In the immortal words of icarusfall, this thread sucks. Why the fuck is it stickied?
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In the immortal words of icarusfall, this thread sucks. Why the fuck is it stickied?
this is all magazines. Subscriptions and newstands barely pay for magazines to get to the consumer. All the real money comes from advertisersQuote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
Yes, but the "ads" in this case are the product reviews. I know there is overlap (as you pointed out earlier in the thread), but here it's 100%. And the payment isn't even real money. It's "trips to a hotel".
On another site I sometimes post at, this guy wrote a website where he somehow got on Metacritic and used that to go on every publisher junket he could and give all those games 90%+. Publishers don't care because there is a direct correlation between Metacritic and sales. There's really no way I can take any of this shit seriously.
This is not the biggest concern I have with game journalism right now.
First, let's stop pretending like there's some crisis about the integrity of game reviews, especially in terms of how "accurate" the fucking score is. What makes a review good is not the number at the end, but whether or not it was interesting, entertaining, and informative. And if it makes some analytical insight on top of that, all the better. Same as any kind of arts criticism. You know a good review when you read it.
Also, I think a lot of the pressure is more implied, maybe to the point of being imagined altogether. Most of the time, they're more concerned with responsible, fair, timely coverage than they are with positivity. Realistically they don't snub publications over a negative review unless the problem goes beyond negativity into the review being inaccurate or just dismissive and shitty. The only time I was ever pressured to change a score was to make it lower, for what that's worth.
I'm far more concerned with rapidly eroding editorial standards, both in terms of writing quality and research and fact-checking. I think a lot of the major players out there who are gradually bleeding traffic to the smaller sites feel like they should be copying them. For example, you see a lot of features at major sites these days that essentially read like blogs that could have been written by anyone and contribute nothing more than an opinion and common knowledge. A large publication's edge over the blogs is that they have resources to hire professional writers with strong research abilities and good connections that can write superior content, but they just don't want to do that anymore.
I think at some websites, particularly in this era of comments and interactivity, the writers just don't respect their audience. They think they're dumb and they try to dumb down their content to match. That really bothers me. I know when I write something good, and when I do, I always see an overwhelmingly positive reaction. If all the comments are negative, you actually ARE doing something wrong, they're not just "haters." Readers need a good headline and a subject they can relate to, but they always appreciate smart, well-written content over half-assed template garbage.
So yeah, let's talk about that. Fuck if you think that game was a B, but the guy gave it an A.
What about a game that is a C at best and has an A metacritic rating like MGS4?
You just made up that letter in your head based on how you feel, it's not a real thing. If it was a C, there'd be just as many or more people claiming it should be an A, because they too, do not understand that they are not the arbiters of reality for the rest of the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
You probably think your mother is an A, too, but I say she's a D- at best. Grown men should not be even having this conversation. You're an asshole for even wasting a thought on it.
If gaming journalism is no better than a machine that assigns arbitrary numbers to things for people to yell about, then THAT's the problem, not the "accuracy" of the goddamn numbers.
Im telling nick!
MGS4 was put together very competently. It looked amazing, played amazing, and was generally a fun game. You could definitely knock it for being batshit insane but not for being technically unsound.
I don't agree with reviews like Tom Chick's Uncharted 3 review. The game has through the roof production values and parts which he admitted were some of the best he'd ever played through, but the story, to him, was dull and derivative. The characters didn't act the way he wanted them to. 4/10. Ridiculous.
I will complain endlessly about nitpicky little details that keep a game from being perfect, but nit-picking is exactly what it is. In the big picture there's no way games like MGS4 or Uncharted 3 should be getting super low scores.
That's not even the issue, really. The issue is that game journalists have to suck developer and publisher dick in order to get free games and permission to publish their reviews before the game's release. Until that changes across the board it's definitely a joke.
But they really don't. Tiny sites, with shitty writing, and nothing to contribute might get dropped if they're overly negative, and deals might be brokered on first coverage for 2 or 3 major games a year, but neither of these are a major factor for 99% of game journalists writing reviews out there. It's just not that bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzo
By the way, this issue is MUCH worse in movie criticism than in gaming. Studios hold screenings for very carefully selected members of the press who they believe will be receptive, and if they approve the review, it gets to go up before everyone else's. Then the release goes wide and you see the real reviews. For bad movies, they won't even have screenings sometimes.