Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[ChristofferC]

Georgie isn't wrong when he says the industry sees a 70 as shit. Whether that is right or not is of course another question, but he's right about the perception.

All numbers at the end of reviews are stupid anyway.

Maybe I am the crazy one, but just seeing a score of 70-79 for a game used to be enough to encourage me to check a review for a game and subsequently buy it if the review was enticing (eg. Bloodlines, Tropico,.etc). Back when I was 12, I used to check gaming sites every day. So pretty much all new releases tended to get scores in 50s or 60s. Seeing a 70-ish score made me think, "OK, so this game must really stand out."

It's also a matter of which editorial staff. In early 2000s Gamespot, the PlayStation would largely be distinct from the PC staff. While the Playstation staff typically gave inflated ratings - 10/10 to games they liked, 9/10 when indifferent, and 8/10 when they didn't like the game ( ) - the PC staff did not. Scoring above 9.0 happened about two or three times a year. So 7-pointers and 8-pointers were really the gems for which you had to hunt.

And I think it differed by genre as well. The people assigned for adventure game reviews were the harshest critics of adventure games, for some reason. An adventure game lucky enough to score 6/10 was established as an above average adventure game. A shame, because it COULD give the impression that all adventure games were worse than shooters, since an average shooter could at least hope to score a 7 or 8.

Basically, despite not even being an mega-oldfag like George Broussard, somehow I remember it was not that long ago that a 7 or 8 would be a good rating. Anybody else?

Yeah. In my younger days, in the magazine I was buying at the time, it was like this
90+ = must buy
80-90 = great, awesome, but missing something to be a 90+
70-80 = pretty good, but a bit unpolished or lacks in something
60-70 = only for the fans of the genre
else = shit.

Sounds like Swedish PC Gamer.

 

[Phelot]

Once again, Bungie remains supreme!

I'd like to imagine they're watching this debacle, laughing gleefully, while working on a new Myth/Marathon/PiD game (but momentarily pausing to rub the faded Microsoft logo branded into their neck and glance out the window just in case).

Actually, according to their new deal with Activision, they needed to complete Halo 4 and have apparently been working on a new Marathon! I'm a bit worried about that, but who knows...

EDIT: Sorry, I meant their "Destiny" game they have with Activision.

 

[Wyrmlord]

60-70 = only for the fans of the genre
else = shit.

There have been games rated below 60 that the reviewer did not dismiss as shit.

Their low rating really just implied: "This is really not for most people, but there definitely might be someone who would really like it."

For example, Outcry (Russia) and Perry Rhodan Adventures (Germany).

http://asia.gamespot.com/outcry-mysterious-machine/ Going by the 4/10 rating, you might reckon it's a game considered not worth playing. If you read the review, it actually sounds pretty interesting. It's just that the game has very difficult, very obscure puzzles meant for the most determined and persistent adventure gamer. Since it is not for most adventure gamers, it got a 4/10. However, it was not given 1/10 or 2/10 or 3/10, because there is something actually worthwhile in a game.

http://asia.gamespot.com/the-immortals-of-terra-a-perry-rhodan-adventure/ Again, this game is praised for amazing art style, amazing voice acting, and the depth of mystery and problem-solving required to uncover the conspiracy. Sounds like the perfect adventure game. But it got a 5.5/10, because it was, like Outcry, extremely difficult.

There seem to be a lot of gems of gaming in the 4/10 to 6/10 category, and they only got badly reviewed for being too niche. So even then, it's not a complete dismissal of the game.

 

[SCO]

Look at some era reviews of KGB, another extremely difficult game

http://www.amigareviews.leveluphost.com/kgb.htm - range 81-90%

It's interesting to see the decline of reviewers in action too.

 

[Dexter]

Kotaku apparently finally did their article: http://kotaku.com/5957810/the-conte...e-gaming-press-and-why-theyre-sometimes-wrong
http://www.incgamers.com/2012/11/th...ing-the-flames-of-change-in-games-journalism/
Jim Sterling on The Escapist again: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6485-In-the-Hall-of-the-Mountain-Dew

 

[RK47]

....sad. I really cant see why Mtn Dew is the choice of beverage for gaming though. I always preferred red bull.

 

[Ulminati]

....sad. I really cant see why Mtn Dew is the choice of beverage for gaming though. I always preferred red bull.

Cafe noir, espresso roast, no milk, no sugar.

Fuck carbonated shit. I want to taste my caffeine.

 

[RK47]

....sad. I really cant see why Mtn Dew is the choice of beverage for gaming though. I always preferred red bull.

Cafe noir, espresso roast, no milk, no sugar.

Fuck carbonated shit. I want to taste my caffeine.

So I hear you eat activated almonds.

