No, it's not. I know who Harry Knowles is.

This is like comparing People and Us Weekly to Pauline Kael or David Denby. Do you see those people in Metacritic? No. Aintitcoolnews, UsWeekly and People are considered fluff.

Here's the problem: the fluff peddlers and the respected critics are the same people in the gaming industry. It's seriously as if E! News was considered a legitimate voice of criticism in the movie industry. I do not consider that an exaggeration.

There are no early reviews of films, unless you mean "a few days before it comes out because of the Film Critic's screening." There is no race to get your review up weeks ahead of time: there are no "exclusive" reviews.

It's called running a monthly videogame magazine.

By putting in these restrictions they are given the choice of either reviewing a a week early and padding it or reviewing a game 3 weeks late.

Ah ha ha, what a terrible argument. Yes, because clearly those specific examples were Kasz' original point. Those examples were chosen randomly: it's like saying "the Mexican police will let you smuggle dope across the border for 5 dollars." Obviously that literal example may not be substantiated, but the clear intent of the statement is "The Mexican police are corrupt," which absolutely no one would argue with. Don't be obtuse.

The argument that "Konami didn't set scores. They just limited what you could write and when you could write it and if it was negative you couldn't release your review before the game came out" is silly. The point is obviously that Konami is behaving unethically. They refused to let critics release reviews before a specified date (June 12, 2008) if they criticized certain aspects of the game in their review. The specifics really aren't relavant when the overarching point is that journalistic ethics were violated, which they were.

And if I'm reading your second paragraph correctly, it's clear we aren't going to reach a consensus here. You think it's "not important" that game publishers are refusing to work with or send review copies to critics which give them poor reviews.

Let's phrase that another way: game publishers are putting financial pressure on game critics to give them good reviews. That is not a twisted or unfair way to state that -- that is exactly what they're doing. Not even obliquely, mind you, but directly: they are pulling advertising dollars and forcing the critics to buy their own copies of the games in question. If you do not consider that unethical, then this discussion is over.

FAil!

Find me one reviewer for the big gaming sites/magazines who say "I'm reviewing a pirated copy"

Friedman is either an idiot or completly out of touch with the movie industry if he thought mentioning in is column that reviewing a PIRATED version was ok.

hmmm and whenever I read an early review it usually starts like this "Today, we we're invited by (insert developer) in their hometown to try out the latest blah blah blah"

I don't ever remember me personally endorsing early reviews.

If a review comes a month earlier than everyone else, it just seems illegitimate.

Well, it is not a right for magazine companies to get early copies of games.  It is by the good graces of game companies to send them early copies.  If the magazine actually cared about reviewing the game, they would purchase the game upon release and put the review in the magazine.  Why would game companies waste money on sending them a game that they know will probably lose them money in the long run.  That makes absolutely no sense.

 It's pretty clear you didn't read the rest of the thread, Gebx. I was discussing the consumer response, not the producer's.

Not sure what your point in this whole thread is.  You say that people do not praise early reviews of movies and I clearly showed you a place where people go to in droves to get the latest info and impressions of the upcoming movies.  There are tons of early reviews on that site.

Your problem, is that you think some people have more important opinions than others.  I find several of the reviewers on AintItCool to be fantastic and most "serious" movie critics to be absolute poshes.

Because it's part of journalistic ethical codes? That's why. That's the end of the discussion. Because it's considered wrong.

Why is it not okay for a company to rescind on contracts already agreed upon? Obviously, it's in their favor to rescind on a contractual obligation if it includes, oh, losing hundreds of millions of dollars. That makes absolutely no sense, why would they do that!

Because they agreed to do it in a contract, and breaking that contract is unethical.

It's like you don't even see that journalistic ethics exist.