A week ago, Gamespot blasts VG in their "press spotting" segment. This week, they DEFEND INADIQUATE REVIEWS!

 http://www.gamespot.com/pages/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26483753

My reply:

pencilpusher69 

"I don't tell readers when I don't finish a game," freelancer Rowe said. "I know it might sound shady, but I guarantee that it's standard practice. If every reviewer started listing play-times in reviews, readers would start flocking to whichever publication has the highest completion ratio, as opposed to the most worthwhile opinions."

Why would somebody who puts in less time toward playing a game, think that their opinion is greater than that of those who've spent more time playing the same game?

This is exactly why many like myself believe that Wii games score lower on this site. Remember your Excite Truck review??? I believe it was called a "bare bones demo", and you could TELL the reviewer hadn't unlocked jack, or ____. Said reviewer went on complaining about how LITTLE was in this game, and it was clear he hadn't played through ANY of it.

Here's a neat concept: If game reviewers are too overwhelmed by games stacking up, give those projects to OTHER reviewers. Since each review is a seperate job, it wont cost one dime more.

And then we can have THOROUGH reviews.

This is part of the problem as to why the video game media are looked at as a joke. Can you imagine an incomplete book review? What about a critic who didn't feel like sitting through that whole 3 hour fantasy adventure, and so chose to review it based on the hour that he or she saw?

Please, excuses are excuses, and this is mega-weak."

Ah Gamespot, you used to be kind of...okay...

Gamefly and forums make reviews irrelevant.

I suppose that's true. I've never tried them, though.

I've always been one of those who has to read at least several reviews before I try anything out, just to see if there are consistancies. Of course, after the GTA 4 reviews, and the "wall of awesome" that it produced, I don't know if reading multiple reviews will really help these days.

You are not right. Playing all games thoroughly would mean they have to hire more reviewers, meaning costs rise for the review site.

Other than that, I agree. They need to review games as thoroughly as necessary to score them. Anubis II would need not a lot of play time, whereas Mario Kart Wii would need that.

 Well, I assume each individual review is an individual job, and many reviewers are not on staff, they are independant contractors. Assuming that, each job=(x) dollars. Each critic, according to this guy, is trying to take as many of those reviews as they can, so they can get those (x) dollars for each review. It's just like working at a local newspaper, many of the stories aren't written by staff writers, they're contracted writers, and photographers.

So, assuming they're working with contracted workers, giving 2 games to one reviewer will cost the same as giving 1 game to one reviewer, and another to a second.

Oh, and I could be mistaken about how this all works.  But I'm pretty sure that's how it is... :)

I thought it was quite normal that reviewers didn't finished all their games.

Most of the time when they get a game to review they have two days to play it and put up a review (deadline) for games like GEOW, Halo, COD4 it is quite easy to do but for games like GTA IV, Saints Row, Oblivion, JRPG's it is just impossible;..

 Exactly they have the 2 or 3 on staff overworked (? playing videogames) because it cheaper.

Under that assumption you are right.

How are the guys at IGN being paid? As contractors? As regular employees? Also, if they need longer for a certain job, the contractors might ask for more money to make enough for a living...

 It pretty much has been that way, since the days of the PS1 and N64. Before that, most games could be beaten in non-ridicoulous amounts of time, so it was likely less of an issue up through the days of the SNES, Genesis, and Neo Geo.

We all know this happens a lot, it's just unfortunate. And I can't help but feel that this story is there to try and cushion Gamespot on their downward spiral. (We're all familiar with their trustworthy reviews of late!)