 

[DraQ]

An example of monocle rating system:
http://www.unrealsp.org/community/reviews.html

....sad. I really cant see why Mtn Dew is the choice of beverage for gaming though. I always preferred red bull.

Cafe noir, espresso roast, no milk, no sugar.

Fuck carbonated shit. I want to taste my caffeine.

*sips tea*

 

[felipepepe]

Kotaku apparently finally did their article: http://kotaku.com/5957810/the-conte...e-gaming-press-and-why-theyre-sometimes-wrong

Gerstmann: "If anyone seriously thinks that sending out, like, some pathetic, usually broken statue for an upcoming game sways an editor, they need to get their head examined."

Yeah, you'll just take it home, post some pics on twitter about it and write in your blog that is your favorite part about being a game journalist... no swaying.

His implication is that the press operates in fear of losing access to publishers. That may be true for some. It's not true here, but it doesn't make the issue irrelevant. It's the smaller sites that can get pushed around, a former gaming PR rep told me.

"Some freelancers or bloggers from smaller sites who are not used to getting attention from publishers may be swayed however." But from the bigger outlets? "I have to say that everyone I worked with from the major outlets always always acted beyond reproach. I think it helps that these outlets mostly have an internal code of conduct/editorial policy that was crystal clear when it came to what could and could not be done.

Bloody small websites, it's obviously all their fault!

Walker: "Where once [expertise] was desired, it's now considered arrogant oppression. So when a review disagrees with a reader's strong opinion, it's much more satisfying to conclude the discrepancy is the result of corruption."

Oh yeah, the glorious expertise in all those "10/10 GOTY, no flaws whatsoever"; or extremely researched "Best 100 RPG's of All Time" that doesn't even mention Arcanum or TOEE... such experts.

He's also right that access might dry up for some outlets that piss off publishers. But not for us, not across the board. Kotaku's continued ability to get access to Activision, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft and other company's games prior to release is at least proof that an outlet can happily break news, upend marketing plans, out secrets, infuriate those and other rich companies and live to report another day.

Kotaku, the bastion of true gaming journalism!

Wainwright: "I suggested it was libel and that I'd seek advice and Eurogamer spoke to their lawyers who suggested they take it down. This was again a mistake on my behalf and I'm deeply sorry."

"Suggest it was libel"

Oh man, SO MUCH STONEWALLING! What a retarded article, they just go to Gerstmann, turn him into a avatar of ethics because of the Gamespot inciddent and have him deny everything. Then they say big websites are too big to fail, blame it all on small websites, point out that there is PR in other industries too (so either everyone is corrupted or no one is corrupted), and then even manage to cover up for Wainwright...

 

[Infinitron]

I find the Kotaku article morbidly fascinating. It's really quite interesting as an exercise in contortionism. So I give them props for that.

 

[Telengard]

....sad. I really cant see why Mtn Dew is the choice of beverage for gaming though. I always preferred red bull.

Dew XP. A seerius gaymer has a bunch of dew xp all lined up before launch, ready to rank them up faster than anyone else, so that they can dominate!

 

[Dexter]

Kotaku, the bastion of true gaming journalism!

http://soundcloud.com/ben-kuchera/jaffe-confrontation

 

[Angthoron]

I am not clicking on Shittaku links, but I do like the hedging "sometimes" in its apologist title. This is Kotaku, which usually makes broad sweeps of bullshit without knowing what hedging means? "Sometimes" indeed.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

This week's Jimquisition is fueled by Mounting Dudes. O_O

Mounting Jews?

The blindness might be due to something else than the sugar water
Doridos?
That too.

 

[felipepepe]

Kotaku, the bastion of true gaming journalism!

http://soundcloud.com/ben-kuchera/jaffe-confrontation

That's supposed to defend then? Guy makes a joke, fame-hunting journalist makes whole scandal of misogyny out of it. We don't need ANOTHER turbo-feminist white knight, especially if that's the only thing they are willing to do some actual investigation on...

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

His implication is that the press operates in fear of losing access to publishers. That may be true for some. It's not true here, but it doesn't make the issue irrelevant. It's the smaller sites that can get pushed around, a former gaming PR rep told me.

"Some freelancers or bloggers from smaller sites who are not used to getting attention from publishers may be swayed however." But from the bigger outlets? "I have to say that everyone I worked with from the major outlets always always acted beyond reproach. I think it helps that these outlets mostly have an internal code of conduct/editorial policy that was crystal clear when it came to what could and could not be done.

Walker: "Where once [expertise] was desired, it's now considered arrogant oppression. So when a review disagrees with a reader's strong opinion, it's much more satisfying to conclude the discrepancy is the result of corruption."

Oh wow, is this some kind of well-executed attempt at making them look even more spastic or is this shit serious?

