Gamespot Reviewer Fired after Poor Review for Sponsor's Game

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Originally Posted by MarkRyan

Sorry, I re-read what I wrote and it could sound wrong. I don't mean that it's fair for publishers to control the editorial content of early reviews, just that it's fair for them to make embargoes.

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Conditional embargoes de facto control or at least influence editorial content. If you can scoop Gamespot by giving a game an 8.3 instead of a 7.9, you could be biased.

Not saying you would be influenced, but you could be.

To burg's point, I wonder if the individual reviewer is aware of the agreement when they are working on their review.

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Originally Posted by Melf

I have to agree with this. Media outlets are essentially writing to the publisher's whims if they won't release an early bad review for fear of being blacklisted. I know that publishers feel they can give some inside info and be friendly with the outlets that honor the embargoes, but it seems unethical to me. If I have to wait for a company to tell me when I can publish something, then I'm not in real control of my content; they are.

It all comes down to who pays the bills, and I guess the media is just willing to sacrifice some of its integrity in order to make sure the ad revenue is there. The other side of this is that these are the same people who complain about how they're not taken seriously as journalists. I wonder why that is?

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To be fair, this is an issue in all journalism. You can't be a good reporter without cultivating a relationship with your sources, and when you have a story that your source doesn't like, you're often forced to make a choice.

Early access to product is probably a bigger factor now than it used to be, with more and more games making US debuts. Back in the day, media outlets could probably flip off publishers and write import reviews. I suppose they could download leaked games but that's a whole other hornet's nest.

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Originally Posted by Melf

I guess the media is just willing to sacrifice some of its integrity in order to make sure the ad revenue is there. The other side of this is that these are the same people who complain about how they're not taken seriously as journalists. I wonder why that is?

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QFT.

I can't recall the last time a review from any media outlet influenced my decision to buy (or not buy) a game.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

To burg's point, I wonder if the individual reviewer is aware of the agreement when they are working on their review.

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Realistically, how could he not be. If someone here has knowledge of these conditions, you damn well know the reviewer does. Maybe not for every game in every case, but enough so that it could be a factor. And then you could have an editor push back for a couple 10ths here and a couple 10ths there.

Agreed. Unless it is kept completely under wraps until the review is submitted, it will bias at least some of the reviewers.

Well, guess I'll unsubscribe from The Hotspot after the next ep (assuming they'll say something about Gerstmann). He's a cool guy and this is filthy shit; I hope he can find another job quickly.

I mean, let's be honest. Big outlets like IGN and Gamespot have an inherent bias because they are largely the PR arm of the gaming industry as a whole, and they have a vested interest in keeping gaming in the public eye and hyping up the new must have. And I don't expect the same neutrality that I do out of serious media outlets.

But firing a guy over a bad review is going a little beyond that.

But that inherent bias is relative. There are great games every year, so the people really being screwed by "bought" reviews are the developers who made the truly great games that got the same score fairly. It's not like GameSpot would go belly up because there are no great games to hype for a two years span.

I disagree. There are plenty of gamers who only buy the latest big Nintendo game, or Halo, or Madden or what have you, and only come around to the IGNs of the world for info on their big mainstream franchise. In fact, there are a lot more of them than us (and I use "us" loosely), and they probably make the big sites more money than we would, assuming we gave a shit about them at all.

The blockbuster games drive the market. Always have.