Proof that game reviews are balls

[Wiglaf]

Seeing as most of the ads aren't games, and given Gamespot's long record of being harsher than their peers on reviews also doesn't support your argument.

I don't get why you and Spike keep saying this.

Gamespot is tough on a lot of games. But they tend to review the ones with big budgets (and big advertising budgets) very highly. Halo 3, Assassin's creed, Perfect dark zero, Warlords, etc are just examples off the top of my head of games that Gamespot had tremendous amounts of ads for when they came out. They also scored very highly. In the case of Warlords, perfect dark, and assassin's creed, we saw some pretty dubious scores.

I don't think we can ever claim these reviews are objective anymore. Gamespot makes a lot of money from publishers who they are supposed to review.

Don't forget gamespot sells exclusive content. Publishers that like gamespot will open the door and let gamespot do more previews, stories, etc. Gamespot is dependent on them for more than ads.

[Asher]

The whole thing is unlikely.

K&L ads were already live. You admit this since you showed a screenshot of it. This means they already paid and they already started the campaign.

I'm not familiar with how marketing works, but I wasn't aware companies could back out of campaigns they already paid for. Further, I don't see how it impacted the score at all.

If the game was scored 9.0/10, you'd have a point. Here we have a case where the EiC scored the game, and he gave it an awful score, and you're saying "this is proof that money from ads impacts game scores". Do you see the fundamental problem with that?

[DrSpike]

That instance is an exception - you see Jeff suddenly realised he was a puppet to teh evil marketing and decided to rebel, whereupon he immediately got fired.

It's a watertight case with absolutely no holes.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Asher
It's looking more like he was fired for not playing the game all the way through, actually. Legally Gamespot can't say why he was fired, but if you look at Jeff's XBL profile (GameSpotting), you can see he only played about 20% of the way through the game.

Combined with recent suspicious reviews like GameSpot's Assassin's Creed review (where it looked like they didn't play the game the full way through, hence saying the PS3 version didn't have framerate problems which only occur near the end), I don't think it's unlikely that they made an example out of him.

most people like reviews within a week of release. Is it possible to finish many games in a week?

[Dis]

I do feel Gamespot is a bit soft on games from large publishers, but the reviews are accurate. But they tend to gloss over "problems" with games.

NWN2 review is an example of this. Though I'm kind of glad they gloss over the problems. It's a good game that's worth playing despite the bugs the game initially had (and still has a few).

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by DrSpike
That instance is an exception - you see Jeff suddenly realised he was a puppet to teh evil marketing and decided to rebel, whereupon he immediately got fired.

It's a watertight case with absolutely no holes.

Could be that they had told him to ease up on the game, and he said no.

Could be that CNET wanted to indirectly send a message to its reviewers to go easy on advertisers.

Maybe he wanted to provoke this incident for the reasons Asher described. Now he's a celebrity among dorks.

What you don't seem to understand -- what you keep denying without justifying why -- is that paying having publishers pay reviewers undercuts the legitimacy of the review. Can you at least admit that any journalistic integrity Gamespot has is gone, and was gone the second they accepted tens of thousands of dollars from a company they were supposed to objectively review?

[Asher]

You have already been owned, Wiggy, there's no use in continuing. Accept your place with Agathon and Urban Ranger and embrace it.

[Wiglaf]

If the game was scored 9.0/10, you'd have a point. Here we have a case where the EiC scored the game, and he gave it an awful score, and you're saying "this is proof that money from ads impacts game scores". Do you see the fundamental problem with that?

No, because he was, um, fired. And his video review was taken off the servers. And the review was accurate and in line with other reviews.

The only suspicious thing? The site was bought by Eidos for a week.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Asher
You have already been owned, Wiggy, there's no use in continuing. Accept your place with Agathon and Urban Ranger and embrace it.

Go to hell, I guess. It's been fun to see you squirm and dismiss basic standards of journalistic integrity.

[Asher]

Only a naive twit believes in the concept of journalistic integrity.

[Wiglaf]

You're more easily manipulated by game sites/hype/reviews than you seem to think you are.

[Asher]

I do the metascore thing, but in general I find myself agreeing with the metascore of the big game sites rather than the stupidity of the indy sites that gives games like Halo 3 5.0/10 to be anti-culture.

I'm intelligent enough to make my own judgements based on reading others. Some of us don't have this gift, and instead jump to conclusions -- like when somebody is fired, clearly he was fired for not giving the game a higher score. Duh. Right? No other possible explanation. Who cares if apparently he didn't finish the game and Gamespot's got new management that probably didn't like that. Who cares if he refuses to discuss why he was fired, hinting at possible culpability. Who cares that the score is still 6.0/10, and the whole fact that he was supposedly fired for not raising the score means that it's not a common problem.

[Wiglaf]

Who cares if apparently he didn't finish the game and Gamespot's got new management that probably didn't like that

BS. You don't need to finish the game to review it, but his review makes it clear he did play it at least most of the way through.

Who cares if he refuses to discuss why he was fired, hinting at possible culpability

He probably cannot discuss it legally, nor would it be intelligent to. A public smear campaign on gamespot would be silly. Keep in mind he was probably pushed out for this reason, but I doubt they told him "Look we're firing you because you didn't give this a 10 because we paid for it please sue us."

Who cares that the score is still 6.0/10, and the whole fact that he was supposedly fired for not raising the score means that it's not a common problem.

Huh?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
BS. You don't need to finish the game to review it, but his review makes it clear he did play it at least most of the way through.

Yes, but his profile disagrees. You don't think it's possible he -- I don't know -- lied in his review? Maybe that could be cause for a dismissal, since he's already been in the spotlight for previously controversial reviews?

Huh?

The fact that he was fired indicates it was an exception. Not the rule.

[Wiglaf]

since he's already been in the spotlight for previously controversial reviews?

Like what?

The fact that he was fired indicates it was an exception. Not the rule.

Maybe the new ownership you mentioned wanted to send a signal.