 

[grotsnik]

Yeah, the Kotaku editorial was only ever going to go that way. Totilo may have graduated from undisguised scorn to teeth-gritted half-disguised scorn after the people at Neogaf called him out on it, but since then he's made it pretty clear that while he would address the scandal, he was damn well going to conclude that almost everything was fine, and that it was especially fine at Kotaku, where their uniformly high standards of journalism deserve to get more attention. Gerstmann, on his part, has been saying from the start that 1) he's had this discussion before and he doesn't see the point any more because some people will 'always' accuse you of being corrupt, and that 2) he thinks the whole uproar is about journalists accepting free pens with their review copies and laymen just don't appreciate that these pens are actually an awful millstone around his neck, a tedious and terrible burden, because, you see, his desk's all cluttered up with pens.

The direct quotes are interesting, though. Walker's shocked me, honestly. I know he isn't popular here, but I'd have thought he'd have a bit more nous than to make the earnest argument that in these troubled modern times, plebs don't respect the expertise of the critical gatekeepers any more and seek to tear them down from their plinths by making accusations driven by schadenfreude and envy and that's why people are saying these things about the whole of games journalism.

 

[Gord]

So basically they are still stuck with "Some others might be misconducting, but we are different. Even though we receive the exact same benefits from the publishers as every other games journalist, we actually know better than to be influenced by that (or even be as much as troubled by the fact)"?

 

[felipepepe]

Yup, the exact group people that are being called corrupts are just quoting thenselves as not being corrupted, and that's it. Circular logic at it's best.

More over, all the swag they get is not reduced to broken statues; never mind those trips, hotels, food, in-game references and advertising money, they don't even acknoledge the existence of those. And yeah, people are angry they gave Halo 4 a 9.5, so next time the sheer pressure of the audience will make they give 10/10 to Halo 5... right.

 

[Weierstraß]

The day I find a "games journalist" with some expertise I'll gladly subscribe to whatever magazine of website they write for.

 

[DraQ]

Kotaku

Subhuman scum, every last one of them.

 

[Misconnected]

The direct quotes are interesting, though. Walker's shocked me, honestly. I know he isn't popular here, but I'd have thought he'd have a bit more nous than to make the earnest argument that in these troubled modern times, plebs don't respect the expertise of the critical gatekeepers any more and seek to tear them down from their plinths by making accusations driven by schadenfreude and envy and that's why people are saying these things about the whole of games journalism.

Though they tend to overlap, there's basically two types of reviews:

One kind tries to help potential costumers, by providing them with the best and most thorough information possible about the potential purchase. Ideally that requires both extensive personal experience with the product, as well as expert insight into the product. You don't need to be the world champion of StarCraft 2 to write this sort of review of it, but you need to have beaten the campaign, you need at least a few dozen online matches under your belt, and if that's all you can manage yourself, you need to consult and be able to accurately facilitate the opinions and impressions of people who're good at that game, the original game, and who have extensive experience with the genre.

The other kind of review is the critical opinion. All that really requires, is expertise on the subject of the critique. If you have extensive personal experience with the evolution of storytelling in RTS games over the last couple of decades, you have some basis for writing a critique of StarCraft 2's storytelling. If you've sunk a year or more of your life in actual hours into beating the snot out of people online in RTS multiplayer and you're a high ranked StarCraft 2 player, you have some basis for writing a critique of its multiplayer. The crucial difference between a customer oriented reviewer's skill set and a critic's, is that the critic has to be a genuine expert and not just good at facilitating the expertise of others.

Reading Walker's unreasoning is shocking as fuck not so much because his own damn site has never even once run a proper review (hell, I doubt RPS has ever even linked to one). It's shocking as fuck because I know from message boards that the man actually has read (or claim to have read) at least 1 proper consumer oriented review and multiple proper game critiques. So how can he possibly be so absurdly deluded about the weight and worth of his own expertise and that of virtually all of his peers? It's like a fail-plosion of the purest fucking igno-arrogance.

It's like me loudly proclaiming in the mass media that the world should take my opinions of high energy physics really fucking seriously & stuffs, because I know for a fact that high energy physicists exist and that I most definitely am not one of them. Sense? It doesn't fucking make any.

...

That bit of outstanding idiocy fits right in with the rest of the piece, however. It's basically one massively verbose self-congratulation.

"We're game journalists and we all agree we're fucking wonderful, man!"

But they all did get one thing a tiny bit right: I am going to be occasionally jealous of the lot of them. Not because I honestly want to earn my living through some combination of relentless denial of reality and equally relentless inflation of my own ego. In the long run I imagine that sort of thing would be a fate worse than death. But some days, like this day, it would indeed be lovely.

 

[Vendigroth]

So did that Wainwright chick ever resurface?

Yes, but apparently a group of beach goers pushed her back into the tide.

 

[SCO]

Remember, the important part is that Halo 4 is a emotional, beautiful look at Master Chief's struggles in war.