So here is something that I have noticed for a couple of years now that I have never really seen discussed and I would like to get your guys opinion on this phenomenom.

The 4 sites that I go to for anything game related "well most things that is" is     IGN.com    1up.com     Gamespot.com    and of course vgchartz.com

I have noticed for atleast a couple years now that ign.com is ALMOST ALWAYS the first person to rate a game. I have started wondering if the other sites wait for ign to rate a game before they realease there own rating to make sure that they are in the ballpark of ign's rating. I have seen quite a few articles that point to ign being pretty much the main source in video gaming news, videos, ratings, etc...

So the question here is do u think that the other sites are just slower or taking there precious time with rating games OR do u think they wait until after ign.com rates a game to put theres out cause they dont want to say something is a 9.0 when ign says its a 7.0? Am I wrong or do u just wish I was wrong? LOL

Thoughts?

well atleast VGChartz doesn't do that from personal experience, we just don't get the review copies early so we couldn't be as fast as IGN to review things even though we'd like ti.

I think they are slower for a number of reasons(like recieving review copies later), but I wouldn't be surprised if several sites changed their reviews a bit to fit better with IGN's.

I knew the review copies on the popular games would be a little bit of the difference but it seems like its that way on all games pretty much.

I honestly believe that sites do wait till they see what IGN has to say, wich is obviously a very bad thing for the whole rating system as a whole...

Not really. I mean what sites try to do is lock exclusives. Lilke any site would like to get the very first Gears of War 2 review because it'll drive traffic to their site.
IGN probably just locks down more exclusive than othe site which is why their reviews are first.

Plus the most recent incident where youd be wrong is Sonic RPG. IGN gave it a 6 and 1up gave it an A. They review games differently I doubt they try to follow another

I personally like EGM the best, then I look at metacritic, the best thing to do is READ the entire review. I have seen the number a 6 and read the review and they didnt like some small part so you fond out the most reading not just the numbers

Lol Gamespot definitely doesn't give a damn what IGN says. Tools of Destruction anybody?
(7.5 on gamespot, 9.4 on IGN)

No GameSpot claims 'We prefer to spend a long time writing accurate reviews than a short time writing inaccurate ones'

Yeah, there are two problems with this:
1) 1/10 GameSpot reviews are remotely accurate
2) IGN reviews are extremely accurate.

If anything, they wait for the IGN review and make sure they have a lower score. Anything IGN says is bad gets 2 paragraphs, anything they say is good gets a sentence if even a mention.

Journalists are lazy and video game journalists probably loathe the effort required to write 1000 words every few days.
Why else do you think GTA4, SMG, etc get the same reviews? It's coz they are lazy and they copy ideas from each other

Was there not a group of sites that had one person review the game then they all just used that review to write their own. I think it was a bunch of the sites that gave MGS4 an 8/10.

i like how lazy devs, and reviewers, are the trouble with this generation, simply amazing they all gave up aparently after making a killing last gen. the must not like money anymore