*spawned - The gametrailers comparison video legitimacy discussion

[whome0]

I think GameTrailer.com has already answered on kotaku.com site (maybe somewhere else in their site as well). They say it was a pure mistake.

Still its hard to believe, they do have a tight schedule but at the same time play around each console every day. They should easily spot PS3/X360 control icons from the video and mismatch text labels. After all, editor(s) playback it few times before publishing.

Not to mention how can they compare two very different crash sequences like vs like. I think they did not comment anything about that fact. Time is their friend, next week and we don't remember this anymore.

Sometimes I feel sad for real newspaper journalists. If they only knew how journalist title is used in a gaming industry.

 

[Asher]

This kind of stuff happens all the time in all kinds of journalism. For instance, just the other day the Associated Press confused an Airbus A318 for an Airbus A380 in a story about a pilot fired for "showing off". That is a massive difference. Similarly, it's not unheard of for the press to confuse Boeing/Airbus when describing airplanes in the news, which is a massive difference as well.

Whenever I read a news article about something I specialize in or take great interest in, there's almost always some inaccuracies or something misleading.

I don't understand why so many people here think that the gaming industry journalism is any more or less mistake-prone than others. I still don't know why you guys thinks it's unlikely someone simply messed up when under the gun to get the video out by a deadline. It's the kind of stuff, right under your nose, that can escape from you when you're looking at the exact same stuff for hours at a time.

 

[zed]

A/ it prolly was done on purpose + would of passed unnoticed without their cockup
B/ calling it conspiracy is trying to downplay it (chuck it in the same basket with UFOs etc)
C/ eg didnt a guy from sony get caught a few years ago writing positive reviews for sony films
D/ this is a multibillion dollar industry, to suggest everyone always plays above board is absolutely ludicrous
E/ if i was a shareholder in sony or MS or nintendo ild be suggesting that they do more of this sort of marketing, as i believe its very good value for the money involved

 

[Mr Deap]

I did notice that user tend to use past Gametrailers comparison as a reference for their bias toward the XBOX 360. The thing which is kind of funny to know, for the videophile is that every comparisons in the past gives an advantage to the PS3 version, due to the video quality of them made so far.

• The low bitrate & the quality of the encoding pass hide the jaggies & the textures qualities along with hidden ghosting(All titles).
• The video are not shown in 1080P which again hide the jaggies.
• The video are rendered at 29.97fps which various version of the games on the 360 run at a faster framerate(Armored Core 4, Sports Games).

The legitimacy of Gametrailers video comparisons are indeed not 100% accurate, but sure ain't biased toward the XBOX 360. GAF & here, had trouble to figure the difference due to the piss poor quality of the reference video used from gametrailers to make an accurate comparison.

 

[Silent]

D/ this is a multibillion dollar industry, to suggest everyone always plays above board is absolutely ludicrous
E/ if i was a shareholder in sony or MS or nintendo ild be suggesting that they do more of this sort of marketing, as i believe its very good value for the money involved

I don't think that this is the case - think it is a mistake - here BUT I must say that is also my feeling that commercial interests are to high nowadays not to influence things. I am even rather convinced that some "bias" (and yes some sites are biased) has also to do with.

With regards about the PS3 bias/fanboys - I don't want to put allot of energy in this - but I have the feeling that some people are claiming to be holier then the pope with regards of bias... . I find the accusation kinda cynical or even ironic seeing who makes that complaint. There is certain not more or less 360 bias then PS3 bias on this board. And before somebody asks I have 2 360's and 1 PS3

 

[temesgen]

Popularity in terms of sales is pretty much indisputable. The simple fact is the PS3 came to the party late. 360 install base, especially in GameTrailer's American backyard, is much larger and 360 software sales are stronger. It makes sense from a media site's perspective, who always target the largest demographic possible, when having to choose just 1 boxart, to pick the most popular one.

This is just a sensible thing to do. What is not sensible is to argue there is some kind of conspiracy at GT against the PS3.

For example: search for Devil May Cry 4. The boxart is PS3, not Xbox 360: http://www.gametrailers.com/search.php?s=devil+may+cry+4

DMC is a classic PS title and sells more on the PS3. It uses PS3 boxart...

If it makes sense to target the largest demographic as you say then doesn't it make sense to remove any system specific box art for multiplatform releases as the audience for DMC is actually xbox audience + Playstation audience and this is greater than Playstation audience?

 

[Dominik D]

I read most of this thread and there are several things I want to point out.

Sponsored features (articles or others) are clearly marked as such.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=en&q=sponsored+site:gametrailers.com
Claims that sponsored articles payed by somebody reflect reviews can be made only by someone, who have never worked. If someone bought a lot of t-shirts from your store, are you going to voluntarely give him some more? It may work for a small store in a middle of nowhere but never worked for big outlets. The same goes with websites: GT is to big to be anybody's "escort".

