Musashi Wins! said:
I don't think any of you guys are getting rich off it or anything. It just seems to me that they rely on the specialty press as much as you rely on them and there should be some balance between the access to games and all the marketing you guys do for them. That in return you can review or speak about games with honesty in a fashion that is timely and useful to the consumer. I mean, how often do you see previews that openly discuss problems in games? But I bet they love when journalists do them. I suppose if only a few of you did things different, the less scrupulous among you would get earlier access. But all sources are not thought of as equal in the review world and some are quite large organizations themselves.
I see that it's not just a MS thing. I was told that they were blocking all reviews on all launch software until after launch though, and that seems a new occurrence. But obviously I was making a big deal out of what is standard practice and a quite acceptable one to most people at that, so I'll go sell crazy somewhere else :lol
Thanks for your explanation, though.
I can see where you're frustrated, but you need to remember that game mags/websites are a business, too. This doesn't mean they need to kowtow to publishers in what they say about their product, but it does mean that they follow certain schedules and, yes, must abide by NDAs and so forth.
I'll let you in on a little secret, too. A lot of game professional websites and magazines will actually hold back reviews if they're allowed to run them too early. Say I have a review copy of...I dunno...Magna Carta, and I have it early enough to run it in my November issue. Then I find out that my December issue will actually hit newsstands before the game itself is released. Believe it or not, a lot of times the decision is made to hold that review for a month, just so the magazine with the coverage will be out there at the same time the game is released, which would supposedly be the same time that interest in said product is at its peak.
Nothing to do with publishers there. These are factors that are considered when making coverage decisions.
Something else I want to clarify is that I've NEVER been told what I can and can't say about a game in a preview. Previews are largely positive, that's true. But that's a decision made at the editorial level, not by the game publisher. The only direction I've ever gotten from a game publisher regarding a preview build is a list of bugs (implying that those bugs have been tagged to be fixed, which, admittedly, doesn't always happen), and sometimes a list of content they'd rather you didn't talk about (this is usually to hide massive spoilers. Like...say, the final boss or certain surprise game levels).
Otherwise, the largely positive previews you read are almost always just the journos giving the game the benefit of the doubt. And personally, I agree with it to a point. If I'm playing a game that's months away from completion and the framerate is shit, what is gained by pointing that out? The game has loads of optimization time ahead of it, and to point out this supposed flaw before the game is complete is being pretty unfair to the product, as well as feeding the reader with potentially bad information, as you always assume that games will get to a more playable level as they near completion. That's why you never read about things like random game crashes and other technical issues in previews.
What I will say is that previews should be critical to a point. Like, say, if the planned multiplayer mode is disappointing (think a FPS with nothing but standard deathmatch or something). Those are things that, I agree, should be talked about in previews. Otherwise, you're right, it's just a big marketing circle jerk.
And honestly, we can speak about games in a fashion that's honest and timely. I think the biggest issue here is that your idea of timely is different from mine. You obviously want reviews weeks in advance. A lot of people within the industry consider timely as being within days of the product's launch.
Of course, I say all of this not knowing what kind of restrictions Microsoft has put on the launch games. If you're right, and there is some sort of embargo until AFTER launch, then that's total bullshit. But I don't believe that's the case.
