous week...

 

[Average Manatee]

Even if you spend the vast majority of the day elsewhere, it's nice to have at least a small kitchen, and on longer business trips, a bit of space. If you deliberately choose ultra-budget rooms, your comment that the room's still damn fancy for a business trip doesn't stand up, since you're intentionally putting yourself outside the norm. It doesn't matter what people need or not, just what is the general standard. But whatever, the relevant thing isn't the fanciness or lack thereof, it's who's paying for it. The fact that it's games PR people is incredibly fucked up.

For "game journalists" "the norm" is those expensive suites that were listed before. So "the norm" is in fact completely irrelevant. The bottom line is that if you are doing something on someone else's dollar you have the responsibility to do it as cheaply as is reasonably possible.

 

[DalekFlay]

Polygon - a new era in games PR.

 

[Turjan]

That's the thing: the internet is killing journalism, and rightfully so. Every event on earth can now have everyone participate as a live witness. No need to rely on anyone for the facts. As far as opinions and analysis, there's no shortage of those; all it takes is a very minimal effort to find the people whose opinions and analyses you respect and follow them. The entire media industry is choking to death on a series of tubes; why would journalism be spared?

I'm not really sharing your optimism here. The internet can be used as well for misinformation as for real infos. It often just has the air of objectivity, but I have seen too much bogus stuff out there to really trust myself to be able to distinguish the real stuff from the fake in all instances.

 

[Turjan]

The picture on the main page is one of their King suites, she was staying in a Queen suite, which looks like this: http://www.hardrockhotel.com/las-vegas-hotel/suite-tower/supreme-city-view-queens-suite

Not really that fancy, especially for a business trip. Their 'Living Art Ultra Lounge' on the other hand, is quite nice indeed.

However, ANY room is too much for a PR firm to pay for if a journalist's impartiality is to remain unquestioned. It should be paid for by one's own company, or out of pocket. Journalism is not like other industries, where such things are more acceptable.

The rooms I stay in when on business trips have a bed and an old tube televison on a desk. This is still pretty damn fancy. If the "journalist" is so economically impoverished that they can't afford to make the trip themselves they should be getting a room 1/5th the size.

You have to understand the economics of the situation here. Getting a very nice room in Las Vegas sometimes during the week is extremely cheap. Cheap flights are also easy to get. The hotels there want you to spend your money in the casinos, so everything else surrounding those casinos (rooms, flights, decent food) gets thrown at you for mere pennies.

 

[Melan]

I'm not really sharing your optimism here. The internet can be used as well for misinformation as for real infos. It often just has the air of objectivity, but I have seen too much bogus stuff out there to really trust myself to be able to distinguish the real stuff from the fake in all instances.

That's a good point, but things are even worse. The way the Internet is "free" poses a huge problem for quality journalism. Running an independent journal that puts an effort into its reporting costs money from personnel to legal fees. The more of that money comes from YOU, the reader, the more important your rights and interests as a consumer are to the news. This is what made print journalism work for a while, since although it had advertising, it was mostly financed by the reading public.

Online journalism is different. It is "free" in the sense that it costs you nothing, and someone else is paying for it. But that means two things. First, most of the content is really low-grade, bottom of the barrel stuff. Second, the more of the money financing your games journal comes from advertisements placed by the companies making the products being reviewed... yeah, there should be no surprise you get what you paid for.

Not strictly about journalism, but topical:

 

[Machocruz]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-30-assassins-creed-3-review

Spends a healthy amount of text talking about the various shortcomings. 9/10, obviously

Change is coming

 

[tuluse]

Change is coming

Gaming journalism, game journalism never changes.

The end of honest reporting happened pretty much as we had predicted.

Too many fanboys, not enough goodie bags to go around. The details are trivial and pointless.

The reasons as always, purely human ones.

 

[felipepepe]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-30-assassins-creed-3-review

Spends a healthy amount of text talking about the various shortcomings. 9/10, obviously

Change is coming

Wow, the whole review is basically bashing the game, I would espect a 6/10 if I didn't know better...

 

[Kosmonaut]

This really really highlights how publishers only care for the scores, and don't even are too much worried about the written text.

 

[Infinitron]

DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS

9/10

 

[Jick Magger]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-30-assassins-creed-3-review

Spends a healthy amount of text talking about the various shortcomings. 9/10, obviously

Change is coming

Where the fuck do they hire these people? Newgrounds?

