I have been here long enough to know that Sup Forums thinks all reviews are paid, but why?

I have been here long enough to know that Sup Forums thinks all reviews are paid, but why?

Is there any proof behind this? Is it just cynicism?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Campbell_(game_journalist)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieron_Gillen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bielby
theverge.com/2016/7/12/12157310/pewdiepie-youtubers-sponsored-videos-ftc-warner-bros
theweekly.co.uk/ap2/
twitter.com/AnonBabble

>that webm
I can't stop laughing

>been her long enough
>doesnt know why Sup Forums thinks every reviewer is paid

Because there's enough proof of it. Many game reviewers have straight up come out and said it.

But the more important part is that most of the time game journalists are just absolutely tasteless. This is something not a lot of people get or understand, so they just assume that instead of the writer just being an idiot, they assume the writer got paid or something.

Because when games like Uncharted and Mass Effect garner 9s and 10s, it really makes you think.

>good games got good reviews

Ok and?

Former game journalist here.

I did an AMA on Sup Forums several years ago after being blacklisted from the industry for not going along with their bullshit. I tried to warn you faggots, but Sup Forums NEVER learns anything.

You have to ignore all evidence to think reviews even MIGHT be authentic. GamerGate proved how corrupt everything is. Stop being a faggot.

>what is legit evidence leaked out to public many, many times
>what are legit cases of publishers hiring online guerrilla marketers to repeat simple sale speeches, and belittling negative criticism

Is this legit?

>simple, easy and mindless games get good reviews
It means people lose their trust in game reviews.

It's hard to rationalize certain reviews other wise
Dragon Age 2 for example was a buggy unfinished mess but it got stellar reviews. There's no way a game reviewer could either be that blind or have absolutely no taste, so the only possible conclusion left is that he was paid

Not him but I can tell it's not because I know the real reason Undertale got voted there; GameFAQs isn't very big forum and tumblr, which is full of game's fans basically flooded their votes.

This cap is just someone trying to push their own narrative to go along with the story. It's not surprising considering the butthurt that Undertale caused.

>>simple, easy and mindless games get good reviews
Games are a leisure hobby retard, games were always about easy and simplicity like tetris and pong

Avatarposting is against the rules.

But DA2 was pretty good. The real reason is Sup Forums exists inside a bubble where they think only their opinions are correct and anyone who disagrees just have bad taste when the truth of it is, mass appeal is an important aspect of a product that you shitheads never take into account.

Remember the Kane and Lynch 2 debacle.

fucking laugh on every loop

Review sites often need the ad revenue to survive, companies retire their support after bad reviews, thats why the lowest possible score modern reviewers are capable of giving is 75.

It's niether op.

That's after my time, but it seems plausible.

>Many game reviewers have straight up come out and said it.

Including myself IN THIS THREAD. And you're right about reviewers being idiots. Most of them literally refuse to play anything on older systems and have utter contempt for anything other than "indie" "art" "games".

It's not so much payola as it is "favors". This can take many forms.

You're an idiot and retardedly naïve.

Where Girthman got shitcanned?

Just an user here. Absolutely not, nothing predicted by the image came to pass. It was just RP wank.

Former game journalist again.

This guy gets it. This is a MAJOR issue in game reviewing. There's more to it though. More corruption, more "favors".

The Escapist is in no position to say others have shit taste.

EVERYTHING in that pic came true.

Going on Sup Forums and saying a game sucks doesn't count as journalism, user

I always wondered: What kind of games do game journalists REALLY like? Since we know they aren't honest in their reviews. Do they actually think Madden and Call of Duty are 10/10 games?

They probably don't even like games.
Being a writer is suffering.

Since when has Call of Duty and Madden gotten 10/10's?

Mostly this. A lot of the early ones were tech writers who couldn't get gigs at larger magazines.

Considering this was considered the lowest of the low in the writing community (at least at the time), basically the "game journalist" over the age of 30 were basically the dregs of their peers.

Sup Forums logic: my personal opinion is objective and anyone that disagrees is a shill

Did we read the same thing?
The only RPG the gaming media remembers from last year is the Witcher 3. Undertale didn't even win a single award in the GAs, which is completely rigged by industry insiders.
The only thing that actually happened was tumblr steamrolling a gayfags forum poll. Good going Nostradamus.

>You're an idiot and retardedly naïve.
No, I'm the one who raised those people so I know the real story. You're clutching onto Sup Forums's hate boner over the game about it being "progressive" or some drivel.

>Undertale
>RPG

I partially answered this already. They don't play video games much outside of reviewing. The bulk of them aren't really "gamers" (I know that's a retarded term, but bear with me). When they do play games they tend to stick to "indie" garbage. There's tons of snobs and elitists and hipsters in the industry. They seriously unironically think they're better than anyone else because they download braid or whatever other faggotry flavor of the month "indie" "app" on their fucking iphone.

