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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why is it legal to set rules for people to review your product?

rocketpig on 02 June 2008
Words Of Wisdom said:
Hapimeses said:
In short: the intellectual property (IP) used in the review is privately owned. If you want review code early -- i.e.: you want access to their privately owned IP before the rest of the market -- you may be requested to sign the equivalent of an non-disclosure agreement, limiting your ability to freely talk about their IP. However, once that IP is released freely on the market, such limitations come to an end for obvious reasons.

So, if you want a review potentially filled with spoliers, or discussing aspects of the game that the publisher does not wished to be discussed, wait until after the game has had its official release.

That's about it. Nothing especially sinister, although it does pass control to the IP owners rather than the reviewers. And given most reviewers want their reviews out early, they sometimes have to sacrfice their free speech in the short term to achieve this.

This is the big catch.

Reviewers aren't entitled to early copies of anything. Those copies are provided by developers/publishers at their discretion. If the reviewer wants an early copy of a game, they must abide by the stipulations of the provider. It's essentially a contract between reviewers and providers.

It serves both parties too. Providers can dictate terms of the review and reviewers can get reviews out before their competition.


I'm sorry but that is sleazy. The idea that a reviewer has to jump through a company's hoops to get an early shot at reviewing a game is wrong. It puts all the control in the publisher's hands and turns the publications into whores for a scoop.

This industry would better itself if every publication gave a big "FUCK YOU" to the publishers and held out until a game's release to review the final product, no strings attached.

After all, I don't see Columbia blackballing Peter Travers from early screenings for fear that he might slam their latest piece of shit movie and they certainly do not tell him what he can or cannot say in his review. They invite him and hope for the best. That puts the power in the reviewers' hands and that's where it should be. After all, he/she is the one who the public turns to for an honest view of a movie/book/videogame.




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akuma587 on 02 June 2008

This happens a lot more often than you think, especially with big name games. There are usually all kinds of blackout dates for when reviewers can post their reviews, sometimes which are very sensitive to the actual review score itself. Although explicit taboo topics usually aren't imposed on reviewers, I bet it happens fairly often with games such as Halo, MGS, Final Fantasy, or any of the really big franchises.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

Ail on 02 June 2008

Pretty much every time a company gets their hands on software that is not released to the public they have to sign a contract specifying what they can and can not do about it, said contract can limit what they can say about it too.

This is general to the software industry and not specific to gaming at all...



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PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

Ssyn on 02 June 2008

I'm pretty sure the "review rules" are just certain restrictions that the company would rather not be mentioned or centered on in the review. However even if they don't mention it; that doesn't mean they are bound to not lower or higher the score due to said aspect. As for MGS4 if reviewers mentioned it a lot of people might wanna say OMG NO GAMEPLAY AND ALL MOVIES... which is false in at least MGS4's case. I personally don't like the idea of rules but not much anyone can do about it because reviewing MGS4 or any other blockbuster early is bound to get you attention and for websites like IGN this = money.

Hopefully future games won't follow this, because I can see this slowly and slowly becoming worse and worse till the amount of censorship would be obvious even if they reviews didn't announce they were censored partially before they started making comments on the game.



Words Of Wisdom on 02 June 2008
rocketpig said:
Words Of Wisdom said:

This is the big catch.

Reviewers aren't entitled to early copies of anything. Those copies are provided by developers/publishers at their discretion. If the reviewer wants an early copy of a game, they must abide by the stipulations of the provider. It's essentially a contract between reviewers and providers.

It serves both parties too. Providers can dictate terms of the review and reviewers can get reviews out before their competition.


I'm sorry but that is sleazy. The idea that a reviewer has to jump through a company's hoops to get an early shot at reviewing a game is wrong. It puts all the control in the publisher's hands and turns the publications into whores for a scoop.

This industry would better itself if every publication gave a big "FUCK YOU" to the publishers and held out until a game's release to review the final product, no strings attached.

After all, I don't see Columbia blackballing Peter Travers from early screenings for fear that he might slam their latest piece of shit movie and they certainly do not tell him what he can or cannot say in his review. They invite him and hope for the best. That puts the power in the reviewers' hands and that's where it should be. After all, he/she is the one who the public turns to for an honest view of a movie/book/videogame.


You misunderstand the industry. The industry isn't working for the consumer, the industry is working for itself. Reviewers aren't in the business to make your life better despite claims to the contrary, they are in it to make money as are developers/publishers.

If both of them can make money at the same time so much the better for them and good luck getting them to change.

It is sleazy, but that's how it works. If you want to setup your own gaming website and call yourself a professional reviewer, go ahead. ^_^



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rocketpig on 02 June 2008
Words Of Wisdom said:
rocketpig said:
Words Of Wisdom said:

This is the big catch.

Reviewers aren't entitled to early copies of anything. Those copies are provided by developers/publishers at their discretion. If the reviewer wants an early copy of a game, they must abide by the stipulations of the provider. It's essentially a contract between reviewers and providers.

It serves both parties too. Providers can dictate terms of the review and reviewers can get reviews out before their competition.


I'm sorry but that is sleazy. The idea that a reviewer has to jump through a company's hoops to get an early shot at reviewing a game is wrong. It puts all the control in the publisher's hands and turns the publications into whores for a scoop.

This industry would better itself if every publication gave a big "FUCK YOU" to the publishers and held out until a game's release to review the final product, no strings attached.