 

[Telengard]

Movie reviewing has the same sort of free trips/early viewing/swag/PR stunts. It's also got its own scandal gems, sometimes even with the same players involved as the games industry. Hi Sony.

David Manning
No matter how bad the movies of Columbia Pictures were, there was always one reviewer sure to heap praise on them — David Manning of the Ridgefield Press. For instance, while other reviewers skewered Hollow Man, Manning declared it, "One helluva scary ride! The summer's best special effects." The sophomoric comedy The Animal impressed him as "another winner," and he singled out Heath Ledger of A Knight's Tale as "this year's hottest new star." These comments all appeared prominently in print ads for these films.

David Manning's rave reviews might have gone forever unnoticed. After all, few people pay much attention to the hyperbolic comments that grace most movie ads. However, during the course of investigating the journalistic subworld of movie junkets, Newsweek Reporter John Horn uncovered the curious truth behind David Manning. The Ridgefield Press, a small weekly newspaper based in Connecticut, had never heard of the man. Nor was Manning known by any of the other reporters who frequented the junket circuit. In fact, Manning didn't exist at all. He was, Horn discovered, the fictional creation of a young marketing executive at Sony, the parent company of Columbia Pictures.

Apparently the executive, who has remained anonymous, created the Manning character around July 2000. He used the Ridgefield Press because he himself had grown up in Ridgefield. It's not clear whether others at Sony knew of the deception, or whether the executive acted alone.

John Horn exposed the reality behind David Manning in an article that appeared in early June 2001. He noted that the most curious aspect of the whole affair was why Sony would have felt the need to invent movie reviews in the first place. During movie junkets, the studios pamper critics with all-expense paid weekend getaways. In return for this star treatment, many critics are happy to print whatever the studios want them to about their movies.

Sony pulled the ads, but it staunchly insisted on its right to have printed them in the first place, claiming they were a form of free speech. When filmgoers brought Sony to court over the deception, Los Angeles Justice Reuben Ortega didn't buy Sony's 'free speech' defense, claiming it was entirely frivolous. The Justice remarked that he hoped the filmgoers succeeded in their case against Sony, noting that if they did then "no longer will people be seen lurching like mindless zombies toward the movie theatre, compelled by a puff piece. What a noble and overwhelming undertaking."

Sony eventually paid a $1.5 million out-of-court settlement as well as $325,000 in fines to the state of Connecticut.

From Museum of Hoaxes.

 

[CrustyBot]

DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS DONGS

9/10

This really really highlights how publishers only care for the scores, and don't even are too much worried about the written text.

Indeed. A vapid audience only cares about the scores anyway because it's a simple "summary" with no thought or elaboration required, so why should publishers?

I mean, look at the rise of Metacritic. It's importance in video games is built entirely on the foundation of review numbers. It doesn't matter how many positive reviews or negative ones there are, or the quality of each individual piece, it's the number that counts. Even if, as in this Eurogamer case, the review doesn't match up with the score given.

Gaming journalism is retard central. People with low standards being willingly exploited by publishers with equally low standards in order to cater to an audience with the lowest standards of all.

Most critics in other mediums (book, film, etc) often work as a part of a larger organisation (newspapers) which don't rely on publishers for income and success. For gaming sites which do, it allows publishers to dictate terms and conditions for coverage and advertising. Even if they don't send out orders like "8/10 or higher", the fact that publishers dictate the time, location and scope of most VG coverage allows them to use gaming sites as little more than an extended PR branch. Let alone the goodie bags and other shit that erode the integrity of these "journalists".

The only investigative journalism being done is finding out how easy it is for game writers to be influenced by publishers. Apparently, a packet of Doritos is all it takes.

It also reduces the need for expertise and intelligence. When publishers are giving you information to feed to the public, when they are giving you hints on what to talk about, what to avoid, why the fuck would you hire people who demonstrate more knowledge than the fucking basics of English language and a desire to play games? And not even that in some cases.

Could you imagine the derision a film critic would get not understanding basic cinematic methods, like techniques regarding camera angling and lighting? The thing is, that situation is the rule, not the exception in the games industry.

There might be individuals of integrity and intelligence out there, but when the entire industry is geared towards the lowest common denominator in terms of both audience and employees, it is not hard to see that this event won't really change much without a complete destruction and reconstruction. If anything, it's highlighted how ingrained the mentality is and impossible it is to change without destroying it first. Because it's the entire industry that's corrupt, not just individuals.