And no they don't play Madden. Those scores are all 100% dishonest, excluding maybe one or two genuine ones from the rare football nut here or there. For some reason a few are Call of Duty fans though.

What they definitely DON'T play is anything old. I once made an offhand positive comparison between an old game and a modern game in an article and it was rewritten so that it contrasted the modern game against the older game which was now portrayed negatively. This was done without consulting me first and when I saw it on the site and asked the editor why they changed it I was told I "wasn't allowed to like games like that" in reviews and that "old games can never be good by modern standards". They were REALLY fucking serious and even got all weirdly stern when they were saying it.

Deductive reasoning
>Negative reviews can impact sales
>Hurting the sale of a game can burn bridges with companies that pick and choose who gets an early copy of a game
>If you don't get that review copy than you are not privy to the information that can garner a good amount of clicks to your website
Then you have quotes by actual reviewers who would say things like
>Our bosses didn't let us give a score lower than 7.8 on practically anything.
Jeff Gustman for instance was fired from Gamespot because he didn't like Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and because of that Eidos went so far as to threaten to pull their advertising from Gamespot.
Finally here is a page from Amiga Power September 1995.

They do get unrealistically high scores though. And no reviewers aren't being honest about those scores.

The ones out there now are borderline retards that just can't get any other work. And hipsterfags who want to brag about "being a journalist".

You are the biggest faggot in this thread.

Thats interesting but can you provide any sort of proof to back up your claims?
Also what the fuck? The "retro" artstyle circlejerk is huge, why would they shit in older games?

Whatever you want to call it.

I'd go for Bullethell.

Like all the literally hundreds of shitty "Sup Forums is being SHILLED" bullshit conspiracies we've had over the years - no.
Nobody is going to pay you to post on a place known to be highly volatile and exclusive. Publishers don't want their products being labeled as faggots.

This is legit.

Shadiest shit I ever heard? Tie between hiring a prostitute for a game reviewer that was still a virgin in his mid-20s, and offering cocaine to various reviewers in exchange for high scores.

There was also once a dev team that paid a hooker/pornstar to get their shit failed game's logo tattooed on her back (IIRC) so that it'd basically be advertising their game everytime she made a porno.

Cynicism and distrust of all corporate organization, the media, the government, and humans in general tends to pay off.
Being a blindly naive, rosy-cheeked, young little dandelion is an open invitation for people to fuck you. If you can't use wits to actually deduce the truth out of a situation or a deal (and most Sup Forums users are too socially inept to do that), you should at least maintain a shield of distrust to make up for your stupidty.

Fucking "indie" hipster faggotry is in no way shape or form "older games".

Proof? Try every fucking piece of evidence that has come out about the game industry ever.

You're literally a faggot.

autism

You can get mad, but it won't make you right.

Cynicism based on games that Sup Forums has like have scored low and games that Sup Forums has disliked have been given 10's like they were going out of style

>Nobody is going to pay you to post on a place known to be highly volatile and exclusive.
Repetition is the key word, same way a random user forces a meme
>Publishers don't want their products being labeled as faggots.
Thats why they hire people who don't admit to work for them, also shilling threads don't get filtered by AdBlock.

when Ziffdavies killed print vidya media they changed out most of the old guard of EGM, 1up and GFW Magazine. I listened a lot to GFWs podcast. when they realized the apocalypse was upon them, and they all would have to find new work, they started speaking much more candidly about the business. this was 09 I think and I can tell you it was pretty foul then. You trade review scores for ad-revenue, and if you do not produce the right review scores then you don't get stories like previews and exclusive interviews and such, effectively killing you.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann

"Gerstmann revealed that his firing was in fact related to the low review score he had given to Kane & Lynch, though his explanation cited other similar events that led up to the termination, including a 7.5 (good) rating given to Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction by Aaron Thomas, then an employee under Gerstmann. Events such as these led to him being "called into a room" several times to discuss reviews posted on the site. Gerstmann went on to lay the blame on a new management team that was unable to properly handle tension between the marketing and editorial staff, laying additional blame on the marketing department, which he claimed was unprepared in how to handle publisher complaints and threats to withdraw advertising money over low review scores."

because of the obvious bullshit that goes on with big name review sites, look the quoted one even happened with square

Smart man.

Literal faggots.

It has nothing to do with cynicism and everything to do with not burying your head in the sand.

That was around when they were "changing the guard" in gaming journalism in general. Nearly anyone to refused to tow the party line was purged. Bad time for the industry. It's only gotten worse since. But that was the real beginning of the end for gaming sites.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Campbell_(game_journalist)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieron_Gillen

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bielby

compare these Amiga power writers with the current crop of reviewers

Lots of examples of games like Dragon Age 2 and Shadows of Mordor getting 10/10s despite being extremely flawed or outright shit games.