IMO beliefs that running business which is built on trust of your customers (reviews are) aligns well with "selling" reviews are naive. GT has the same management from the very beginning and they are well aware why people come to them. Destroying trust just to get a one time cash injection is irresponsible. It is embarrassing that people believe, that site handled by responsible people would survive so long.

And last: ScrewAttack is not GameTrailers. Just because they are heavily biased and they happen to sell exclusive content to GT doesn't mean that GT is biased. This is a stretch close to: editors of magazine XYZ are using iBooks so they are surely biased against MS.

And last: I used to work as an editor for 2 years. You make no mistake only if you're a total slacker. At first you make mistakes because you're inexpirienced. Later you make mistakes because you've been misled or because you're on a tight schedule and overlook something.

Peace.

 

[Johnny_Physics]

How does knowing something is less technically impressive make it look worse?

The two games have a different look, it's not hard to prefer one of the other it's all down to your preference.

But shortly before that, whenever a multiplatform game was released that was considered better looking on the 360 when it came to that hard to define 'look' it was considered biased to mention this.
This was of course due to the reviewers not calibrating their tv in this or that way, or not turning on the new RGB-option or other things that might make the different games to look more alike. And actually having a preference was in this case biased, because people leaned towards the 360 so these hard-to-define things should of course never be mentioned and only the objective technical qualities should be invoked to give one version the edge over another. Otherwise, that was considered unfair and in reality the multiplatform games were objectively equal and only subjectively different and that was not an area that should ever be visited in reviews or sites like this, and suggesting that the versions had a difference in 'looks' was considered preposterous.

Isn't it weird how things change over a few weeks?

 

[betan]

But shortly before that, whenever a multiplatform game was released that was considered better looking on the 360 when it came to that hard to define 'look' it was considered biased to mention this.
This was of course due to the reviewers not calibrating their tv in this or that way, or not turning on the new RGB-option or other things that might make the different games to look more alike. And actually having a preference was in this case biased, because people leaned towards the 360 so these hard-to-define things should of course never be mentioned and only the objective technical qualities should be invoked to give one version the edge over another. Otherwise, that was considered unfair and in reality the multiplatform games were objectively equal and only subjectively different and that was not an area that should ever be visited in reviews or sites like this, and suggesting that the versions had a difference in 'looks' was considered preposterous.

Isn't it weird how things change over a few weeks?

I'm not sure who you are talking about, but having a preference and declaring one version better based on a color tint sound different to me.

 

[dabomb665m]

I do Believe you & I agree, but you're really off the point. PS3 games doesn't even take advantage of those. They're comparing graphic with the signal picture via HDMI on both system with full RGB "on". Some XBOX 360 users don't have HDMI, but the current sold on the market have HDMI.

You will have the true color indeed on "both".



Why do you think people seek for super low time respond LCD screen. To get rid of ghosting obviously. The compression alghorithm reduce the number of color used in group of frames. The ghost will be erased depending of the situation.

By the way, Gametrailers use MPEG4 video compression in a windows media content.



What do you think are scaler chip do? Soft the picture? . At higher resolution, it will force the video to show more detail out of the texture if it's recorded at an higher bitrate & 2 pass.




Gamer mesure framerate & performance which MORE FRAMERATES PER SECOND & STABLE is better. If you try to claim that 30>60fps, there sure something wrong about it. Everyone prefer better framerate on the same & exact game.

Having an higher framerate will make the frame drop more obvious on either consoles. If I point out the PS3 is due that there were more cases where the PS3 dropped frames with the current gametrailers comparisons.

Contrast have nothing to do with framerate but the frame alone itself. Anyway, I have no idea what you are talking about...

You are getting way off tangent here though... by downplaying their bias through the invalidation of their process. This does not change the fact that there seems to be some bias coming from Gametrailers... conspiracy or NOT. I, like some others here, believe that bias != conspiracy or vice versa. Point in case: there doesn't have to be some kind of dirty money involved for bias to be present, otherwise the very definition of fanboy is moot.

Those of you who are quick to defend Gametrailers seem to have your own agendas. There has not been ONE good argument as to why this mistake was made. It's either:

A.) they made a mistake, their people!
B.) PS3 gets the same kind of bias from other sites, SO THERE!
C.) Their methods are invalid so bias or not, it doesn't matter!

None of you who fall into ABC here address the real issue at hand. Watching the video is almost proof of ILL intent! I reiterate. The recordings were NOT EQUAL; recorded at different angles. The COLOR / HUE of the recordings were changed to reflect their supposed (and long running argument) of the huge color discrepencies between the 360/PS3... YET both were supposedly coming from the PS3.

