Heh. You know how I learned the word "integrity" (in English, I mean)? When I was playing Team Fortress Classic in high school. There was a rival sniper I'd regularly play with who had named himself "Integrity". Cool guy. Ungodly reflexes in 2fort.
Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, this lovely piece was brought to my attention earlier today.
Now, shit like this ain't something new. We've all heard the stories, from the uneven scores between bigger and lesser known developers (that seem to have subsided considerably since the last generation), down to Internet legends, like that one guy Gamespot fired, because Eidos whined about the bad review of that awful game they had published.
But the reality of it doesn't become any less horrifying with time. If you are lazy motherfuckers and did not click on the link above, the gist is that lazygamer.net was sent a nice little present from a developer called Monkeybin Studios, along with a request that the site reviews their latest game, Jumpship 2. The present was a couple of ridiculously hyperbolic reviews the studio themselves had written and urged lazygamer.net to cut and paste entire extracts from those and claim them as their own review.
The practice isn't new, it has just got to the point that studios -regardless of size- don't even seem to care much about keeping up appearances anymore! It started with the "review embargo" that almost all big studios do (that's the practice of forbidding critics to post reviews prior to the game's release, if the score doesn't satisfy the developer/publisher), it moved to the unconfirmed but very much suspected hand-outs and now we're here.
Jim Sterling mentioned the exact same thing in his very first "Jimquisition", when Quantic Dreams sent him a similar sheet of hyperbolic "notes" for Heavy Rain's review (even though he later deviated from this to talk about a different subject entirely).
Of course, none of that would be nearly as important, if we were just talking about crazy people being ridiculous and unprofessional. But as lazygamer's Geoffrey Tim mentions, a few critics have already done exactly what Monkeybin asked for!
The term "games journalism" is one that many dismiss and rightly so. It's an easy term to use to describe the people who write the reviews and find the news, but we're basically talking about a hub of people who pick up on the same thing that everyone picks up on, wraps it in a pretty little bow and puts it online next to fifty advertisments and a black-and-white photo of their stupid mug.
Pretty much the same thing I do, minus the cussing and overall douchebaggery that makes me adorable.
These people can report all the false news they want, assuming they'd like to and it won't make that huge a difference in the world of gaming; at least not at this point in time. The one thing, the only thing they truly have a responsibility for is the fucking reviews.
What many critics have unfortunately forgotten in this bloated industry is that, ultimately, it doesn't even matter if a game is good, but whether or not your readers (or viewers) should throw their money at it. Not everyone gets the games for free and not everyone can devote tens or hundreds of hours in hope of squeezing the life out of a title.
So, when this responsibility (which is already in question) is further tainted by such occurances, I have to increasingly wonder what the hell are the standards upon which I should decide on games. If the Escapist's review of Dragon Age II was so unrealistically hyperbolic, was it because the reviewer was on the take, or just because he was batshit insane? And if the reason I played that half-assed game was, for the sake of argument, that one review, do I buy him a straight-jacket for Christmas, or do I recognize the subhuman level of dignity he -and by extention, the Escapist- has?
Are you comfortable with me telling you what games you should buy? If not, shouldn't you be? But could I blame you?
Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, this lovely piece was brought to my attention earlier today.
Now, shit like this ain't something new. We've all heard the stories, from the uneven scores between bigger and lesser known developers (that seem to have subsided considerably since the last generation), down to Internet legends, like that one guy Gamespot fired, because Eidos whined about the bad review of that awful game they had published.
But the reality of it doesn't become any less horrifying with time. If you are lazy motherfuckers and did not click on the link above, the gist is that lazygamer.net was sent a nice little present from a developer called Monkeybin Studios, along with a request that the site reviews their latest game, Jumpship 2. The present was a couple of ridiculously hyperbolic reviews the studio themselves had written and urged lazygamer.net to cut and paste entire extracts from those and claim them as their own review.
The practice isn't new, it has just got to the point that studios -regardless of size- don't even seem to care much about keeping up appearances anymore! It started with the "review embargo" that almost all big studios do (that's the practice of forbidding critics to post reviews prior to the game's release, if the score doesn't satisfy the developer/publisher), it moved to the unconfirmed but very much suspected hand-outs and now we're here.
Jim Sterling mentioned the exact same thing in his very first "Jimquisition", when Quantic Dreams sent him a similar sheet of hyperbolic "notes" for Heavy Rain's review (even though he later deviated from this to talk about a different subject entirely).
Of course, none of that would be nearly as important, if we were just talking about crazy people being ridiculous and unprofessional. But as lazygamer's Geoffrey Tim mentions, a few critics have already done exactly what Monkeybin asked for!
The term "games journalism" is one that many dismiss and rightly so. It's an easy term to use to describe the people who write the reviews and find the news, but we're basically talking about a hub of people who pick up on the same thing that everyone picks up on, wraps it in a pretty little bow and puts it online next to fifty advertisments and a black-and-white photo of their stupid mug.
Pretty much the same thing I do, minus the cussing and overall douchebaggery that makes me adorable.
These people can report all the false news they want, assuming they'd like to and it won't make that huge a difference in the world of gaming; at least not at this point in time. The one thing, the only thing they truly have a responsibility for is the fucking reviews.
What many critics have unfortunately forgotten in this bloated industry is that, ultimately, it doesn't even matter if a game is good, but whether or not your readers (or viewers) should throw their money at it. Not everyone gets the games for free and not everyone can devote tens or hundreds of hours in hope of squeezing the life out of a title.
So, when this responsibility (which is already in question) is further tainted by such occurances, I have to increasingly wonder what the hell are the standards upon which I should decide on games. If the Escapist's review of Dragon Age II was so unrealistically hyperbolic, was it because the reviewer was on the take, or just because he was batshit insane? And if the reason I played that half-assed game was, for the sake of argument, that one review, do I buy him a straight-jacket for Christmas, or do I recognize the subhuman level of dignity he -and by extention, the Escapist- has?
Are you comfortable with me telling you what games you should buy? If not, shouldn't you be? But could I blame you?
I'm not comfortable with anyone telling me what I should buy anymore. Taste is a really circumstantial thing. Would you even try a JRPG, or even know how to tell if it's good or not? Same goes for the Warriors games. Of course not. You're not into them, even if one wowed you, with your lack of experience, would you know if it was better or worse than another? How would you gauge it?
ReplyDeleteGames, like movies, should be reviewed by people with interest in said genre. I don't like FPS, why should I tell you what I thought about one specific one? What would I know about what or breaks an FPS.
I just watch Yahtzee for amusement, not because I listen to him.