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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos

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J

jschreier

Member
I reviewed Paper Mario. I have Nintendo's embargo sheet in front of me. It says "Please do not discuss or post videos showing elements of the game that occur after the conclusion of stage 3-4 prior to the game's launch on 11/11."

My review mentions plenty of things that happened after 3-4. I think it's pretty thorough. Nobody at Nintendo seemed to care. I think they just wanted to make sure reviewers weren't posting spoilers.
 
A

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
Spoilers in a Mario game...

If they have these inane embargoes, it should be mentioned in the review itself. I'm sure that's embargoed as well, though.
 
C

chickdigger802

Banned
jschreier said:
I reviewed Paper Mario. I have Nintendo's embargo sheet in front of me. It says "Please do not discuss or post videos showing elements of the game that occur after the conclusion of stage 3-4 prior to the game's launch on 11/11."

My review mentions plenty of things that happened after 3-4. I think it's pretty thorough. Nobody at Nintendo seemed to care. I think they just wanted to make sure reviewers weren't posting spoilers.
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maybe if it had a score and was on metacritic they'd care!!!! :p
 
D

Dave Long

Banned
The best way to handle reviews if you want transparency is to buy the games. The best way to make money by running a website devoted to covering videogames is to spend as little money as possible buying the games or paying the writers. After all, your content is given away for free.

There's a lot of talking in this thread, but the reality is that gamers got what they wanted. You don't have to pay for magazines to get your coverage anymore and it's all free on the web whenever you feel like reading it.

So you get what you pay for...
 
R

Rufus

Member
Pretty much, though even if you pay for a magazine, they make most of their money through ad sales and they play ball to get review code to not be even more late than they already are.

PepsimanVsJoe said:
This fucking industry. Sheesh.
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Nintendo has the most ridiculous review (and coverage) stipulations. It's quite - something. It doesn't seem to hurt sales of their games, so it's unlikely to change.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
McBacon said:
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/3DS/Pocket+Gamer/news.asp?c=46618
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Pretty awesome and unique of that no-name site to point how the other sites are probably following Nintendo's guidelines, its good to know we can still rely on the.....

PocketGamer on Doritos-Gate said:
Speaking personally, I'm going to carry on building relationships with the people I think ultimately can be most beneficial to this site and, in turn, you the reader.

If that means eating a bit of free potato salad and a chicken sandwich or two while I'm out, or sharing a pint with a developer or someone working in PR, then so be it. If it ever gets to the stage where the relationships that deliver the content you want to read end up leading me astray, then I trust you to let me know one way or another.

Ultimately, arbitrary rules won't save games journalism – this is about people taking up a career in this industry for the right reasons, and doing their job as well as they can when they get there.
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Oh
 
O

Oersted

Member
JDSN said:
Pretty awesome and unique of that no-name site to point how the other sites are probably following Nintendo's guidelines, its good to know we can still rely on the.....



Oh
Click to expand...

I think one of the main problems is that they are seing themselves as a part of the gaming industry, not of the journalistic industry. They want to defend their hobby, want to work for publishers and developers.
 
C

chickdigger802

Banned
oh noes.

people have been naughty again!

jwalker.png


http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/critics-delighted-with-agent-47-s-return-in-hitman-absolution/0106621



mcv.png


ain't making this shit up folks!
 
A

Ath

Member
Ugh, if this is what MCV are like for Hitman, I shudder to think what they're going to be like when Tomb Raider comes out.

The flippant and arrogant tone of the update to their article really pisses me off.
 
B

Brera

Banned
Parfit is the prick that lost me 600buxx on the GAME shares thanks to his lies.

fuck him and MCV...a trade mag giving out biased and dodgy info to its customers
 
W

Wunder

Member
CecilRousso said:
No one in particular. What I meant was that EVERYONE knew about the mixed scores, except apparently the journalist working for MCV writing about the review scores.
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I see. You have a point, I haven't paid much attention to Hitman and I still saw some buzzing about it's poor performance, mainly on the PCG stuff.
 
EdwardTivrusky

EdwardTivrusky

Member
Raonak said:
7.5 not being a positive score in itself is another problem with games reviewers.
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And many readers. Many won't even consider a game unless it gets a 9. Even an 8 is seen as not that great by some. I hope this perception of a game scoring lower than a 9 being poor is slowly changing amongst the larger audience.

To me a 7+ score for the most part denotes a decent, solid game and doesn't stop me purchasing it but that's me.
 
L

Ledsen

Member
EdwardTivrusky said:
And many readers. Many won't even consider a game unless it gets a 9. Even an 8 is seen as not that great by some. I hope this perception of a game scoring lower than a 9 being poor is slowly changing amongst the larger audience.

To me a 7+ score for the most part denotes a decent, solid game and doesn't stop me purchasing it but that's me.
Click to expand...

