GameSpy inflating review scores

[Diff-chan]

When did it start? Did I miss something?

Honestly, I think game journalism was a lot better... 8 or 10 years ago. Yea, everyone knows I have a hardon for Next Gen, but that was when they were at their peak. IGN was just getting started off, and their main core sites - PSXPower, Saturnworld, and N64.com - were all fairly solid, and the main core of IGN was the affiliate sites which were all fan run and were varying degrees of excellent. GameSpy was a loose conglomerate of "Planets" like PlanetQuake and what not. But over time, IGN and GameSpy both grew into this humongous, ugly monster that started writing softball interviews, horrible reviews and dull previews with multi-page articles designed to increase click through rates. All the good magazines started to die off (NG, PCXL, GameFan if that was your thing) and EGM/GamePro got shittier with every issue. And then you get crap like this, the playola shit, etc. Its so obvious that these sites are just shills for the game publishers yet very few people care.

Its really bad nowadays, every IGN review looks like Jeremy wrote it. I would like to see a return to smaller sites and more independent ones and hope that IGN withers on the vine. I get most of my game info from TNL because I know that for the most part you guys arent shills the way the big sites are.

[Error]

http://www.insidepulse.com/article.php?contentid=35776

[Joust Williams]

Afer the Doom 3 and Jade Empire reviews, Inside Pulse is totally worthless.

[Mzo]

We have pissed off a fair share of companies by being honest and giving really average or poor games like Fable the score they deserved.

I love these people.

And at the same time there is a LOT of ass kissing by other sites and magazines dealing with video games, by giving games they know are "meh" at best scores the don't deserve thus getting the unsuspecting public to go out and spend their hard earned money on inferior products. Some examples are Fable, Final Fantasy VIII, and DOOM 3.

I REALLY love these people.

But still, are these other sites REALLY full of people who honestly believe that all games are great and wonderful and who seem to have an opinion totally different from the mainstream consumer, ala Beyond Good and Evil which received critical acclaim (Except from Inside Pulse where it got a 4.5) and a great deal of media attention but bombed heavily when actually released because most gamers thought it was crap?

WHOA WTF!?!?!?!?

[soundwave]

Where's BenT? Unlike MarkRyan, he actually writes/wrote for Gamespy.

So does ferricide aka Christian Nutt. I do notice a lot of 5 star reviews on Gamespy as of late.

[K3V]

It's not like it hasn't been known to happen in the past.

[Tommy Tallarico]

Honestly, I think game journalism was a lot better... 8 or 10 years ago. Yea, everyone knows I have a hardon for Next Gen, but that was when they were at their peak. IGN was just getting started off, and their main core sites - PSXPower, Saturnworld, and N64.com - were all fairly solid, and the main core of IGN was the affiliate sites which were all fan run and were varying degrees of excellent. GameSpy was a loose conglomerate of "Planets" like PlanetQuake and what not. But over time, IGN and GameSpy both grew into this humongous, ugly monster that started writing softball interviews, horrible reviews and dull previews with multi-page articles designed to increase click through rates. All the good magazines started to die off (NG, PCXL, GameFan if that was your thing) and EGM/GamePro got shittier with every issue. And then you get crap like this, the playola shit, etc. Its so obvious that these sites are just shills for the game publishers yet very few people care.

Its really bad nowadays, every IGN review looks like Jeremy wrote it. I would like to see a return to smaller sites and more independent ones and hope that IGN withers on the vine. I get most of my game info from TNL because I know that for the most part you guys arent shills the way the big sites are.

People should be required to put quotations around the word "journalism" whenever it pertains to video games. I've said for a long time that game "journalists" are not real journalists, they are just fanboys with pens. Nothing that's going on with Gamespy surprises me, because there isn't any integrity in gaming "journalism." Most of the people in this line of work wouldn't be fit to write for their high school newspapers. Fortunately, they are just qualified enough to fly to LA once a year and smile and nod and ask puffball questions to a washed up Japanese developer or to string together enough cliches to write a thousand word review. Anyone who's been to E3 can tell you how disgusting it is to see people that call themselves the media walking around like 6 year olds in the world's biggest Chuckee Cheese.

[Brisco Bold]

Do gamers really care about the integrity of gaming journalism? And by gamers, I don't mean us; I'm referring to the average guy/girl that buys the magazines at stores?

Why would the industry change if the average consumer doesn't care about any of this?

[bbobb]

Do gamers really care about the integrity of gaming journalism? And by gamers, I don't mean us; I'm referring to the average guy/girl that buys the magazines at stores?

Why would the industry change if the average consumer doesn't care about any of this?

Do most of the common people in the US really care about the integrity of journalism as a whole?

Just because the average person doesn't give a shit doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

[toxic]

I've said for a long time that game "journalists" are not real journalists, they are just fanboys with pens. .

Good observation.


The more I think about it, video game "journalists" are just shills for the industry. Since everything they report on is fed to them by PR people .. they are just viral marketers with a different avenue of information distribution and some guise of objectivity.

That being said .. I still read my EGM while taking a dump. It's like a portable internet forum.