Friday, November 30, 2007
It's All A Coincidence!
A reviewer writes a less-than-stellar review of the big Christmas release of a major publisher... and major advertiser of the game review site.
He's subsequently fired, and later many of the ads and branding for the game are pulled from the site.
An editor subsequently resigns. Maybe.
I'm sure it's all just a coincidence.
Or not, if Penny Arcade nails it.
Either way - perception is reality in these things. The product of game review sites is one who's value is based on trust. An erosion of that trust is a bad thing.
Thanks to Primotech, Destructoid, Kotaku, and Joystiq for the heads-up. And Brian H., who personally gave me the heads-up when I was too sleep deprived to notice anything happening beyond the odd voices in my head.
UPDATE: This "insider info" on Valleywag - if legit (and it has the appearance of being so) - is pretty damning evidence of not only what has happened, but that it is simply a symptom of the state of GameSpot and C|Net's journalist websites - if not the entire game review industry. A key excerpt:
"Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves."Scary. Of course, it could be an editor from a rival gaming site who can easily make it sound authentic and is trying to cast even more doubt on GameSpot's already questionable journalistic integrity. We'll probably never know the truth. I doubt Jeff Gerstmann even knew what hit him. (Discovered via HDRLying. )
Labels: Mainstream Games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:10 AM (Permalink)
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This is the modern corporate world.
It spins faster and faster and everything gets more expensive - the consequence is that less and less people take risks anymore.
"Problematic" or "unprofessional" people get fired because they hurt ad sales.
The more fundamentalistic the reviewer gets the more unfit he is for the job it seems - at least with the big commercial sites (or magazines) out there.
This is why the big sites usually suck. Big time.
Just like the news corporations around the globe - their only interest is to keep the system running to get profit.
They don't investigate and they don't report - they put out paid-for opinion pieces.
Even the most integer editors and reporters out there do this - just because they were chosen to do the job.
If they don't "do their job" as their superiors define it - going all the way up to the people who want to please the shareholders - they get replaced.
It's as simple as that.
So what choices does the public have?
None. Most people doesn't care anyway. They don't read reviews. They buy things like the Matrix games or Driver 3.
Politically they vote for one of the two leading political parties because of tradition or sympathy (this is pretty much identical in all western countries) - with no system-changing results.
The few, better informed people read from many sources (not only blogs or forums - viral marketing...), try things themselves and most importantly develop some "mad skills" in recognizing quality.
take care,
Calibrator
It spins faster and faster and everything gets more expensive - the consequence is that less and less people take risks anymore.
"Problematic" or "unprofessional" people get fired because they hurt ad sales.
The more fundamentalistic the reviewer gets the more unfit he is for the job it seems - at least with the big commercial sites (or magazines) out there.
This is why the big sites usually suck. Big time.
Just like the news corporations around the globe - their only interest is to keep the system running to get profit.
They don't investigate and they don't report - they put out paid-for opinion pieces.
Even the most integer editors and reporters out there do this - just because they were chosen to do the job.
If they don't "do their job" as their superiors define it - going all the way up to the people who want to please the shareholders - they get replaced.
It's as simple as that.
So what choices does the public have?
None. Most people doesn't care anyway. They don't read reviews. They buy things like the Matrix games or Driver 3.
Politically they vote for one of the two leading political parties because of tradition or sympathy (this is pretty much identical in all western countries) - with no system-changing results.
The few, better informed people read from many sources (not only blogs or forums - viral marketing...), try things themselves and most importantly develop some "mad skills" in recognizing quality.
take care,
Calibrator
# posted by 
: December 02, 2007 2:03 AM
: December 02, 2007 2:03 AM
Well, that's how Ain't It Cool News got its start. I've not checked it out in a while, so I don't know if it's changed much now that it's gotten all successful and everything.
I think this little crisis was something that has been coming for a long time. Hopefully it'll shake things up a little bit throughout the industry, really. I don't expect it to hurt Gamespot much, other than allowing the competition an opening.
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I think this little crisis was something that has been coming for a long time. Hopefully it'll shake things up a little bit throughout the industry, really. I don't expect it to hurt Gamespot much, other than allowing the competition an opening.
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