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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Former IGN Employee Admits Review Scores Are Skewed Due to Public Relations

DanneSandin on 24 October 2012
binary solo said:
DanneSandin said:
Game journalists aren't journalists: they are gamers! I've been saying this quite some time now. AND they are biased AND corrupt

?

I think the word you're looking for, in this context, is corrupt; unless you don't have the stones to call it what it is.

This site's been accused of the same. It's a major problem when you have publications that are highly reliant for revenue on advertising the products they are reviewing.

The reviews that are more likely to be a true reflection of the reviewer's opinion are those found in publications that rely very little, or none, on gaming industry advertising revenue, like general news websites that have a resident game reviewer. Like the Sydney Morning Herald. Doesn't mean their opinions are any good, but just less likely to have been bought

There, I fixed it ;) There is so much wrong with gaming journalism as it is today it's hard to pinpoint the just one thing...



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

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Kantor on 24 October 2012
binary solo said:
DanneSandin said:
Game journalists aren't journalists: they are gamers! I've been saying this quite some time now. AND they are biased!

?

I think the word you're looking for, in this context, is corrupt; unless you don't have the stones to call it what it is.

This site's been accused of the same. It's a major problem when you have publications that are highly reliant for revenue on advertising the products they are reviewing.

The reviews that are more likely to be a true reflection of the reviewer's opinion are those found in publications that rely very little, or none, on gaming industry advertising revenue, like general news websites that have a resident game reviewer. Like the Sydney Morning Herald. Doesn't mean their opinions are any good, but just less likely to have been bought

Unfortunately, quite often the "resident gamer" either isn't a gamer at all or, since he's the only reviewer, has no interest at all in the genre he's reviewing, so the review is poorly written and unreliable.



(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective

Porcupine_I on 24 October 2012

Reviews aside, but has anyone ever seen a negative preview of a game? i sure don't remember any.



“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

- George Orwell, ‘1984’

GameOver22 on 24 October 2012
Porcupine_I said:
Reviews aside, but has anyone ever seen a negative preview of a game? i sure don't remember any.

This was one of my first thoughts as well. If you want to argue about suspicious coverage of games, you are much better off referencing previews rather than reviews. They are almost always excessively positive, even when they end up giving the games below average scores.



Alphachris on 24 October 2012

And with this system the credibility of site like Metacritics is also deconstructed. I have lost faith in reviews this generation anyway. In former days, where I had to pay for my magazine, I liked the review system and I seldom had a bad buy.

The internet was somehow the death of quality journalism. The reviewers were no longer independant as the sites need the advertising revenue.



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selnor on 24 October 2012
Kantor said:
I don't really understand this.

We get a fair few review copies, and I swear on my life that not once have I EVER been asked to inflate my review score by anyone. Hell, Naughty Bear was a review copy and I gave that a 3.3. Nobody cared.

Maybe with the big sites, but I don't understand why some people would get unconditional review copies (like us) and others would get them with strings attached. I can perhaps buy that the "world exclusive" reviews are vetted to ensure that they are nice to the game, but think about it: if just one site doesn't want to play ball, it just releases a story saying that the company tried to moneyhat a review, and bam, PR disaster.

Look at what happened with Duke Nukem Forever. The PR guy said they would be reconsidering review copies in future based on some of the reviews, and he was promptly fired.

There is a certain amount of goodwill that you feel towards a company who has given you a free game, but that's all there is to it.

Without being to disrespectful.

VGC isnt even on metacritic. Now IGN probably have 1000% more readers if not more per review than VGC. 

IGN giving a good score will likely result in their score being on the cover of the actual game. VGC giving a good score might be something great to 100 people.

You really cant compare VGC to IGN even Gametrailers.



Kantor on 24 October 2012
Porcupine_I said:
Reviews aside, but has anyone ever seen a negative preview of a game? i sure don't remember any.

Preview builds deliberately show off the best part of the game, and when a game is in the early stages of development you can be a lot more forgiving of bugs.



(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective

Kantor on 24 October 2012
selnor said:
Kantor said:
I don't really understand this.

We get a fair few review copies, and I swear on my life that not once have I EVER been asked to inflate my review score by anyone. Hell, Naughty Bear was a review copy and I gave that a 3.3. Nobody cared.

Maybe with the big sites, but I don't understand why some people would get unconditional review copies (like us) and others would get them with strings attached. I can perhaps buy that the "world exclusive" reviews are vetted to ensure that they are nice to the game, but think about it: if just one site doesn't want to play ball, it just releases a story saying that the company tried to moneyhat a review, and bam, PR disaster.

Look at what happened with Duke Nukem Forever. The PR guy said they would be reconsidering review copies in future based on some of the reviews, and he was promptly fired.

There is a certain amount of goodwill that you feel towards a company who has given you a free game, but that's all there is to it.

Without being to disrespectful.

VGC isnt even on metacritic. Now IGN probably have 1000% more readers if not more per review than VGC. 

IGN giving a good score will likely result in their score being on the cover of the actual game. VGC giving a good score might be something great to 100 people.

You really cant compare VGC to IGN even Gametrailers.

Then why give us review copies at all? It makes no sense.



(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective

selnor on 24 October 2012
Kantor said:
selnor said:
Kantor said:
I don't really understand this.

We get a fair few review copies, and I swear on my life that not once have I EVER been asked to inflate my review score by anyone. Hell, Naughty Bear was a review copy and I gave that a 3.3. Nobody cared.

Maybe with the big sites, but I don't understand why some people would get unconditional review copies (like us) and others would get them with strings attached. I can perhaps buy that the "world exclusive" reviews are vetted to ensure that they are nice to the game, but think about it: if just one site doesn't want to play ball, it just releases a story saying that the company tried to moneyhat a review, and bam, PR disaster.

Look at what happened with Duke Nukem Forever. The PR guy said they would be reconsidering review copies in future based on some of the reviews, and he was promptly fired.

There is a certain amount of goodwill that you feel towards a company who has given you a free game, but that's all there is to it.

Without being to disrespectful.

VGC isnt even on metacritic. Now IGN probably have 1000% more readers if not more per review than VGC. 

IGN giving a good score will likely result in their score being on the cover of the actual game. VGC giving a good score might be something great to 100 people.

You really cant compare VGC to IGN even Gametrailers.

Then why give us review copies at all? It makes no sense.


Who knows. But if reviews here were getting 10's of thousands of hits ten maybe youd be offered some cash. IGN and Gamespot for example have full apps on Xbox 360 now. And Mobile apps among others. VGC hasnt got any apps. And runns really poorly on alot of browsers. Especially mobile browsers.



sales2099 on 24 October 2012

Well, if the site has no advertising of the game being reviewed, there's a good chance its gonna be a fair one.



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