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naznatips on 29 November 2007
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ItsaMii said:
Saiyar said:
ItsaMii said:
He will not be missed. I just hope this event affects GS credibility. They usually review great games slighter below the average score, hyped great games much below average and crappy games advertised on their site a lot above the average.

If the reason for his sacking was the review then Gamespot's credibilty is now gone. The worrying thing is that you have to wonder how many other sites are in a similar position to them.


 Probably all of them. On TV you just sell your time and companies try to sell you their stuff. On game media things are a little more promiscous. Reviews and previews are a big part of these sites. A lot of games (dumb people IM O) make their decisions based on reviews and hype. Publishers waste a shitload of money on advertisement and they expect this to pay off. What would happen if a game site rated one of these games very low? The answer is pretty obvious.

Let me quote Sean Malstrom:

 

"It is very curious as the gamers would like more information and less hype. Yet, all we get is hype. What is going on? Why are the customers not being served?

The answer is because the reader is not the customer. Rather, the customer is the PRODUCT. The customers are the game companies. They put in the ads and supply the content. The purpose of a game magazine is not to deliver news to you. Rather, the purpose is to deliver you to the game companies".


Interesting quote.  So this begs the question:  Is there any value to reviews at all?  I've always said there was value to the content, but not the score.  However, if review sites are all truly influenced by their advertisers, is the content of a review reliable either?  

Personally, I often find the content of reviews useful from IGN and Gametrailers, but not the scores.  For recent examples:  Gametrailers reviewed AC and Bleach Wii recently.  They blasted both repeatedly in their review for some major gameplay issues, but gave AC a 9.1 and Bleach Wii an 8.6.  They certainly don't have Bleach advertisements on the site, so I don't think that affected the score, but I think scores by their very nature are not accurate.  It's hard to accurately place a value on the content of a game when different issues mean different things to different people (See: Twesterm's Mass Effect review).