Most "critic" reviews use nothing but buzzwords well failing to explain anything specific about why what they're saying is good and how it stood out.

The fact reviews are normally based off only a portion of the game since game reviewers have admittedly stated if the game is long enough they don't play the whole thing because of the review date.

Remember you've played hundreds if not thousands of games friends. You know what you like and how to explain it so. Someone who started gaming last gen and only got hired as a reviewer because they're a English major does not make their opinions automatically acceptable and they're usually shit.

There is no reason to trust game "reviewers" over people you know with experience with games and yourself. Hell gamefaqs reviewers are worth more then "professional" reviews because the worst you find there is the 1/5 star salty fags.

That's just the way "journalism" works.

>The dominant mass-media outlets are large companies operated for profit, and therefore they must cater to the financial interests of the owners, who are usually corporations and controlling investors. The size of a media company is a consequence of the investment capital required for the mass-communications technology required to reach a mass audience of viewers, listeners, and readers.

>Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising (not from sales or subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a "de facto licensing authority". Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers.

>Herman and Chomsky argue that “the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring [...] and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become 'routine' news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers.”

>"Flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program (e.g. letters, complaints, lawsuits, or legislative actions). Flak can be expensive to the media, either due to loss of advertising revenue, or due to the costs of legal defense or defense of the media outlet's public image. Flak can be organized by powerful, private influence groups (e.g. think tanks). The prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of certain kinds of facts or opinions.

Honestly, games "journalists" are mostly failed writers who will jump ship as soon as something more stable and lucrative gets offered. There's also a HUGE difference between mags/sites now and back in the day, when people used to actually rely on them for objective input prior to purchasing decisions. A lot of those mags/rags were founded by gamers and games fans, or in the case of platform based magazines, fans of a certain system, etc. Journalists now barely even play games or can even be considered an enthusiast level player, which is why people are questioning their opinions. (This is what their reviews have basically boiled down to, as it's almost impossible for a product to be free of ad support, favors, offers of free swag, etc.)

I think less people would give a fuck if modern games writers actually prefaced their reviews with the fact that they're simple op-eds of a few thousand words loosely strung together from a few hours of play. My guess is that most reviewers probably don't even bother to finish a game these days, instead, relying on their "impressions" after a few hours.

the thing is that if one media outlet goes against what a major games publisher wants, then the publisher stops cooperating and the media outlet gets lower quality content than its competitors. If a media outlet and a vidya publisher get locked in this kind of a war of attrition then the publisher wins every time, because they are much bigger and can afford to lose revenue for much longer than the media. The only way to fight it would be if all the games press came together and effectively created a union but for ethics, but they won't ever do that because the favoritism of the major publishers is a game they can play to win stakes in the market.

I forgot to add the best example was the whole DmC twitter shit
>Hey thanks for the 9/10 review so and so you're the best
>Oh we didn't put our review out what do you mean?
>Oh i meant someone else probably oops

Then the 9/10 review hits the next day.

warner bros even does that shit
theverge.com/2016/7/12/12157310/pewdiepie-youtubers-sponsored-videos-ftc-warner-bros

The industry is clearly still in its baby stages but it is getting better..I've noticed hype has been dying down, reviews are more realistic, fans are so fucking jaded though.. I feel like in the next 5 years the industry will be much better. I like games now but there's so much room to grow.

Ill sooner trust the opinions of DSP on game reviews then anyone who can clearly be bought and reviews shit with buzzwords. That being said DSP is a casual fuck who often reviews games by saying "hey i'm honest" and then takes points off a game for being shit at it.

>I have been here long enough

Clearly you haven't. You're the newest of newfags. Lurk more, or better yet just fuck right off.

theweekly.co.uk/ap2/
A website made by amiga power staff after the magazine shut down, telling about the inside history of amiga power.

very interesting.

I remember when that went down. We had always made fun of Girthman for being fat and an idiot, but they really did do him wrong on that. People were shitscared after that to give any review less than an 8. I think that might have even been when the "unofficial average score" of game reviews went from 7 to 8, specifically because of that incident.

The issue isn't incompetence, it's corruption.

This is the dumbest thing I ever read.

This is basically true. However there was definitely a phenomenon of game reviewers back in the day playing only the first level of a game and then reviewing it based on that. Look up the reviews for Mr. Gimmick on NES. Seriously, go find it now. It's hilarious.

Also basically true.