It's a fucking joke.

 

[Blaine]

Where the fuck do they hire these people? Newgrounds?

That's what I'd like to know, purely for curiosity's sake. These so-called "gaming journalists" typically have a poor grasp of the English language, possess no tangible credentials in either journalism or game design, and churn out uniformly high scores for every AAA game. That said, would you hire a sous chef to slop your pigs? These no-talent hacks are the "journalists" that oblivious gamers deserve.

The state of the entire industry is absolutely disgusting. The magazines, the websites, the developers, the publishers, and the consumers are all part of it. I blame the consumers most of all, however: It is they who are unwilling to question the integrity of game reviewers and the content of the reviews, it is they who are willing to pre-order games months in advance for trivial incentives or purchase them sight unseen, and it is they who are willing to tolerate shitty game design, easily influenced into believing they're dining on caviar when in many cases they're eating cold gruel.

You've got developers and publishers rehashing garbage for morons, some no-talent hacks writing articles encouraging the morons to slurp it up, and the morons themselves blowing their 7-Eleven paychecks on said garbage, then slathering it all over their genital areas and moaning in abject ecstasy. Slightly more intelligent imbeciles make decent money off of slightly less intelligent imbeciles, while the truly intelligent people are the fat cats and top-tier businessmen making a killing from a bunch of chumps.

That's the rule of the gaming industry now, though there are a few exceptions.

 

[Dexter]

Indeed. A vapid audience only cares about the scores anyway because it's a simple "summary" with no thought or elaboration required, so why should publishers?

I mean, look at the rise of Metacritic. It's importance in video games is built entirely on the foundation of review numbers. It doesn't matter how many positive reviews or negative ones there are, or the quality of each individual piece, it's the number that counts. Even if, as in this Eurogamer case, the review doesn't match up with the score given.

It's not the numbers that are inherently at fault, portals like IMDB, AniDB, RottenTomatoes and similar are quite helpful in their entirety, if at times inflated or off for specific things. If you check the Top chances are you will find a lot of actually good movies: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

It's the industry around it that is the problem and the "8-10 scale" which is slowly becoming a "9-10 scale" and makes the grading entirely useless (the highest rated movie on the list above for instance is a 9.2).

It might be hard for some people to believe, but a lot of people don't really want to read entire dissertations before deciding on a movie or a game for the night, for instance there are games that I oftentimes know I will want without reading all that much into them and I'm seldomly wrong, other times a few video clips of the game in action can be more helpful than much else. It depends from case to case, with Reviews becoming untrustworthy I've even read less and less over the years and relied more on Info from other people that have played the games on forums, friends etc. anyway.

The magazines, the websites, the developers, the publishers, and the consumers are all part of it. I blame the consumers most of all, however: It is they who are unwilling to question the integrity of game reviewers and the content of the reviews, it is they who are willing to pre-order games months in advance for trivial incentives or purchase them sight unseen, and it is they who are willing to tolerate shitty game design, easily influenced into believing they're dining on caviar when in many cases they're eating cold gruel.

Isn't that what a rather vocal part of the "consumers" are doing right now (and have done before) or where do you think all these articles for the past few days stemmed from? Isn't that what a large part of this website and others have also been doing?

In regards to "Pre-Ordering a game months in advance", what's wrong with that if you know you'll likely buy it anyway? For instance a new Star Wars movie has just been announced, but I'm already sure as hell that I'll go see it when it releases years from now, since it's one of those "I'll have to see for myself" things. Just compare with the amount of people that couldn't even abstain from buying Diablo III in this community...

I'd also like to point you to:

and

all over this thread, who have done all that with much less information than is usually available for a "Pre-Order". And the jocks, bro-gamers and sports people that are the target audience for certain brands like Call of Duty or whatever EA Sports throws out next are so far gone that you won't get them back in any way, they don't read any of this shit, those games are probably the only ones they buy every year and nothing else.
Heck large parts of the young generation is so far removed from even rags like IGN or GameSpot that absolute idiots like this: http://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie get millions of views and they don't even have to have the seems of having any sorts of "journalistic integrity", that's where they get their "Gaming Information" from largely and all these forums around the net are likely filled with old fossils wasting their time typing text most likely. Lately companies have directly been sending swag, game copies and have also *paid* said people directly to cover their games (as Total Biscuit discussed in that video, which was posted somewhere earlier, for instance he is paid by SONY to cover Planetside 2, but at least he discloses and tries to be "professional" about it) and they aren't even doing anything "wrong" that way: http://www.needforspeed.com/news/see-most-wanted-action-machinima

Our friends at Machinima enjoyed a two-hour Most Wanted session recently: one hour of single-player gameplay followed by a one hour multiplayer sesh.

