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[Gazunta]

(Note that while I do a bit of TY 2 GBA plugging in this post, this isn't about TY 2 GBA - the other thread about Monopoly on GBA started this in my head...this is about the games reviewing business)

As some of you know I used to be a "pro" game reviewer, working for the "big time" sites and magazines of the day (and still dabble here and there when mood and workload get low). At one place I worked at it was my job to cull down the pile of 30-40 games we'd get a week down to the 5 or 6 we'd grace with a review. At another place I worked at we would try to review everything we recieve but that meant most games got a measly 300 word write up I pulled out of my ass 2 minutes before deadline. When I freelanced I would review everything PR or developers would be kind enough to send me, but I could never guarantee any of my editors would publish the piece.

The guy who started the thread about Monopoly on GBA assumed that since there were no reviews of it on IGN, GameFAQs etc then it must be a bad game. Apparently it's a decent enough title (haven't played it myself, but I even enjoyed the Game.com version of Monopoly so what the heck do I know) but people seem to be equating media silence with a bad game.

Fast forward a couple of years. I helped make a game I'm really proud of. No review on IGN (though they said they would). Barely a scant mention on GameFAQs. Mosaic (bless his baseball-loving soul) wrote a review of it for Gamespot but it was never published (scored an 8 I think), he also wrote one for Pocket Games but nobody reads that (scoring an 8.5, but Gamerankings seems to see fit to ignore it). Most of the reviews linked off Gamerankings seem to be a) reviews of the console version or b) reviews that have obviously been made without playing the game (you can tell by the ones that comment on the fictitous GBA cart racing mode). Etc etc.

Anyway. This is about whether or not you think sites / mags that recieve review copies of games should review it. Do they have a responsibility to? Should they at least mention it? If time or budget is such a constraint why not give the game away to a reader and get them to write it up? Should Editors who know they won't be able to get a review in their mag tell the PR people "no thanks, please dont send it to us"? It would just save us a lot of grief.

Thoughts?

 

[rod furlong]

should Mosaic be reviewing your game seeing as how you two seem kind of "tight"?

 

[Gazunta]

Hell, if anyone in the world would tell me the game was shit it would be him. He has never pulled punches for anyone before, why would he start now? Like I told him ages back, I don't care if he gives it a 0. I just wanted to know. He's a professional game reviewer. I'm a professional game maker guy. We both know our place in the world

So basically...anyone I ever worked for, hung out with etc, can never be allowed to review my games? (Crosses out half the game reviewers in the world off our PR list)

 

[rod furlong]

So basically...anyone I ever worked for, hung out with etc, can never be allowed to review my games? (Crosses out half the game reviewers in the world off our PR list)

Uh...yeah? Sorry, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm just sayin'.

 

[Gazunta]

It's cool. It's a good point to make Not sure what I can do about it tho.

(starts looking for that picture of me going down on Mosaic after E3 one year...)

 

[Acosta]

I think depends a bit of the will of developer/producer. I´m not very much into executive decissions inside magazines, but if a developer or a PR comes to me and ask me to review this game and one of the site I work it´s interested on that review, I would review it for sure.

It´s quite hard to say because it depends of lot of things. Normally I am not able to review, let´s say, GP32 games, but instead of that I try to write an article with a review of GP 32 and some of its games that is something more liked for magazines. But that is more as a freelance posture, I don´t get a lot of stuff and I am not going to get a free GP 32. But given I have one, I find it´s interesting to speak about the issue.

Speaking about opinions, I believe that magazines that recieve a copy of a game have a responsability to review it at least, specially for online magazines (for paper magzines it´s a more complex issue becose the limited space). If you select your reviews, at least be kind enough to say it to PRs for saving their time.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

It's not just a question of space, it's a question of time. If a freelance reviewer can spend 4 hours a day on games (28 hours a week if we presume that they're gamers who play on weekends too), he/she could theoretically handle about 4-6 games a week (seeing that MOST games, especially action games, are quite reviewable after that amount of time).

But what if a site with five reviewers get more than 25 games a week? What if five of those games are huge RPGs? Do you give the reviewers one RPG each and ignore the others?

At some point or the other, it has to come down to: is this game at all interesting? No site reviews all the shovelware crap that comes out for PSone, GBA and PS2.

Also, space isn't unlimited on websites either. You can only have so many games on a front page. Reviews published directly into an archive without any kind of notice basically don't get read and are thus useless. Should you bump down your MGS3 review after five hours to make room for your review of Budget Release Horrible Sneak'Em Up Ripoff 46 and Shitty Tactical WWII Shooter Alpha 19?

 

[fse]

When I worked on some sites, I would review everything they could send.

 

[Acosta]

Also, space isn't unlimited on websites either. You can only have so many games on a front page. Reviews published directly into an archive without any kind of notice basically don't get read and are thus useless. Should you bump down your MGS3 review after five hours to make room for your review of Budget Release Horrible Sneak'Em Up Ripoff 46 and Shitty Tactical WWII Shooter Alpha 19?

No, I´m not agree with this, for a well designed page there are huge listing of the new things, actually you can see like pages as IGN can´t put everything new they have in it´s main page. But the MGS3 review is going to take a great space in the cover with a cool looking picture , and the budget release is just to take a line with its name. Of course few people are going to read it, but that is something one shouldn´t care, my duty was to review it and done in a right way, how many people read it is something I personally don´t care.

But what if a site with five reviewers get more than 25 games a week? What if five of those games are huge RPGs? Do you give the reviewers one RPG each and ignore the others?

There a ways to manage time, and of course there are priorities, but it´s pretty hard to receive 25 games everyweek, some games need more hurry than others. If a mag can´t handle 25 games that week, that it´s logical, maybe it´s a good option to let some games for other week, the less interesting ones. But if the games have arrived to the office, I find unrespectful to throw them to the trash.

At some point or the other, it has to come down to: is this game at all interesting? No site reviews all the shovelware crap that comes out for PSone, GBA and PS2.

Interesting for who? the reviewer? or the potential user? I have reviewed lot of crap for GBA and GC. I feel the problem is, let´s assume this, that some reviewers are uncapable to pass time with the last "Mary Kate rides a horse with Barbie". But believe me, there are people that are interested in that reviews, maybe not as many as the ones interested in the reviews of MGS 3, but there is a market for games like "Monopoly" and there are people that doen´t care for your main page, just go to search for certain game to know if they should pay 30 euros/dolars for it.

However I´m mixing things here, because this remains more to managing a magazine and I reckonise that I have little experience with this, is just my uninformed opinion and I hope this is understood.

More focused in the thread topic, I think what Gazunta says is what you should do as a magazine editor when you get a review cope of a budget game, and for me this is a moral problem more than a technical one. If you can´t review this type of games you should try to stablish a way to communicate producer which games are your magazine interested and which not, because if you receive games for not doing anything with them, you are making other people loose their time and that is something I am not agree.

 

[The Faceless Master]

for a magazine, where space and layout is obviously an issue, they just can't, but i would think that websites should at least *try* to review every game they get

 

[demi]

Gazunta send me Ty 2. I'll tell you what I think, with sexy results!

For serious.

 

[AlphaSnake]

Mosaic is God's gift to Earth. This is truth.

 

[impirius]

I don't think that sites or magazines have an obligation to review everything they're sent, but I do think that readers would appreciate some brief impressions of those games that didn't make the cut.

 

[koam]

Then. the other question arise, should we read every thread that is started? Oh twylight zone.