Lately there has been a lot of controversy in the gaming media about publisher influence on gaming review scores.
While it's pretty much common knowledge that publisher advertising generates a large part of what keeps gaming magazines and websites in business, the treatment of the journalists by publishers is something that really isn't talked about much. There was recently a very interesting article on 1up about the bribes and threats experienced by the EGM team (although I can't seem to find the article now, it must have been taken down).
In Japan, it goes even further than bribes and threats. Over there, publisher-journalist review negotiation is a common practice. A publisher's influence is so great, in fact, that they get to comment on a review score prior to publication, and negotiate changes in the scores. Famitsu knows its fanbase, and caters to it. It doesn't bother giving most high-budget Square Enix games (like Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts/etc.) less than 9's, because they realize their fanbase is going to buy the game regardless of the reviews (even if the individual reviewers aren't fans of the franchises, for example). That being said, Famitsu doesn't deliberately score games lower than what the reviewers actually believe they should be scored, but high-budget advertising in the magazine tends to significantly inflate review scores. As I said, this is common practice in Japan and isn't considered immoral or corrupt. Japan lacks any kind of rental infrastructure due to laws inacted by none other than Nintendo during the NES era, and therefore gaming magazines like Famitsu carry a lot of weight as far as letting gamers know what to buy, even to this day.
Here in the US, I believe as the price of games and consoles continue to rise, the media's influence increases. Gamers are relying on reviews more than ever because of these price increases. No one wants to buy a $60 Turd (or in most cases, a $79.99 copy of Turd: The Collector's Edition - including artbook and sountrack), it makes them feel ripped off. Back in the days of the PS1 where games clocked in at $39.99, it was a little different - you could afford to gamble. You could buy TWO games for the price of Turd: The Collector's Edition.
That's why, nowadays, it's becoming even more important to publishers to create games worthy of good review scores...but more importantly, it's important for the media to maintain some form of honesty. I respect Dan "Shoe" Hsu of EGM, who not only stands firm with the review scores that the magazine gives, but called out (by name) the publishers who decided to cut off the flow of coverage to EGM due to disappointment in the review scores. For reference, those publishers are Ubisoft, Midway, and Sony Sports. Publishers, wake up. Start releasing better games and stop trying to get journalists fired for honesty. Gamers see through your crap.
Then again, publishers are as likely to stop bribing and threatening journalists as they are to stop releasing hundreds of horrible games based on movies every year... My advice to all of you: STOP BUYING THOSE, FOR THE GOOD OF ALL OF US!
K. Thx. Bai.
2 comments:
The thing about the internet is that it is the great equalizer, and it means that any hints of bias can be refuted, and the integrity nulled. Which is why it will grow increasingly hard to tell the difference. Transparency, as seen in blogs and Wikipedia, is the future. I don't believe integrity can win an online fight because the online community is a different kind of mind. I think that integrity does show, but more importantly that, as the stakes and revenues soar higher, that there is no equalizing quality control. Game reviews matter more, and yet they matter less. Maybe that's wierd, but the system needs an overhaul. Integrity is the lynchpin, but it cannot be the entire mechanism. The internet is too gratifying to dissenters for it to be that easy.
This is definitely a touchy issue lately, with such incidents as Jeff Gerstmann being fired from Gamespot/C|Net, and Ubisoft black-listing EGM.
Since you're using it as an example, let me say that I completely disagree with EGM's review(s) of Assassin's Creed. In my opinion, the game is much better than they gave it credit for, and even though I'm not typically a fan of Ubisoft, they introduced some awesome new ideas into gaming that will definitely be copied in the future. Assassin's definitely had flaws, but you can't ignore what it did right. That being said, even though I disagree with EGM's review, I'm glad to see EGM sticking by their scores in honor of their integrity. Ubisoft really only ended up making themselves look bad.
Joe Funk from EGM has a good quote that goes along with this issue, "As long as you write for the readers and not the companies, the readership will come, and the advertisers will have no choice but to advertise with you."
Which brings me to Famitsu, who state that they write for their readers. I realize that Famitsu deals with a different culture than ours, but how are they doing their fans a service by having their scores influenced by publishers? I think you let them off the hook a little too easily. If the Japanese truly don't have rental services as you say, then the gamers need to know more than we do about the quality of a game. As an example, they gave Sonic for 360 a 8/7/7/8. You know as well as I do that the game does not deserve that kind of score, no matter what culture you're from.
And then we have Gerstmann, who was fired from Gamespot/C|Net for unknown and shady reasons. I rarely ever agreed with the guy's reviews (I think his BioShock review was the only one I ever really agreed with), but when he was fired C|Net lost all credibility in my eyes. There was obviously something going on with their advertisers there, and their silence on the matter only made it worse. I may not have agreed with his reviews, but I highly respect him for not giving in to the pressure of advertisers.
Long reply, but I think it's a valid issue. It goes to show that you can't always trust a game review, no matter how high or low the game scores, not only due to the pressure of money, but also because in the end it's subjective anyway.
Thank the heavens for Gamefly!
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