You can see the highlights right here on the blog.

We also delivered 900 copies of the game to their army of video directors. We'll be collating

So, if you want to see Most Wanted in action, in the hands of the professionals, hit the link and check these guys out:

http://www.youtube.com/mostwantedpremiere

From the NeoGAF thread:

One of these co-host on Weekend Confirmed is now revealed to work for game media outlet involved in directly giving people money from publishers to post video content. Money. Not just free games. There is nothing "shady" about this shit. It is straight up disgusting. Machinima was given both free games and monetary compensation by EA for posting early videos of Need For Speed Most Wanted.

 

[Blaine]

Isn't that what a rather vocal part of the "consumers" are doing right now (and have done before) or where do you think all these articles for the past few days stemmed from? Isn't that what a large part of this website and others have also been doing?

No, it's not what they're doing right now. What they're doing right now is reacting to a public debacle that's all over gaming news media. In less than a month, this controversy will have faded into obscurity. The mainstream gaming media will be right back to printing their disgraceful bought-and-paid-for "reviews" (not that they've paused even for a moment), the vast majority of the consumer base will continue lapping them up, and titanic development teams of 200-plus people will continue cranking out very safe and reliable by-the-numbers, mass-appeal sequels. Their PR departments will continue buttering up gaming "journalists" because these behemoth games are so expensive to develop that no one can afford to receive a bad review.

The fact that they've "done it before" (following the Gerstmann incident, for example) merely serves to drive home my point: This is a brief interlude of podium-pounding and noise-making. It will pass, and business will continue as usual.

In regards to "Pre-Ordering a game months in advance", what's wrong with that if you know you'll likely buy it anyway? For instance a new Star Wars movie has just been announced, but I'm already sure as hell that I'll go see it when it releases years from now, since it's one of those "I'll have to see for myself" things. Just compare with the amount of people that couldn't even abstain from buying Diablo III in this community...

Because if the game turns out to be shit, you've financially rewarded them for developing shit, which is bad. It's not a bad thing to pre-order occasionally, but pre-ordering has become the norm for most AAA games nowadays due to the in-game weapons, characters, maps, missions, skins, and other "incentives" universally on offer... which is done not only to encourage people to buy games new, but also to pressure them into buying games before they've read any reviews or had the opportunity to try a demo, rent it, and so on.

Of course, the fact that the reviews are bought and paid for renders the pre-order issue somewhat moot. But if the reviews were actually critical and unbiased, and if there weren't "embargoes" gagging reviewers until after a game's release, then people could find out whether a game was shit in advance and then not buy it. THAT'S WHAT A REVIEW IS MEANT TO BE. When I crack open an issue of Consumer Reports, I want to find out whether that washing machine is a piece of shit before I waste my money on it.

If people constantly buy games sight unseen and only heed payola'd reviewers, how in the fuck are they supposed to know if a game's shit before they buy it? The fact that reviews are so important proves they WANT to know they're getting a good product, but they're being cheated out of unbiased reviews.

As for Codexians sometimes being part of this group of lazy consumers, well... yeah. For one thing, I cannot personally control who registers on this site, who chooses to donate, nor can I regulate what they say or their spending habits. But for another, even bona fide hardcore olde skoolers get excited, buy into hype, hope for some INCLINE, and then blow their wad on a popamole pile of cat shit. It happens. And it's their fault that it happened, because it's up to them to question and be savvy.

 

[Vendigroth]

I remember when PC Gamer (US) packaged a demo of Ultima 9 with an issue of the magazine. I had anticipated the game a lot, though I was concerned about many aspects of it. Played it, thought hmmm, this isn't great and it runs like shit, but it's not the worst thing out there...maybe the full game will be better? I trusted gaming mags for some reason--even a lot of highly anticipated games got low scores if they were shit, and hell, most of my favorite games didn't get higher than an 85. So when I saw the new Ultima had a review that was likewise in the 80s, and found that mostly what was criticized were bugs and performance issues, I was really relieved. After I played the game, I felt stupid, remembered all the advertising the game had received in the mag, and all the coverage, too, and realized that magazines could no longer be trusted.

