The state of videogame criticism? Dead.

In just the past month and a half, we've seen EA block all Madden scores below 9.0 until after the game's release (leveraging their advertising dollars), we've seen Sony send out a "review guide" telling reviewers how to review Lair, and now review copies of Halo 3 come with a swag bag including a Halo 360 and another $300+ of gear.

EA and Microsoft's plans worked very well... Sony's not so much. Clearly Sony has never had a child. You can either make a child bend to your whim by threatening to take their allowance away if they don't obey you (like the Madden embargo), or you can bribe them with toys (like the Halo gear). You can't just give them "guidelines" for how to do something and leave it at that.

The point is, the system is broken.

Oh, and by the way, before we start, here's several things which are irrelevant. You can just ignore people when they make these arguments.

1. This is just how the industry works! Therefore, it is how it should work!

2. But it goes on in other industries too! Therefore, it is ethical!

3. Nintendo does it too, you Nintendo fanboy! (Note: I would have mentioned the rumored Metroid Prime 3 score embargo if I knew the details. Oh wait, I just did mention it.) 

Nintendo does it? Prove it.

So since you're saying we can't argue with you on your little stance, why is the system broken?

The majority of people don't care about swag bags because they don't get the swag bags. Why are you so against free stuff? Are you jealous that you can't get them?

There may be review embargoes, but they can't stop them once the game is actually released. The moment the game is released reviewers can release their reviews and people can read them. As long as I can ready my review before I buy the game I don't care when it's released. The moment the clock hits midnight on the release date (or the lockdown date whichever is first), those reviews are up and I can read them. Are you worried that you might get the rare opportunity to find the game before it's released and be without a review?

In Lair's case, the whole thing was pretty embarrassing but everyone sends out review guides. I do admit I have had a good time laughing at Lair but there's nothing wrong with developers sending out review guides. The thing about the Lair incident was that they arrived after the game was already reviewed and said to be quite bad and the fact nobody bothered to proofread the guide. So what's so wrong with trying to hype your game?

 I belive there was this one time with Donkey Konga 2 were it was obvious that Nintendo had their hand in the change. But The origina reveiw was really bad anyhow.

Anyways yeah nintendo does it , their a company looking out for #1.

The majority of people don't care about swag bags because they don't get the swag bags. Why are you so against free stuff? Are you jealous that you can't get them?

All the major reviewers get swag bags. Their purpose is to bias the reviewer to give a favorable review. Why aren't you against bribing reviewers?

Am I jealous? You're just trying to distract people now.

There may be review embargoes, but they can't stop them once the game is actually released. The moment the game is released reviewers can release their reviews and people can read them. As long as I can ready my review before I buy the game I don't care when it's released. The moment the clock hits midnight on the release date (or the lockdown date whichever is first), those reviews are up and I can read them. Are you worried that you might get the rare opportunity to find the game before it's released and be without a review?

They don't block all reviews, just reviews under a certain score. So people considering buying a game only see high review scores. Poor reviews are marked up if a site needs traffic, or are left until whatever date if it doesn't. As you can see from opening week sales of a game like Madden (or Halo), MILLIONS of people form their opinions about what to buy before the game is released. First week sales make or break Madden every year.

This particular story doesn't come from some blogger trying to take down the big press and make a name for himself. It comes from Matt Cassamassina at IGN. Heard of him?

"EA embargoed all ratings under 9"
http://gonintendo.com/?p=22818

So what's so wrong with trying to hype your game?

There's nothing wrong with a game publisher hyping their games. But they aren't supposed to buy off reviewers or threaten them with less advertising dollars. And game reviewers don't exist to hype games for the publishers. They are supposed to be unbiased.



As to Metroid, I don't know the details. I was told there was a similar deal to what we saw with Madden. But don't be so naive to think Nintendo has never done stuff like this. They used to bully third party devs, for pete's sake. Forget about the specialist press.

Yeah, the flaw is that their clients are the very same people review publications are supposed to be criticizing. It's like having a lawyer be both the prosecution and the defense attorney. Not surprising that the lawyer would do a better job for whichever side pays better, while trying not to alienate the other side.

 Again, I really don't see the problem with swag bags.  The reviewers already have the system and they already have crap flowing out of their offices.  Most of the stuff gets given away to random people and friends and really doesn't affect the review at all.

For the most part they are unbiased (some may or may not like certain types of games but that's beside the point).  Swag doesn't sway their opinion and embargoes don't sway their opinion.  Things like review guides are there just to hype their game but those are pretty much glorified instruction booklets.  

You should probably get this through your head now: game reviews are not some huge game industry conspiracy.  Yes, companies that can spend all the money they can on marketing, swag, and use leverage to hold off on potential bad reviews as long as possible but that's just how things are.  Swag and other free stuff doesn't do anything to make a game better and professional reviewers aren't swayed by getting a free thumb drive, booklet, CD, or even a free 360.  I know you don't like this argument but not liking something doesn't mean it's not true.  If you don't like particular reviews, don't read them.  If you have the preconceived notion that EA games suck, don't buy them.  It isn't that hard.

If I was a reviewer I'd never release a review early which had an embargo on it, regardless of the score. I'd also take the swag and roll my eyes at the company.

I MISS GAMEFAN! bah.

The "stuff" is generally corporate property as they are an employee of the corporation. I would imagine that 90+ percent of the "swag" stays in the office for use by anyone... Review guides are standard practice. Review embargoes are to protect their financial interest. I don't have a problem with any of them...

I've got to agree with Erik here, gaming "journalism" is in a horrible state. Some of the people I've talked to at moderately-sized free gaming sites have commented on it. Both bribes and threats are common.

It's a similar situation for auto journalism. Give a bad review, and you won't be invited for another all-expenses paid vacation to Europe for more test drives. When big, negative news is broken, it's in the financial pages, not the auto section.