Wednesday, October 31, 2012
PAYOLA!
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Book: Although I haven't talked much about my upcoming book
Speaking in Forked Tongues, expect that to change fairly soon. I just sent a
completed, revised draft to my publisher for editing, so it's one step closer
to being a readable thing out for sale.
Not much more to report at the moment,
but I'll be posting updates on this as they happen.
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Games: I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard
this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and
I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers
are "getting paid off" for good scores.
Look, I'm not denying that there are pressures on
writers and websites out there -- it's pretty clear that certain outlets need
ad revenue to survive, and smaller sites often rely on review copies of games
in order to be able to provide timely coverage. When bad scores
are awarded to certain games, there's always a risk that advertising will be
discontinued (read: income lost) or someone will be removed from a distribution
list (read: no advance or free copies).
The simple fact is that anyone who writes about games today
is at the mercy of the people who publish them, and their PR
representatives. It's not like a reviewer can go around uncovering some early
dirt on an upcoming title unless someone connected with its production gives access. Under such circumstances, it's just a reality that everyone involved
in games writing (publishers, PR, websites, writers) has one form of tension or
another with everyone else.
A brief outline: Publishers want good scores for their games
in order to promote sales. PR people want to give free copies and swag to
outlets which will be favorable, or at least fair. Websites want readers
in order to generate revenue, and they need coverage of whatever’s in demand
that day. Writers want to earn a living and have their work seen, so they need
to write about what's hot.
This all forms an easily-understood web of
interconnectedness which definitely has implications on various
degrees of honesty and/or agendas, and I'm sure I could write another thousand
words on that. However, that's not my point at the moment. No, the reason I bring all this up is that I
think the common misconception of reviewers being bought off outright needs to
be put to bed, permanently.
Although I'm certainly not omniscient (hello, @failnaut!) I’ve
been writing reviews and been in the game sphere for around twelve years. During that time I've never personally heard of or been approached by any
developer, publisher, or PR person and been propositioned with anything in
return for a good score. In fact, my experience has been just the opposite -- I've
had PR people go out of their way to say that they don't expect any certain number, just that I should be fair, and
nothing else.
Of course, I'm not saying that everyone in the games
industry is innocent. If someone receives some cool stuff and has great
drinks on the tab of a publisher, it's realistic to think that person
might be a little more favorable towards their game when it comes out. If
someone depends on the revenue from their site to pay their writers (and to
feed their family, too) then I think it's possible that a tough viewpoint might be softened in order to maintain a good relationship with the
people who pay the bills.
Sometimes this sort of bias comes in another way -- it can sometimes be difficult to be
brutal about a game that might deserve it when you know the
people who made it on a personal level. Speaking about this last example, I've had to
recuse myself from a few reviews over the years because I felt I was too
friendly with the developers. Honestly, after spending so long in games, it's almost inevitable
that relationships of that nature will occur.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that people are people.
Humans are fallible. They can be swayed (consciously or not) and there's not a
single reviewer out there who's a totally unbiased and impartial
machine able to turn out effective analyses and criticism. Given that no one is
perfect, I think it's worth saying that it's up to the reader to gauge
the worth of any particular review, or of the reliability of any given
reviewer.
As an example, there's one particular writer who I’ve
followed over the years (and no, I'm not going to say who it is) who consistently gives a good score to big-name games that
don't deserve it. This person "takes one for the team" more often
than not, probably for financial reasons relating to their affiliated outlet, and when I see this particular name on a
review, I immediately discredit it because it's pretty
clear (to me, anyway) that the writer leans that way.
However, it's not like I think this person is being
"paid off" by some publisher showing up with an envelope full of
money (lulz!) or even that any threats are made about revoking ad revenue. It's
probably more along the lines that this person lives with certain pressures and
responsibilities on their shoulders, and that colors how they write. Hell,
maybe they even believe what they're writing, and they just have really bad
taste? Who knows. Regardless, rather than trying to call them out on this, I'm
fine marking them down on my "do not read" list and moving on to find
someone who suits me a little better.
Reviewing games is a squishy thing with a lot of gray
areas and ethical conundrums, but with the exception of a few very isolated
instances, I'm of the feeling that most people doing this work are doing it
because they love it, and they have good intentions. Maybe sometimes things go
a little awry, or maybe someone's being a little too nice for one reason or another, but that's a world apart from being “paid off” for a favorable
review.
… And besides, ask anyone who's been doing this for a while
and they'll tell you that there’s no money in reviewing, crooked or otherwise.
Anybody with flexible morals and a desire for fast cash? They get into
politics.
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Media: I think pretty much everybody on earth has heard
about this by now, but I have to say that hearing about Disney buying LucasFilm
didn't bother me in the least.
George Lucas has proven QUITE CLEARLY that he is
not fit to handle his own properties, and if flying an X-Wing over to the Mouse
House is what it takes to get some decent Star Wars films, then I'm all for it.
The upcoming Episodes 7, 8 and 9? They can't be worse than the last three
Lucas gave us.
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