Really... try to convince me how that is not intentional. This isn't about the 360 or PS3, again it is about integrity. If you must know, I have PS3 and 2 360's (regular and elite) sitting right here with 3 TV's in my entertainment room, so NO I'm not defending any system.

What we want to discuss and hopefully figure out is if GTrailers has integrity and journalism ethics 101... because god knows we've all used it here for comparisons and discussion purposes.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I'd say its pretty clear GT is less biased than most of the people complaining about them in this thread.

The criteria on forums for an unbiased review seems to be that the reviewer be horribly biased in favor of the readers platform of choice.

 

[anopolis]

I hear GT is also hiding evidence of an alien landing. Shame on them!

For real?? shoot boys, lets grab us some pitch forks and torches and make for the castle... hhmmm most of us are geeks, who being geeks are out of shape. Perhaps a rather nasty email admonishing them for being EVIL would be more fitting.

 

[Mr Deap]

You are getting way off tangent here though... by downplaying their bias through the invalidation of their process. This does not change the fact that there seems to be some bias coming from Gametrailers... conspiracy or NOT. I, like some others here, believe that bias != conspiracy or vice versa. Point in case: there doesn't have to be some kind of dirty money involved for bias to be present, otherwise the very definition of fanboy is moot.

Those of you who are quick to defend Gametrailers seem to have your own agendas. There has not been ONE good argument as to why this mistake was made. It's either:

A.) they made a mistake, their people!
B.) PS3 gets the same kind of bias from other sites, SO THERE!
C.) Their methods are invalid so bias or not, it doesn't matter!

None of you who fall into ABC here address the real issue at hand. Watching the video is almost proof of ILL intent! I reiterate. The recordings were NOT EQUAL; recorded at different angles. The COLOR / HUE of the recordings were changed to reflect their supposed (and long running argument) of the huge color discrepencies between the 360/PS3... YET both were supposedly coming from the PS3.

Really... try to convince me how that is not intentional. This isn't about the 360 or PS3, again it is about integrity. If you must know, I have PS3 and 2 360's (regular and elite) sitting right here with 3 TV's in my entertainment room, so NO I'm not defending any system.

What we want to discuss and hopefully figure out is if GTrailers has integrity and journalism ethics 101... because god knows we've all used it here for comparisons and discussion purposes.

• They capture at the same angle & cut scene are synchronizeds
  
• The color hue difference is due to the color palette straight from the console hardware signal.
  
• They use a professional editing tool to make sure it is lossless before the encoding which the original raw footage remain the same on both sides.
  
• Gametrailers comparisons don't have any opinion & only video is shown side by side.

They did use both version in the comparison because there was one version that had screen tearing during the downhill & the other version that hasn't with the original comparison of RaceDriver GRID. There's also cuts missing when the label changed near the end, which it was obvious it was an error. Also the video have been deleted in front page within less than an hour.

Anyone who capture & make comparison get similar result as gametrailers except for the piss poor video quality which I refer in my previous posts.

The person who do the comparison at eurogamer use this forum as a reference.

See, the contrast is higher on the XBOX 360 even with the RGB FULL.

As per usual, each game's video output is captured digitally and losslessly from the HDMI ports of the Xbox 360 Elite and PlayStation 3 respectively, both set to full range RGB output, with every last byte of video information being ingested at full 24-bit precision by a Digital Foundry HD capture station. Equivalent shots from both versions of each game are then extracted for your critical pleasure, both at 720p and if the PS3 version supports it, 1080p.

Special thanks go to Beyond3D's 'Quaz51' for his online analysis of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix plus his patented 'what resolution is game X really running at' methodology.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87214

If you feel that poor color difference is due that they are video footages compressed & not pictures taken without much loss of quality on the frame.

I bought VF5 Online last week. The water does ripple.

 

[Dominik D]

GRID comparison is back online, corrected:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33799.html
There's additional smoke during 360 frontal collision (i.e. white smoke from the engine). It may be caused by the higher speed though. That's pretty much the only difference. Both versions stutter when you hit something.

 

[Scott_Arm]

C/ eg didnt a guy from sony get caught a few years ago writing positive reviews for sony films

What happened was Sony invented a reviewer so they could put positive quotes on their movie posters. The name of the reviewer was David Manning. You can see his name on posters for the Animal, A Knight's Tale, Vertical Limit and Hollow Man. They said it was one exec that came up with the plan, and he was let go, which is believable. The employees posing as moviegoers was also pretty bad, but I'm not sure if anyone ever took a fall for that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Manning_(fictitious_writer)


Conspiracy claims regarding this GT stuff is garbage. I watch gametrailers all the time, and I've never noticed an extreme bias. Do the reviewers and panels have a bias? I'm sure they do. Everyone does. Is it beyond reasonable? I don't think so.

