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
Then my brain went to ignore-mode.
Obviously 10+ perfect scores from big-time reviewers must mean SOMETHING
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.
I have every respect for games reviewers, but when you get paid to review games, and when the sites or magazines you are reviewing games for are heavily dependent upon advertising money, there is...pressure. Certainly, no game reviewer wants to rate a game higher than it deserves, and I'm not saying the game is any worse than they say, but personally, I'd rather hear the opinions of people who have absolutely nothing to lose if their opinion isn't popular.
I might even disagree with them, I've bought a few games and they've turned out to be much better than other people claimed, but at least I feel like I'm getting the whole picture. A reviewer might say that a game has a few 'annoying' buglets, whereas, in my experience, 'Game crippling' would be more of an accurate depiction, both Gothic 3 and X3 at release come to mind in that respect (though both were, in all fairness, patched moderately swiftly), so getting the whole picture is sometimes very important.
Eventually other people will get their hands on it and review it regardless of what a publisher wants or thinks. Eventually the truth will come out, no matter how much a publisher is willing to pay to hide it. If you're dubious, then just wait. If you're going to be sucked in by the first review, chances are you were sucked in already.
If you have a problem with exclusive reviews, your ethics are in the right place, but your logic isnt.
Hence, I tend not to trust IGN's reviews anymore. I don't trust Gamespot's reviews as much as I used to do. Greg's Kasavin's reviews seemed to be very good & honest as did Jeff Gerstmann's. However, both of these now have left Gamespot...
These days, I tend to rely much more on my fellow gamers' reviews of the games I want to play, be it adventure, rpg, or even fps games.
Bad example dude, it isn't that uncommon for good games on the consoles to have crappy PC ports, The reason? controls the PC may have a shit load of more buttons but the layout of a keyboard means that it will be awkward at best and unplayable at worst, one prime example is DMC3 Special Edition the controls just didn't work on the PC. just because it has the same name doesn't make it the same game, is my philosophy when it comes to PC ports, with the possible exeption of FPS's