Reviewers aren't paid. The only corruption comes the following: Sometimes "gifts" which can be anywhere from pointless "shwag" that gets thrown in the trash, or sometimes slightly more than that (which is when it gets super questionable). Alternatively, they'll advertise on the publication's website which places some weird pressure on the person reviewing to not be overly harsh. Probably the worst scenario, however, is when a publisher will opt to avoid providing review copies to a website because they either have a history of giving their games bad scores, or some other grievance. Also, more recently, publishers have opted to forego the review process entirely and give the games directly to the shills on Youtube for whom they know EXACTLY how they will react, and they don't even disclose the partnership. (see: Bethesda

Point is, a lot of the finger pointing should probably be towards the publishers, but people preferred to sperg out over the reviewers because of their political views.

Things have been pretty shitty last 10 or so years, these last 2 years were especially bad wich is why big budget releases have been underselling but I don't think AAA games can be saved, they are already way too deep into the 12/plebbit year old demographic and can't make a game without blowing 200 million on marketing.

>This is the dumbest thing I ever read.
Did you even read it? It validates your whole "Review sites get favors and shit in exchange for good reviews"

I'd have to kill the guy with the monster glove.

This is the biggest bullshit in the thread. Reviews are getting WORSE.

There are usually no cash exchanges, but that does happen. Generally it's in the form of "favors", which can take multiple forms and various level of shadiness.

Despite their inability to type like a native english speaker, this poster is basically correct.

It's not about "agreeing" with me, it's about the fundamental assumptions it makes, which are nonsense.

I think blame should also lie squarely on the amount of mismanagement and obscene amounts of money thrown into marketing mediocre products in the modern games industry. The games industry and the film industry are both strange beasts in the fact that instead of using their budgets to actually make their products better and cutting down a bit on the marketing bloat, they'll simply double down on marketing and burn cash to try to make turds successful.

In most other industries, those kinds of practices would probably sink a company quicker than shit, unless it's a big multinat like Samsung/LG, that has multiple product lines and offers a wide variety of appliances and electronics to cover failures in one product line. (See Samsung's exploding phones and washers.)

It's cynicism combined with a poor understanding of the industry.

Games journalists are enthusiasts. They get into the industry because, well, they like video games. So there's already a tendency towards hyping rather than criticism. And, yes, there are definitely some sketchy ties between games journalism and publishers. There is the occasional free goodies or extravagant press event, sure. But more importantly, games journalists depend upon review copies for their livelihood. Publishers hold the power in this relationship because no one takes games journalists seriously or appreciates when they jeopardise their livelihoods for their integrity, and ironically, Sup Forums is one of the worst contributors to this. In fact, when a publisher withholds review copies or places a review embargo, exposing this whole sick relationship, Sup Forums is more likely to cheer for the publishers for "stickin' it to them uppity corrupt games journos"

But straight-up paying off games journalists to skew their reviews? I'm willing to bet that just doesn't actually happen.

This is mostly a budget issue. The games that people most want to play are stupid expensive to make. So, if you're Mr. Businessman, do you put more money into making the game (maybe) better, or do you hope it's pretty good and put money into making sure it actually sells so you that can afford to make the next one? The unfortunate truth is that, a lot of the time, marketing works.

>Jeff Gustman for instance was fired from Gamespot because he didn't like Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and because of that Eidos went so far as to threaten to pull their advertising from Gamespot.
What Sup Forums forgets about this debacle is that it was noteworthy for being exceptional.

This exchange of substandard reviews and threats is fairly standard. What caused the scandal was someone at Gamespot taking that shit seriously and freaking out about it.

It's not like Gerstmann woke up one day and said "that's it! I can't lie to them anymore! Today I'm going to tell the truth!" No, he just did what he always did, write his review, and there were sudden unexpected consequences.

This is, unfortunately, true. The games industry also has a massive problem with fanboys and people who delude themselves into thinking a product is better than it objectively is, simply because a normal player just "didn't understand Game Company X's vision." Couple that with a massive problem with people who don't learn from getting burned, or revisionists, or buy into bullshots and "this time, we got it right" and you have a demographic prime for consistent fleecing.

Blind pessimism isn't any more intelligent than blind optimism you cynical fag

Assuming the worst without actual proof doesn't give you some special insight

your dick is fundamentally non-existent

You should prepare for the worst and be skeptical about any product that you could spend your money on. Are you fucking retarded?

Sup Forums is far beyond mere scepticism and also doesn't spend money either way so eat shit

Games journalists don't even play games. Read the thread.

You're a faggot.

>Games journalists don't even play games. Read the thread.
Sup Forums doesn't know what it's talking about. Read my post.

>Games journalists don't even play games.
>Read the thread.

Hate to break it to you, but they do in fact, play video games. Crazy, I know.

>Let me see your beautiful face


>O-Okay

Blind pessimism is free, blind optimism is not.

>Sup Forums is one person

Because reviews are a marketing platform and like any marketing platform, money talks.

Shocking I know. That's why things like review embargos exist.