| scruffybunny said: Why isn't anyone mentioning reviewer reputation? If someone keeps giving shitty games high scores, sooner or later people are going to piss at that reviewer. Publications have their own editorial integrity and so do journalist, they have to uphold a reputation, otherwise there will be no readers! This doesn't happen just in the gaming industry ffs. Companies try to do their best to sway opinion legally everywhere. If anything, Jeff Gerstmann was fired from gamespot for giving a sponsor's game an unflattering review (Kane and Lynch, but gamespot obviously admitted nothing). |
this too.
It's not like reviewers live behind some curtain like the titular wizard of Oz. We know who these people are and we know what their preferences are. In general, the key to using reviews is to find someone you agree with over several games and see how your opinions matched up. Once you've found that person, you can begin to build trust in them.
Additionally, it's not like: hotel room and food=high review. If there are people that do accept a bribe and decide to alter the score to appear more favorable:
a) It may not be their fault... (for example, food that increases happy mood)
b) If those journalists are caught, they and their company will lose MASSIVE amounts of trust and it will hurt their brand name. In the end, an editorial based company only has it's integrity. That integrity is worth something to consumers, which is why they use the website or donate, or buy their subscriptions.
c) You'll be hard pressed to find someone in that situation who is willing to trade their own integrity for some freebies, especially when there is no pressure to review the game favorably in the first place.
