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EGM - Blacklisted?
Sheep
Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Didn't see a discussion on this in the past few pages. Lock if old.
Surprised there hasn't been much discussion over it, especially after the heated debates that flared up after the Gerstmann situation.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/09/publishers-allegedly-blackball-egm-for-negative-coverage/
Here's a link for further information, and here's my current thoughts on it.
A> I support EGM calling them out on this practice. It lets EGM readers know exactly why the mag would be behind the competition, and it gives the industry the heads up on the bullying that's going on.
B> I'm disappointed to see UbiSoft on the list. I don't care about Mortal Kombat, and Sony being a prick isn't anything new. But Ubi? Everyone was behind them when they tried to fight off EA... I feel like I've been stabbed in the back almost. They had several upcoming games that I was interested in as well, and have always thought highly of them and their product.
It's not like EGM/1UP has been particularly harsh on Ubi. The only game in recent memory that was panned was BeoWolf, and it's not like EGM/1UP were the only ones with the negative opinion.
It just seems like EGM and 1UP are being specifically targeted. But then again, no one else has made a similar comment.
Thoughts?
I'm a bit bummed.
EDIT
Surprised there hasn't been much discussion over it, especially after the heated debates that flared up after the Gerstmann situation.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/09/publishers-allegedly-blackball-egm-for-negative-coverage/
Here's a link for further information, and here's my current thoughts on it.
A> I support EGM calling them out on this practice. It lets EGM readers know exactly why the mag would be behind the competition, and it gives the industry the heads up on the bullying that's going on.
B> I'm disappointed to see UbiSoft on the list. I don't care about Mortal Kombat, and Sony being a prick isn't anything new. But Ubi? Everyone was behind them when they tried to fight off EA... I feel like I've been stabbed in the back almost. They had several upcoming games that I was interested in as well, and have always thought highly of them and their product.
It's not like EGM/1UP has been particularly harsh on Ubi. The only game in recent memory that was panned was BeoWolf, and it's not like EGM/1UP were the only ones with the negative opinion.
It just seems like EGM and 1UP are being specifically targeted. But then again, no one else has made a similar comment.
Thoughts?
I'm a bit bummed.
EDIT
In his latest editorial, Electronic Gaming Monthly Editor-in-chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu publicly calls out three companies that are allegedly refusing to work with the magazine due to negative reviews of their games. According to Hsu, the members of Midway's Mortal Kombat team, Sony's sports division and Ubisoft as a whole are refusing to give EGM access to early preview or review builds of their games (in the case of Ubisoft, Hsu specifically says "it seems our coverage of Assassin's Creed was the last straw").
As a result, Hsu says EGM readers will get "little, late, or no coverage" of these companies' games. "We won't treat these products or companies any differently, and we'll just cover them to the best of our own abilities, with or without their support," Hsu writes. "Because, after all, we're writing for you, the reader -- not them."
These types of allegations aren't anything new around the game industry water cooler, and stories of publisher reprisals in the form of pulled advertising or blackballed journalists occasionally bubble up in the game press. But editors are usually reluctant to publicly name names in these situations, for fear of pissing off publishers further. Are we seeing the beginning of a new age in game journalism, where journalists aren't afraid of standing up to publishers that try to push them around?
We'll be following up with Hsu and the companies involved and let you know what we hear.
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I get this magizine for free, but it's not that great. I prefer Game Informer by alot.
It sucks this happened to them, but honestly it's not that surprsing.
I hear that Shoe is a dick though.
But I don't see how blacklisting EGM does anything except hurt Ubisoft. its not like EGM's review hurt Assassins Creed or anything the game did sell 2.5 million copies.
Well considering that EGM is pretty bad magazine at the best of times, It's not that big of a deal but Review Scores are overrated anyway
So I don't like companies Blacklisting Magazines because of reviews, it's not a good precident anyway.
This partly stems from how EGM, 1UP, and GFW use the full scale when reviewing - 5.0 is average, not 7.0. A 4.5 means the game is slightly below average - personally, I agree.
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Any who, I'm still miffed at EGM's Assassin's Creed reviews. I'm not sure where those came from, but I think EGM was harsh with AC, particularly Boyer's out-of-left-field 4.5 score.
I used to really enjoy EGM and thought they consistently had very tough but fair reviews. But over the last couple of years or so... It seems like the longer a reviewer is with that mag, the more fucking snarky and holier-than-thou they get.