I am hopeful that younger generations will pay attention to this shit that's going on and have these kinds of experiences, too. Not that it will save their shittaste in games, but maybe we'll get something resembling journalism if people stop reading what's our there right now.

PC Gamer is the catalyst of my distrust in gaming reviews. Every game I loved was panned, and the "blockbusters" were almost always hype-train shit. They had the balls to give the shiftest that is Diablo 3 a 90/100 recently.

 

[Jaesun]

Current articles/videos/podcasts
Wings over Sealand (Stuart Campbell) articles (second article has early summary) 1 2 3
John Walker's (Rock Paper Shotgun) blog (start with Games Journalists, And The Perception Of Corruption, includes guest post by Rab Florence)
TotalBiscuit
Jim Sterling
Penny-Arcade 1 2
Gamasutra
Forbes
Worthplaying
GiantBomb
Jason Lauritzen editorial and GAF post
RPGCodex writes an excellent summary
Destructoid
BoingBoing
TheSixthAxis
EDGE article that was written a few weeks ago
PlayerOne Podcast
Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell (editor who edited Rab's column) about the last few days
Rock Paper Shotgun official stance
The Guardian and a funny thing related to the article
Giant Bombcast
VG247 on their new ethics statement
Video Games Interactive
Kotaku

Old (but still relevant) articles/videos/podcasts
Rab Florence (the guy who started all this) criticizing games writing since 2008
An old episode of CGW Radio discussing Gerstmann-gate
Old Gamasutra article on the influence of PR
Old GFW radio bits
1up YoursShawn Elliot and Shane Bettenhausen

Comments from the industry
Shawn Elliot - 1 (aegies is Arthur Gies of polygon.com) 2 3 4 5 6 on the psychology of PR etc
and some more Arthur Gies - 1 2 3 4 5 and some replies 1 2 3
Jeff Green on the way it actually works, and another post, an another
ShockingAlberto on his view as a former games writer
Jason Schreier (Kotaku) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 and many more
N'Gai Croal initial reaction on Twitter
Chris Schilling (freelance) likes both people involved and so doesn't want to write about it
Danny O'Dwyer (Gamespot UK) on why his site won't cover this (audience is not interested) - 1 2 3
pastapadre on being shunned by the industry
Stephen Totilo (Kotaku) doesn't think this is an important story (has changed his mind about that part, read post 9). Wants to focus on good games journalism, this prompted a pretty funny picture and a comment about it, then Stephen Totilo enters the thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 (ignore the comment on 18, couldn't find a direct link to Totilo's comment) 19
Weekend Confirmed 1 2 3
Syriel on his experiences of PR
Jeff Gerstmann short comment on swag
Christian Donlan and Simon Parkin of Eurogamer want to change how they do things[/QUOTE]
Nert on his experience as PR in the tech industry 1 2
John Walker (RPS) on why the site won't cover it (they did anyway) like his blog did
Rab Florence tweets
Jeff Gerstmann 1 (1 is from Tumblr) 2 (2 via EternalGamer, highlights some other stuff) 3 4 5 (3-5 are comments by Jeff in this thread)
Christian Spicer
MaxwellGT2000 talks about his experiences as a writer for a small site that got bigger
Dave Long 1 2

Comments from others
GillianSeed79 and firehawk12 on how journalist do criticize their peers
voodoopanda highlights that the issue is not in any way black or white
Snowden's Secret comments on gaming press reactions
Zissou weighs in

Other relevant/interesting links and examples of PR
Examples of various press kits
The 3DS comes to GiantBomb
Letter sent to reviewers from UbiSoft along with their press copy of Assassin's Creed 3
How Rockstar handled the reviews for GTA4
Battlefield 3 review questionnarie

If you wanted more info on this (taken from neoGAF).

EDIT

Just fur lulz: http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2012/10/30/halo-4-stuffed-crust-pizza-review/

 

[mikaelis]

EDIT

Just fur lulz: http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2012/10/30/halo-4-stuffed-crust-pizza-review/

Lol, a much better take on game journalism. Worth Private Eye front page.

Ahh, marketing dudes.... they never change.....

 

[Jaesun]

It was a MUCH better piece of Unboxing Journalism™ than Kotaku's article.

 

[mikaelis]

Indeed, hahaha

 

[Machocruz]

But I'm confused. Were they reviewing the pizza or the actual game?