Ubisoft, Midway MK Team, Sony Sports ban EGM from coverage

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iceberg187

Regular
Electronic Gaming Monthly’s Editor-in-Chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu has an interesting editorial in the latest edition of his magazine. The bulk of Hsu’s column deals with topics familiar to VGMWatch.com readers: publishers bullying game publications; overly positive previews; and editorial integrity. In fact, Hsu himself has covered these issues in past columns before. However, what makes his latest editorial unique is what he’s always shied away from doing in the past: it names names.

According to Hsu, Midway’s Mortal Kombat development team, Sony’s sports game division, and Ubisoft have all allegedly banned EGM from further coverage of their products. The reason: Apparently, they didn’t take too kindly to EGM’s review coverage of their games. Still, Hsu maintains that EGM “won’t treat these products or companies any differently.” We have yet to confirm these allegations with the publishers mentioned. However, if the editorial’s claims are accurate, VGMWatch.com is certainly disappointed with these publishers’ behavior. As corporations, publishers have every right to ban any publication they want for poor coverage. But that doesn’t make it right. Gamers should feel disrespected as well.

http://vgmwatch.com/?p=1137
 
"Gerstmann-gate" certainly empashised publishers putting the hard line on the press is a big no-no - especially in an immature market like the one we're all a part of.

One thing I did think was interesting in all this was the addition of Ubisoft to the list. The MK Team and Sony Sports were all publicly known for a while, but Ubisoft is a very big player. I'd guess it's related to the pathetic score EGM gave Assassin's Creed - a 4.5. That's pretty much half of the score going around by the press (8.2 on Metacritic) for what ended up being one of the biggest selling games of the holiday, and easily Ubisoft's big money-maker for the year.

I think the 4.5 was flat-out wrong, personally. Yes, there's personal opinion, but there needs to be balance against the objective parts of the game and what it does very well. It would also be "wrong" if they gave the same score to SMG, Bioshock, Uncharted, or any other great game this season.

What it changes, though, is probably very little. The printed press - especially in such a fast moving information zone as gaming - is on the way out. This is likely the dying breath for the printed gaming press before the 100% online takes hold.

All in my opinion of course.
 
Actually EGM gave AC a 55% or something along those lines, still one of the lowest scores the game got, but not quite as far off the average as you suggested.
 
There is no objectivity in fun. If EGM does not like the game they should tell there readers exactly that.
 
AlphaWolf said:
Actually EGM gave AC a 55% or something along those lines, still one of the lowest scores the game got, but not quite as far off the average as you suggested.
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EGM review with three scores from three reviewers.. The three scores were a 6, a 7 and a 4.5.
 
The EGM review of AC impressed me. Gamespot gave the game a 9.0 and I see it has the 'Editor's Choice' tag... Now with this news my respect for EGM has gone up even further.
 
PARANOiA said:
EGM review with three scores from three reviewers.. The three scores were a 6, a 7 and a 4.5.
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Just saying, if you're referring to the entire magazine you should probably go with an average of that, as a 6 and a 7 are very close to what other reviewers gave the game.
 
I dunno, I kinda feel EGM deserves some responsibility for their somewhat off-the-wall reviews.

They've slammed so many games over the past year or two that really didn't deserve it.
 
scooby_dooby said:
I dunno, I kinda feel EGM deserves some responsibility for their somewhat off-the-wall reviews.

They've slammed so many games over the past year or two that really didn't deserve it.
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iirc, EGM/1Up were vocal about some of the reviews for AC. As other venues had exclusive early reviews, and EGM didn't, they took it as an oppurtunity for exposure and calling the reviews into question.

There is a lot of jockeying in the business right now.
 
scooby_dooby said:
The average rating was actually 83%.

Take a look at the Top 10 review publications on GameRankings, which one stands out?
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/930278.asp?q=assassins creed
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Huh? I'm referring to EGM explicitly, so I have no clue what your point is. It also doesn't matter if they stand out in whole, how the hell is that a bad thing? I have game I think are crap that others love, does that make my opinion invalid? Nope. Seeing a differing opinion is refreshing, personally. They didn't buy into the gameplay and told their readers such, it is the readers job to find other sources if they wish and to take into consider them all. One reviewer not liking the game is far from a big deal...
 