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Now if an article is full of factual errors (see: Mercury News' review of Mass Effect), then that's just lazy journalism and deserves to be called out. However if everything in the piece is accurate and just the opinion of the writer, sorry, your complaints are meaningless.
True. And EGM should not expect publishers or developers to supply them with early builds, screens or any information whatsoever if said publisher or developer believes it is not in their products' best interests. EGM is still able to review and (as they're so fond of doing) pontificate from on high once the product is commercially available. I don't blame gaming companies one bit if they go this route.
Ng Security Industries, Inc.
PRERELEASE VERSION-NOT FOR FIELD USE - DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
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I have to disagree. This seems extremely childish to me. Fine, don't give them preview copies, but hey surprise; this makes you seem like a much larger bunch of douchebags than a poor review score would. It's not hurting the game magazine in any way, and in fact casts them in a better light for not pulling a Gamespot. They stuck to their guns.
They are still my favorite publication and I respect them for having balls at times but the amount of people playing and talking about AC in a positive way right now clearly demonstrates a misstep on EGM's part.
IMO... if you played the game the way Crispin/others played it... you are missing 50% of the experience right there.
I see Ubisoft's actions as similiar to a politician who won't give interviews to media they percieve as openly hostile to them.
4.5 out of 10
Huh. I'd hardly call that a levelheaded rating. Sure, I don't call AC 9.8 material, but seriously, 4.5?
That's cool and I do respect that, but in general--not just talking about EGM in particular here--but in general, sticking to your guns can mean dealing with backlash because you might not have been on the money in the first place with your feelings.
If that's the route EGM wants to go, fine, but they're going to have to deal with the repercussions, including other publications possibly getting a leg up on them with exclusives, early review copies, etc.
Looking at it from EGM's point of view: great, they're sticking to their guns. I respect that. I don't respect poor reviews/scores because a journalist or team of journalists feel the game wasn't specifically designed to fit into their busy review schedule. If they're writing "for us gamers" then the reviews should be approached from a gamer's perspective rather than somebody worried about dealing with a press deadline (you wanted the job, you deal with it).
Looking at it from Ubi's point of view: great, they're protecting their products and their teams. I respect that. I don't respect a gaming company blacklisting a publication for a poor review of a completely shitty game, and I don't think that was the case with Ubi's decision on this particular matter.
Just my perspective, but it seemed like this whole outfit (EGM, et al.) had it out for Assassin's Creed before the game even realeased. Their previews for the title were just as bad as the final reviews. I have to go with Ubi on this. If it were my product and I knew people had worked hard and put out a quality title, I'd have done the same thing.
Ng Security Industries, Inc.
PRERELEASE VERSION-NOT FOR FIELD USE - DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
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I think that by making the issue public, Shoe has basically highlighted the companies that already do it and is attempting to prevent any other companies from doing the same, because they would also be in a bad public light.
When you run on a 5.0 = average scale, and that's a pretty spot on score in IMO.
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So you've played the game? Not on the gamercard in your sig though?
Really? AC is worse than the average game? Really? With all the crap out there, AC isn't as good as the average game?
Sorry, but fuck right off. That just blatantly isn't true. If only because of AC's production values, which are WAY above average.
A lot of average games with get a 7. I can deal with that.
But what is this grey area of 7 to 5? Is one average or the other? Because that mean 7 is above average, but not so much as a 10?
When I see a 1-10 scale, I tend to read it like a test score: out of 10-100. So, if we were 'grading' the games, AC would've gotten a 45%, or a big ol' F. That game is way better than that score says it is. I can deal with a 70%, that's a low C. IMO, this game is in my top 20 for the year. I mean, the dude gave Lair a higher score, and it's Lair. I played that game. Totally garbage. Assassin's Creed is at least FUN.
I think they should do away with these scores, it's just obnoxious.
Well your completely wrong, plus from what it looks like from your gamertag profile, you never played AC
AC definitely wasn't a 10 but it's way better than an 4.5, i think it should get around an 8 mainly because it was a fantastic game that had way to much repetition.
That's how most everyone reads it, and unfortunately, that's how the companies see it, too, if this event is any indication.
They're not really worried about the score so much as perception. The way EGM grades their games is fine, but if you compare the game scores on other sites like GameRankings, you see that other magazines and review sites are giving it higher scores than 4.5, and then you begin to wonder about EGM's rating policy.
