Ubi & 1Up Boycott + gaming media = new thread

[PARANOiA]

Indeed, I'm interested in hearing from those in this thread that have the game and/or have been praising it as being a high quality title. What do you find is flawed in these reviews that makes the game so different from your experience?

Oh and it's a shame 1Up won't be reviewing this one thanks to being blacklisted by UBI... would have been good to get another bit site's thoughts up.

 

[DaJuice]

Oh and it's a shame 1Up won't be reviewing this one thanks to being blacklisted by UBI... would have been good to get another bit site's thoughts up.

Huh? What's to stop them from buying a copy and doing the review? o_0

 

[-tkf-]

Huh? What's to stop them from buying a copy and doing the review? o_0

Any serious website would of course do that, it´s the case for many DVD + Blu-Ray review sites.

 

[PARANOiA]

Any serious website would of course do that, it´s the case for many DVD + Blu-Ray review sites.

I guess 1up are not a serious site then? I would have thought the idea of not wanting a reviewer to publish a score on your game says more about Ubisoft than 1Up.

Buying the games would be a silly measure for them in my mind. It would basically paying to advertise the games they've been officially black-listed from having access to, purely because they gave out honest scores. Is increasing the game's sales a solution? Not in my mind.

DaJuice, here's some extra reading on the issue if you're interested.

 

[-tkf-]

I guess 1up are not a serious site then? I would have thought the idea of not wanting a reviewer to publish a score on your game says more about Ubisoft than 1Up.

No, if they dont review the games they are not serious.

Whatever childish reason Ubisoft may have it should not keep 1up from reviewing Ubisoft games.

Whats with the rolling eyes?

 

[obonicus]

I guess 1up are not a serious site then? I would have thought the idea of not wanting a reviewer to publish a score on your game says more about Ubisoft than 1Up.

Buying the games would be a silly measure for them in my mind. It would basically paying to advertise the games they've been officially black-listed from having access to, purely because they gave out honest scores. Is increasing the game's sales a solution? Not in my mind.

DaJuice, here's some extra reading on the issue if you're interested.

I would say it's the opposite, in fact. It's appalling to me how gaming sites just expect to receive review copies of games, and as a result stick to ridiculous embargoes and just feed the hype. I'd like them to buy ALL their games.

 

[ErnstH]

I would say it's the opposite, in fact. It's appalling to me how gaming sites just expect to receive review copies of games, and as a result stick to ridiculous embargoes and just feed the hype. I'd like them to buy ALL their games.

Indeed, offering reviews is a service those sites provide to their readers. If, for some reason or another, they don't review a product, I will visit some other site that does.

 

[valioso]

Huh? What's to stop them from buying a copy and doing the review? o_0

I am sure they will... but the game just came out so the review will be out later

 

[Tap In]

That means nothing, all previews are super positive, no matter how bad the game is, mainly because gaming journalism builds around hype...

generally I agree... but that was quite some hyperbole about the graphics specifically in that preview. More than your average positive preview compared to the final which led me to believe that they saw it running better on the PCs than the final build.

OTOH, take a look at 1UP for truthful, less "advertising friendly" previews (see their KZ2 preview from this week to see what I mean)

 

[PARANOiA]

Indeed, offering reviews is a service those sites provide to their readers. If, for some reason or another, they don't review a product, I will visit some other site that does.

I know this is wildly off-topic (there was actually a thread about the banning of the ZD network a while back where I was on the other side of the fence ) so maybe a mod would like to split?

Anyway, I think ernst's comment is a good example about what is wrong with the gaming media. What if Ubisoft banned every outlet that didn't guarantee an 8 out of 10 or better? Would we then only read the good reviews? Or would we rely on gaming sites to pony up for their own content, while taking a massive loss in hits (ie, greatly reduced revenue) since they'll be far, far late in their reviews (days/weeks after release) whilst not having previews, etc.

There has been a lot of discussion about this issue on GFW Radio - obviously they're on the ZD side rather than the Ubi side - however the key issue they raise is that in gaming journalism what matters is who is first, rather than who is best. Take a look at the Haze reviews from small sites, or Sony-exclusive print magazines and whatnot. It is seen time and time again (probably very apt to mention the Assassin's Creed's 9's in exclusive reviews vs 7's in "other" reviews much later). Print mags suffer this greatly given the lag time between review and print. The second part of this comes from the reward for exclusivity - advertising dollars, and potentially the influence on the score. Look at Gerstmann getting fired for a review he wrote about a majorly hyped, yet shitty game on Gamespot.

Anyway, I feel bad for the 1Up guys, because they're effectively being looked down on by forumites who effectively are saying "so buy your own games" without necessarily taking into account the full scenario.

 

[obonicus]

Anyway, I feel bad for the 1Up guys, because they're effectively being looked down on by forumites who effectively are saying "so buy your own games" without necessarily taking into account the full scenario.

I'm saying 'buy your own games' for all games, for all publishers. The mechanism that exists now, with gaming sites getting early games is suspect, as is their 'news embargo' nonsense. Not to mention that playing the actual retail game better reflects what their readers will experience: maybe the GTA and Bully glitches wouldn't have been such utter surprises.

To go even more wildly off-topic, it's worrying that the gaming press keeps suggesting it wants to go in the OTHER direction: reviewing games not as products, but as entertainment: less consumer reports and more movie reviews.

 

[PARANOiA]

I'm saying 'buy your own games' for all games, for all publishers. The mechanism that exists now, with gaming sites getting early games is suspect, as is their 'news embargo' nonsense. Not to mention that playing the actual retail game better reflects what their readers will experience: maybe the GTA and Bully glitches wouldn't have been such utter surprises.

To go even more wildly off-topic, it's worrying that the gaming press keeps suggesting it wants to go in the OTHER direction: reviewing games not as products, but as entertainment: less consumer reports and more movie reviews.

Heh, but most games have their biggest sales on day one - heavens knows I'm guilty of that, especially for hotly anticipated sales. If reviews came out a few days after release due to sites requiring to go down to the store, buy the game, finish it] and write the review, the horse has already bolted.

And on your second point... it's interesting, but gaming seems to moving in that direction. A review of Wii Fit would need to be vastly different in both tone and content than, say, GTA4.

BTW, I've noticed a couple of posts of yours that have been quite insightful - particularly your GTA4 review. Keep it up!

 

[-tkf-]

Anyway, I feel bad for the 1Up guys, because they're effectively being looked down on by forumites who effectively are saying "so buy your own games" without necessarily taking into account the full scenario.

I think some of the bigger Hardware sites at some point took a stand on some of the same issues. It was somewhat different but still. They stopped reviewing "paper" launches and waited with reviews until the Hardware was actually on sale.

But i guess in the case with games everything is about money and everyone is greedy and apparently most of the reviewers are extremely biased as well.