Skrying said:
Huh? I'm referring to EGM explicitly, so I have no clue what your point is. It also doesn't matter if they stand out in whole, how the hell is that a bad thing? I have game I think are crap that others love, does that make my opinion invalid? Nope. Seeing a differing opinion is refreshing, personally. They didn't buy into the gameplay and told their readers such, it is the readers job to find other sources if they wish and to take into consider them all. One reviewer not liking the game is far from a big deal...
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Skyring, I think this is one of the fundamental problems with reviews and reviewers out there today. Reviewing is not intended to be 100% subjective, but to objectively weigh in the games true strengths and weaknesses, while commenting on and applying a weight to the subjective amount of enjoyment the game provides. Any incredibly low review on a game that objectively is well above average (assuming 5 is your average) is simply not taking that into account.

The main problem with a lot of the "old school" gaming review sites, magazines, and reviewers out there, is they put "genre fans" on reviews with a known weighting for or against the specific genre. EGM most notably take to beef with fighting games, for example.

If you can't stand free-roaming games, but love linear JRPG's, it doesn't mean you have bad taste. But if this caused you to give Oblivion or GTA4 a 4 out of 10 because it was "confusing and unfocussed", your review is objectively inaccurate. You should never have been on the review in the first place, and this is the fault of management.
 
Depends. There are two types of reviews, objective and subjective. They have their places, like I personally have a music reviewer I often read who has extremely similar tastes as me, so I prefer to read his subjective reviews. The same can be sad about games to. A review to me is about finding out if I might like a game. I think a simple check box is enough to fill out the basic "is this game up to par quality wise" but only a subjective review will tell me "would I like this game?"
 
Skrying said:
Huh? I'm referring to EGM explicitly, so I have no clue what your point is. It also doesn't matter if they stand out in whole, how the hell is that a bad thing? I have game I think are crap that others love, does that make my opinion invalid? Nope. Seeing a differing opinion is refreshing, personally. They didn't buy into the gameplay and told their readers such, it is the readers job to find other sources if they wish and to take into consider them all. One reviewer not liking the game is far from a big deal...
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I don't think you were referring to EGM when you said 'other reviewers'. :?:

My point was, 6 or 7 is not really close at all to the scores other reviewers gave it. The average was 83%. EGM's average, among 3 people, was 58.3%.

Of course that doesn't make their impressions irrelevant, or wrong.

All I'm saying is, if you're going to run around and give perfectly good games 5's and 6's (Kameo, Blue Dragon, Assassin's Creed etc), scores which should be reserved for truly below-average titles, then don't be surprised if it comes back to bite you in the ass...

I'm not saying they should be punished because they have a different outlook, but I do feel like alot of their scores stem from some sort of "look at us, we're different" mentality, rather than an honest and objective review of the title.
 
Skrying said:
Ahh, your phrasing on the first sentence threw me off. Anyway, your other words scare me, I guess that's the reason why reviewers accept what amounts to a bribe "their reviews are not the norm, they shall burn!"
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It's not really like that. It's like, as a long time gamer, I feel I can play a given game, and give a fairly accurate judgement of it's overally quality.

I know which games deserve a 5 or 6, and which don't. That's just a matter of quality, which is not all that subjective.

When a publication differs drastically from my opinion, which is very rare, I don't put much stock into it. But, if I see it happenign over and over again that's a different story, it does begin to paint a picture of a publication that is trying to make a statement rather than just review games.
 
If the reviewer found the gameplay boring then it is perfectly reasonable for them to give it a 4.5. I seriously don't see the issue here, you seem to think a game with above average production value should automatically be given a ok score. Not really something I buy in to.
 
Skrying said:
If the reviewer found the gameplay boring then it is perfectly reasonable for them to give it a 4.5. I seriously don't see the issue here, you seem to think a game with above average production value should automatically be given a ok score. Not really something I buy in to.
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Their job isn't to give good scores to games they personally found exciting. Their job is to objectively review the quality of a game, as best they can, to inform buyers as to which games they should purchase.

People don't purchase a game review magazine to get someone's personal opinion about a game. They buy it because they believe they will get an objective measure of the quality of the title, and this is the true challenge of a game reviewer. Anyone can post their own thoughts/feeligns on a title, it take much more skill and experience to review it objectively.

And it really sounds like you're referring to Assassin's Creed. I'm not really talking about any one specific game, but rather a trend.

Though, on the topic of AC, I will say it's a little strange that of 3 individuals, not one of them enjoyed the game enough to give it even a score above 7. Reeks of groupthink to me.
 
It's their jobs to inform you about the game, what are they going to say isn't somewhat subjective. Saying a game has boring gameplay is simply a matter of completely opinion and same with every aspect of games. A game isn't some device, its a piece of art. Do you want music reviewers to start reviewing bases solely on production quality? I really hope not.
 
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