After all, I don't see Columbia blackballing Peter Travers from early screenings for fear that he might slam their latest piece of shit movie and they certainly do not tell him what he can or cannot say in his review. They invite him and hope for the best. That puts the power in the reviewers' hands and that's where it should be. After all, he/she is the one who the public turns to for an honest view of a movie/book/videogame.


You misunderstand the industry. The industry is working for the consumer, the industry is working for itself. Reviewers aren't in the business to make your life better despite claims to the contrary, they are in it to make money as are developers/publishers.

If both of them can make money at the same time so much the better for them and good luck getting them to change.

It is sleazy, but that's how it works. If you want to setup your own gaming website and call yourself a professional reviewer, go ahead. ^_^


Trust me, I know how it works. Being in the advertising industry for the past seven years, I'm well versed in how to manipulate the press to achieve my goals.

That doesn't make it right and that's why I have respect for EGM saying "fuck off" to Konami's demands. God knows I've had enough magazines do that to me over the years and in the end, those magazines always end up being my strongest relationships. You always know where you stand with them as opposed to constantly fighting other manufacturers to see who can throw the most free shit at the editor to get press coverage.

Really, defending these actions is despicable. 




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

Words Of Wisdom on 02 June 2008
rocketpig said:

Trust me, I know how it works. Being in the advertising industry for the past seven years, I'm well versed in how to manipulate the press to achieve my goals.

That doesn't make it right and that's why I have respect for EGM saying "fuck off" to Konami's demands. God knows I've had enough magazines do that to me over the years and in the end, those magazines always end up being my strongest relationships. You always know where you stand with them as opposed to constantly fighting other manufacturers to see who can throw the most free shit at the editor to get press coverage.

Really, defending these actions is despicable.


Being in the advertising industry, you should see EGM's move as a ploy to grab attention.  At a time when Gamespot's credibility is faltering, Gametrailer's credibility is faltering, and more... this is a slick move by EGM to boost their own image.

That's probably a pretty cynical way to view it, but it's likely the one closest to the truth. 



rocketpig on 02 June 2008
Words Of Wisdom said:
rocketpig said:

Trust me, I know how it works. Being in the advertising industry for the past seven years, I'm well versed in how to manipulate the press to achieve my goals.

That doesn't make it right and that's why I have respect for EGM saying "fuck off" to Konami's demands. God knows I've had enough magazines do that to me over the years and in the end, those magazines always end up being my strongest relationships. You always know where you stand with them as opposed to constantly fighting other manufacturers to see who can throw the most free shit at the editor to get press coverage.

Really, defending these actions is despicable.


Being in the advertising industry, you should see EGM's move as a ploy to grab attention. At a time when Gamespot's credibility is faltering, Gametrailer's credibility is faltering, and more... this is a slick move by EGM to boost their own image.

That's probably a pretty cynical way to view it, but it's likely the one closest to the truth.


I don't think that's the case. EGM said similar things when Ubisoft tried to pull restrictions on them and Ubi ended up pulling all advertising from the magazine for quite some time.

When it hits the bottom line (like one of the top five publishers in the world pulling adverts), you know that it stops being a ploy and turns into a real statement by the publication.

Attention is nice but it has a habit of going away very quickly. Losing tens of thousands of dollars a month doesn't compensate for a little forum talk over how "respectible" you are. 




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

naznatips on 02 June 2008
rocketpig said:
Words Of Wisdom said:
rocketpig said:

Trust me, I know how it works. Being in the advertising industry for the past seven years, I'm well versed in how to manipulate the press to achieve my goals.

That doesn't make it right and that's why I have respect for EGM saying "fuck off" to Konami's demands. God knows I've had enough magazines do that to me over the years and in the end, those magazines always end up being my strongest relationships. You always know where you stand with them as opposed to constantly fighting other manufacturers to see who can throw the most free shit at the editor to get press coverage.

Really, defending these actions is despicable.


Being in the advertising industry, you should see EGM's move as a ploy to grab attention. At a time when Gamespot's credibility is faltering, Gametrailer's credibility is faltering, and more... this is a slick move by EGM to boost their own image.

That's probably a pretty cynical way to view it, but it's likely the one closest to the truth.


I don't think that's the case. EGM said similar things when Ubisoft tried to pull restrictions on them and Ubi ended up pulling all advertising from the magazine for quite some time.

When it hits the bottom line (like one of the top five publishers in the world pulling adverts), you know that it stops being a ploy and turns into a real statement by the publication.

Attention is nice but it has a habit of going away very quickly. Losing tens of thousands of dollars a month doesn't compensate for a little forum talk over how "respectible" you are. 


I agree, EGM's move wasn't based on bringing in more advertising dollars or reader purchases.  That said, EGM has certainly had an agenda in the past.  It might not have been advertising sponsored... but they have had a goal before that's clearly effected reviews.  They seem to be doing a little better these days though...

As a side note, the only reviewers I truly trust are those who I know.  In other words, I trust our own reviews.  That's about it.  



Words Of Wisdom on 02 June 2008
rocketpig said:

I don't think that's the case. EGM said similar things when Ubisoft tried to pull restrictions on them and Ubi ended up pulling all advertising from the magazine for quite some time.

When it hits the bottom line (like one of the top five publishers in the world pulling adverts), you know that it stops being a ploy and turns into a real statement by the publication.

Attention is nice but it has a habit of going away very quickly. Losing tens of thousands of dollars a month doesn't compensate for a little forum talk over how "respectible" you are.


Do you have a link for the Ubisoft incident?  I'm not aware of that (or I simply don't recall it).