It's not that EGM is doing it wrong, it's that, compared to others, EGM looks like a largely negative magazine because of its comparatively low scores.
Maybe AC just wasn't his cup of tea? If we really want to consider video games as art then we should expect some people to love it while others hate it. I think it's bullshit to say 5= average game. I think you should play the game, and think "how did I like this", not think "how does this compare the the thousands of other games that are currently on the market". If you think like that you're just rating a product, not an experience, or a piece of art.
If this practice ever became the standard (which I'd like to think egm is trying to do) then we would just start to have to look at reviews from reviewers with common mindsets as ourselves, like what people do with movie reviews.
These reviewers aren't machines, we can't expect them to be fed a game and all shit out the same score. And I think it shows immaturity on the part of these companies for "blacklisting" egm. Do movie studios stop sending screeners to critics after a bad review?
Crispin HATED the game for some reason.
So, it's the same as reading reviews for albums or movies.
And the dude gave a good movie (Not a classic, but still good) 1 star. Which is pretty bullshit.
See, this is what I was going to ask, and if that's the case, there's no justification for black listing them. EGMs system offers three different perspectives to offer more than one view point on a game, to make sure the sports guy isn't the only one reviewing an RPG for example, but can still provide "ye average gamer's" perspective on the RPG.
Two 7s and a 4.5 is not unfair to Assassin's Creed, I enjoyed it myself but I can definitely...DEFINITELY see how some people would see it as below average. The game is tedious as fuck, production values don't cure that when we're talking about a game. A game that you play. P-l-a-y. Production values only go so far.
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I'm just saying, games are too complex and varied to be reviewed like they're a fucking toaster or some shit. They all do not aim to provide the same experience. Take for example a game like Final Fantasy Tactics. This game is a critical hit. When I played it, I FUCKING FELL ASLEEP. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I would give it a low score, because when I play games I don't play them to fall asleep.
I don't agree with his score, perhaps, but don't jump on the guy because his Gamertag profile says he never played it. Maybe he played it on PS3.
Hating the game is one thing. When I go to a review, I go for information on a game, and then use that information to justify whether I should buy it or not. Opinions are great, but when the entire review is "I hate the game, and you shouldn't buy it because of such and such," I tend to look for more informative reviews.
Opinions are very important, because you use your opinion to judge whether or not you like something. But a review isn't very useful to me if the only thing a review tells me is that "EGM guy thinks it sucks, so I guess I won't buy it." The multi-perspective review thing is great, too, because you can tell whether one guy is very slanted or not.
Keep in mind I haven't read the review in question and am basing this on my own opinion. ;-)
The publishers CAN shove a game down a mags throat and throw money at them until they make the reviews better, and conversely stop paying/supporting them to try and make the reviews go away, but that is rather comparable to shoving things up your nose to make you breathe better. The more reviewers pad their scores the less their opinion actually matters, the more people go online to find many different view points and therefore wait until some time after it's release. Some people simply stop buying as many games, after all how many times can a publisher burn you out of $60 before you realize it's just cheaper to pick it up six months later off the used shelf?
If the publishers and mags had open communication, and the publishers devoted serious time to addressing where they were previewing badly, it would be a different matter entirely. Instead the publishers do their damnedest to pay boats of cash to the yes men and freeze out the naysayers so that they can burn the players that much harder.
I honestly believe that the majority of people's "lack of good games" burn-out these days is more simply a weariness with being burned by the hype, not the game itself.
Closing thought, I don't think the publishers are alone at fault here, nor do I think EGM is in someway a spotless hero in this twisted tale. It's just bringing to the fore how fatally flawed the current approach to the system is.
Anyway, I do think that a 4.5 rating out of 10 is very low for the game, even though I don't particularly love the title (the roof running IS cool). No matter what tags a review site adds to their numbered score (incredible - great - good - average - etc), everyone is going to think of a 1-10 scale as coresponding to the all-too-familiar academic grading scale, in which a C, or average, score is a 7 out of 10. Anything below a 70% is very, very not good. Anything below a 50% is piss-poor --- only good for laughs at its ineptitude.
I mean, right? Who doesn't look at a 8.5 review and say "Ah! A solid "B" game! It'll be ok!"??
Anyway --- off to find the review.
Blackballing for giving low scores is retarded.
Ironically, I've had to stop reading a lot of mags specifically because my mind does NOT make that association.