I just completely ignore reviews and instead research whether the content and features of the game match with games I typically like. Makes for much better purchasing decisions, I've found.
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
EdwardTivrusky said:
And many readers. Many won't even consider a game unless it gets a 9. Even an 8 is seen as not that great by some. I hope this perception of a game scoring lower than a 9 being poor is slowly changing amongst the larger audience.

To me a 7+ score for the most part denotes a decent, solid game and doesn't stop me purchasing it but that's me.
Click to expand...

It's more of an issue with publications' review scales, which readers have essentially become accustomed to. The problem when you use a 7-10 scale is that when you give a game a 7, you are essentially saying it is at best mediocre. A 7 is not at all bad on a 1-10 review scale, but it's on the low end with 7-10. 1-6 seems to fall equally under "shit" as far as reviewer opinion in the majority of reviews.

You need to have an all-compassing modification of the scale throughout the media that readers become used to over time, so that a 7 isn't seen as a bad score by the publication, the readership, and of course publishers. A much better solution would be to just get rid of scores entirely - eliminating the need to boil a (rarely) nuanced opinion down to a single number, forcing people to read the review text, and shooting Metacritic in the throat - but that'll never happen.
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
Zeliard said:
It's more of an issue with publications' review scales, which readers have essentially become accustomed to. The problem when you use a 7-10 scale is that when you give a game a 7, you are essentially saying it is at best mediocre. A 7 is not at all bad on a 1-10 review scale, but it's on the low end with 7-10. 1-6 seems to fall equally under "shit" as far as reviewer opinion in the majority of reviews.

You need to have an all-compassing modification of the scale throughout the media that readers become used to over time, so that a 7 isn't seen as a bad score by the publication, the readership, and of course publishers. A much better solution would be to just get rid of scores entirely - eliminating the need to boil a (rarely) nuanced opinion down to a single number, forcing people to read the review text, and shooting Metacritic in the throat - but that'll never happen.
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I used to like Joystiq because they didn't assign a score. They wrote a well written review and left it to the reader to decide. Problem with scores is everyone scrolls to the bottom and forms an opinion without reading much of anything.

My biggest problem however, is the inconsistencies with the review scale. I have played broken games that were given 7's and 8's and completely competent and fun games whose only crimes seem to be that they belong in a niche genre or score in the 5's and 6's. I mean I have played Socom 4, if that game is a 7 then LBP Karting and ZombiU have to be at least a 7.5 or higher.
 
D

dreamfall

Member
Shaneus said:
Ahahahaha.
2t8U7.png


You can't make this shit up.
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Well, that certainly was fast. I don't understand how they didn't include other critical/praise worthy reviews in their roundup. And why they even need a review roundup is beyond me- it's pretty clear their relationship with Square Enix is dodgy at best. Maybe the "Critics Delighted" title offered more praise.

Still, it's good to see game writers change their ways ever so slightly. Conspiracies be damned, perhaps professionalism will be embraced in due time (or until this issue completely falls by the wayside). Hopefully John Walker doesn't let anyone slide- although criticizing hype for trailers is pretty ridiculous.
 
A

AFollowerNotALeader

Member
Oh wow. From their Twitter:

MCV @MCVonline:

To be clear, it's very normal for us to write review roundups and as a trade site these typically focus on the higher scoring write-ups.

MCV @MCVonline:

@MonkJammas Part of our MO is to promote and aid the industry we serve. Requires a delicate balance. Perhaps we sometimes get it wrong
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o_O
 
U

Uthred

Member
So thats two people out of a job over this, I can't imagine how much she wishes she'd never said anything about the article. Wheres Mr Florence is likely to get another gig writing about games Ms. Wainright is more or less entirely fucked. While she was in the wrong and reacted terribly it does seem a bit unfortunate that her entire career in the field is basically over.
 
M

McBradders

NeoGAF: my new HOME
Wow, didn't see Wainwright getting shitcanned coming. She was in the perfect job for her there; out of harms way writing fluff pieces.

Wonder what the fuck happened there?
 
J

JABEE

Member
Uthred said:
So thats two people out of a job over this, I can't imagine how much she wishes she'd never said anything about the article. Wheres Mr Florence is likely to get another gig writing about games Ms. Wainright is more or less entirely fucked. While she was in the wrong and reacted terribly it does seem a bit unfortunate that her entire career in the field is basically over.
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Just a pawn in the game. They can just go find another person to write these "articles" for them.

Ben Kuchera said:
MCV's official account seems to be having a psychotic break. They just told people to do a sexual act I'm not going to repeat.
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https://twitter.com/BenKuchera/status/270542682185687040

It's Shakespearian.
 
C

Cerebral Assassin

Member
Uthred said:
So thats two people out of a job over this, I can't imagine how much she wishes she'd never said anything about the article. Wheres Mr Florence is likely to get another gig writing about games Ms. Wainright is more or less entirely fucked. While she was in the wrong and reacted terribly it does seem a bit unfortunate that her entire career in the field is basically over.
Click to expand...

I find that highly unlikely, she has written for one of the worst newspapers in the World, & they are unlikely to give a fuck about any of this.
 
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