April 28, 2008 -
Ben Fritz (left), who writes The Cut Scene blog for Variety, questions the journalistic ethics underlying exclusive game reviews.At the center of Fritz's concern is IGN's recent perfect score for Grand Theft Auto IV. Fritz writes:
I'm not at all accusing IGN of being dishonest in this particular case... HOWEVER... what the hell is with the concept of an "exclusive review?" Is anyone else as troubled by this entire concept as I am?
...being the first outlet to review a highly anticipated new videogame is a big deal. It means a major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales. ...But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor -- one that's worth money -- from the publisher of the game?
You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an "exclusive review." Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their "exclusive review of 'Iron Man.'" Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?
Via: That Videogame Blog
UPDATE: IGN responds in an interview on Game Daily. Xbox Editor Hilary Goldstein said:
My problem with online journalism in general is that nobody does their due diligence. Nobody from Variety called us and said, "Hey, would you like to comment about this?" ...A lot of people didn't get the game early. So if Variety didn't get the game early then you're looking at somebody, I don't know, who had a grudge on his shoulder because he didn't even have the game yet and we'd already put out the review.
I just wish people would call. We had so many people writing comments about us and not a single person contacted us. Not Kotaku. Not Variety. Nobody called. They just all made assumptions. And of course we gave it a 10. But so did everyone else.
Comments
hfHxZObvnSABi
There are better reviewers out there - ZeroPunctuation comes to mind.
It’s not really a question of being right or wrong in their reviews to be honest, it’s being objective when it is what you do for a living.
EXACTLY!
That is 100% perfect what i was trying to say :)
the whole point of this article isnt so ppl can go 'oh well GTa MAY be that good duh!'. Yes it may, but there are far too many games that receive reviews not based on teh quality of the game but based on the quality of te freebiews / ad revenue they get. Its a sad but true fact that myself (as a game dev) know only too well about.
A game should earn its review PURELY on its gameplay, not even 1% due to ad money or whatever. ITs just wrong.
But what I am sure is that GTA IV deserve this score.
I trust some reviews. For print magazines, it's important to get games to review early so that they can have content for their magazine. IGN, however, doesn't have that excuse.
This sounds some what similar to what the Source did with Benzino. Or FOX news not having any problems with 20 century Fox new release and so forth.
It's because IGN's target market is the internet where the amount of content is not limited by time and space thus putting up words like "Exclusive" just makes the story more interesting.
Then again, he forget to mention all the celeb tv shows like "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood" who have "Exclusive" interviews with celebs and reviews of movies and events involving well known celebs.
However, I do agree that, in practice, this "exclusive review" system is rotten and can (and probably has) cause problems with unfair rating.
I usualy just read the review and ignore the number in the corner.
I find it a little ironic.
Hope Fritz doesn't read his employer's website.
P.S. I don't know if that was a comment or a rant but you all caught my drift.
That is paid advertising though, not supposed neutral-source reviews of the product in question. I think that the article writer is correct... Roger Ebert doesn't get exclusive reviews of movies... why? Because it makes no sense from multiple standpoints. The whole exclusive thing just means that the video game company can "sweeten the deal" to make the review be biased a bit more favorably to them... not saying it necessarily will happen, just that it can happen, while if multiple different sources can review the item in question, then the consumer is better informed about the product. "Exclusivity" is basically another word for propaganda.
While in general exclusive reviews may seem bad they're a moot point. Five minutes after the exclusivity period is up everybody has posted their reviews. Not to mention the fact that these "exclusive firsts" are usually only done for highly anticipated titles, which makes their reviews not all that surprising when they do come out.
In the end, they're really no different than reporters getting exclusive interviews for a story.
I believe they've defended themselves as legitimate critics.
It's not a moot point that someone gets an exclusive review if you realize that a few hours is enough to drive additiional traffic to the site enough to enhance its normal figures for advertising sales. In essence, these 'exclusive' official rights given to a website or magazine publication for review comes with strings attached. If a publication receives exclusive rights and then torpedoes the game...this can happen:
http://gamepolitics.com/2008/01/09/editor-upset-with-coverage-gamecos-cu...
So, I would say that IGN has been indiscreet, and it is a concern for anyone who gives a crap about standards and integrity anymore in whatever venue.
http://nsidernews.com/mario-galaxy-review-is-the-worse-experience/
What gamers take Variety reviews seriously anyways?
a sad fact i learned when becoming a dev.. :(
Welcome to the internet where you can find pretty much anything for free from numerous resources.
The ratings scale seems to be from 7 to 10 rather than 0 to 10, largely because of developers driving it with ad money on review sites and giving exclusive reviews to only favorable reviewers.
Considering past performance, I would believe GTA Rockstar is capable of making a 10 game, and I would not expect GTA to drop below 80% on any scale, so this may not be the example to use. There are plenty of others out there though.
I totally agree. It's shady. But then, so is IGN. As a reader, as soon as you hear "exclusive review" you should be thinking "not going to read it".
It's always about money and site traffic/readership. The only difference is that a lot of times the film industry doesn't use the moniker "exclusive."
One should be wary of any pre-release review not only due to the publishers and developers controlling who gets the reviews, but also because content changes.
Variety is just as bad with their movie reviews though. It is sad when a comedic newspaper like The Onion is actually a better source of media reviews than a movie specific source.
Did fansites like GTAGaming, GTA Planet and others pay or give favors to gain exclusive screenshots? I would argue no.
Can someone tell me how long Variety has kept a gaming section? I'd suggest that maybe this guy is new, but I down want to put him down in such a way if he's been there a while...
To me, this whole thing is similar to seeing three movie trailers in a row that claim to be the "Best Movie of the Year" by critics. They've gotta have a hook, and the phrase "exclusive" is one of them.
I was just thinking about someone saying 7-10 scale. Not true, if they pay for ad space it's more like 8-10, if they don't it's more like 1-7.
Companies that review games do get advanced copies. Granted a lot of the reviews these days are very slanted.
No, they will just cut and paste the same review and score, substituting PS3 for Xbox 360 (or vice versa).
Second of all, that was the major warning that the authors of "Paid to Play" mentioned in their Journalism chapter. Game companies know you'd love that trip to the Bahamas to try out the latest FPS. They know you may need a new 360 in order to review Halo 3, so they send that Special Limited Edition.
Rockstar knew that IGN would love to boost their traffic (which has been dwindling lately). Nuff Said.
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Papa Midnight
You think Take 2 would lock them in a hotel to play the game just for these folks to give them a bad score?
I'm still buying it at midnight.