This video, to me, looks like a mistake. You can question the quality of the review, but I wouldn't say there's a real argument for intentional deception. If they cut the wrong clip in the for the crash, that could also be why the crashes are not equivalent in the comparison. They retracted the video. What else would you like them to do?

I watched that screwattack thing. I didn't see anything other than two guys saying the PS3 lacked good games in what they felt was a humorous way. Depending when the video was released, I might agree or disagree.

This seems like a lot of sour grapes to me. Guys who work for these review sites are gamers. They're not tech heads. For example the IGN reviews for GTA. They say the PS3 is better and has better framerate. Well, they're just going by what they "felt" as they played. It's not a scientific process. Maybe it should be, but that's debatable. All they're telling you is their impression of the game. If someone comes out and proves them wrong through some scientific means, then so be it, but that doesn't invalidate the impression they walked away with as they played the games.

Sure, I think some reviewers are probably too biased to be objective and really do fair reviews, but I'll give the vast majority of them the benefit of the doubt until someone proves otherwise.

 

[patsu]

I read most of this thread and there are several things I want to point out.

Sponsored features (articles or others) are clearly marked as such.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=en&q=sponsored+site:gametrailers.com
Claims that sponsored articles payed by somebody reflect reviews can be made only by someone, who have never worked.

Ah, I stand corrected for GT sponsored reviews. However it is not true that sponsored features will always be marked as such on the net.

If someone bought a lot of t-shirts from your store, are you going to voluntarely give him some more? It may work for a small store in a middle of nowhere but never worked for big outlets. The same goes with websites: GT is to big to be anybody's "escort".

??? I am not sure what you try to illustrate here.

IMO beliefs that running business which is built on trust of your customers (reviews are) aligns well with "selling" reviews are naive. GT has the same management from the very beginning and they are well aware why people come to them. Destroying trust just to get a one time cash injection is irresponsible. It is embarrassing that people believe, that site handled by responsible people would survive so long.

And last: ScrewAttack is not GameTrailers. Just because they are heavily biased and they happen to sell exclusive content to GT doesn't mean that GT is biased. This is a stretch close to: editors of magazine XYZ are using iBooks so they are surely biased against MS.

And last: I used to work as an editor for 2 years. You make no mistake only if you're a total slacker. At first you make mistakes because you're inexpirienced. Later you make mistakes because you've been misled or because you're on a tight schedule and overlook something.

Peace.

 

[mister slim]

With regards to C, it was the entire industry, the "just walked out of the movie" reviews were done by actors, but there were no disclaimers stating such.

He was probably referring to the times Sony Pictures used quotes from an imaginary reviewer to promote some of their movies.

 

[patsu]

What happened was Sony invented a reviewer so they could put positive quotes on their movie posters. The name of the reviewer was David Manning. You can see his name on posters for the Animal, A Knight's Tale, Vertical Limit and Hollow Man. They said it was one exec that came up with the plan, and he was let go, which is believable. The employees posing as moviegoers was also pretty bad, but I'm not sure if anyone ever took a fall for that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Manning_(fictitious_writer)

This is a famous case. Many insiders doubted it was a formal marketing strategy because it was (still is ?) a common industry practice to "spoil" movie reviewers to "review" movies. There is no need to invent a personality at all. May be the people involved wanted free lunches and trips

Here's more details about their punishments for the misconduct: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7D7173EF93AA35755C0A9679C8B63

These days we have similar attempts over the Internet.

Conspiracy claims regarding this GT stuff is garbage. I watch gametrailers all the time, and I've never noticed an extreme bias. Do the reviewers and panels have a bias? I'm sure they do. Everyone does. Is it beyond reasonable? I don't think so.

The GT reviews were not too bad. I remember their Lair review was one of the more lenient ones. However, there are specific features that raised my eyebrows. Perhaps it's created by some "trouble makers" within the organization for good fun ? The latest one may be something different altogether.

This video, to me, looks like a mistake. You can question the quality of the review, but I wouldn't say there's a real argument for intentional deception. If they cut the wrong clip in the for the crash, that could also be why the crashes are not equivalent in the comparison. They retracted the video. What else would you like them to do?

I think it's a tint of mistake and negligence. They didn't do their review well, or the right people weren't on the job. But I hope they find ways to improve themselves.

 

[fallguy]

I'd say its pretty clear GT is less biased than most of the people complaining about them in this thread.

The criteria on forums for an unbiased review seems to be that the reviewer be horribly biased in favor of the readers platform of choice.

Except its their job to report a game, with no bias. We are under no obligation here. Its not even close to being the same thing.

The fact is, they dont try to show the PS3 in the best light. Its plainly obvious.

 

[AlNom]

The wardevil screenshot seems rather blurry across the entire frame.