The Sad State of Modern Videogame Journalism

The Sad State of Modern Videogame Journalism
by Tamim Kashgari

I remember a more innocent time, a time when I could read a review and look at a score and feel both safe and informed about a game. It was a wonderful little world filled with rainbows and unicorns. 

But now I find myself drowning in a sea of corruption, opinion and petty rivalry. Well, alright, it was never that good then, and it isn’t really that bad now either. Nevertheless, there is a real problem with modern videogame journalism.

Some game reviewers – and in some cases, entire publications – have forgotten what a review is supposed to be and the weight that it carries. A review isn’t just supposed to be a description of a game, it is supposed to be a critical examination of a game as well. Aside from that, a game review is the tangible representation of the relationship between a reviewer and the public – a relationship that some reviewers don’t take very seriously. 

This is an especially heinous circumstance because a games reviewer is a journalist and not simply a writer. As a journalist, the games reviewer is supposed to analyze their work instead of merely describing it, and a failure to do so should result in an internal ethical dilemma and a questioning of their own integrity. 

However, let’s assume you are an asshole without a central compass and as a result, what I just mentioned doesn’t apply to you. There still is a reason you need to be honest and fair in your reviews, that reason being that the public demands it and needs it from you. This essentially works due to the fact that people base their purchase decisions off reviews (obviously there are other factors) and being tricked into wasting time and money due to a misleading review means that there will be less and less repeat readers for this hypothetical reviewer. 

So essentially, the system should be self-sustaining, pushing out the bad and keeping the good. But it doesn’t. This isn’t because reviewers are inherently bad people. It is because there is a ton of pressure on these people from the publications they work for, videogame developers and the public as well.

Much like the print and regular news industry, videogame publications generate a portion of their income from sponsorships and advertising. This in turn brings up the question of there being a conflict of interest, and the possibility that reviewers would be pressured to produce predetermined reviews. 

One particular case that gives some credence that this circumstance exists would be the case of Jeff Gerstmann and Gamespot from 2007. Gerstmann was a gaming journalist working at Gamespot when he was assigned to review the game Kayne & Lynch: Dead Men; he gave the game a score of 6/10. Soon after this review was published, Gerstmann was fired from Gamespot and rumors began to circulate that Eidos Interactive had pressured Gamespot to do so. These rumors were based on the fact that Eidos Interactive had poured a significant amount of money into Gamespot prior to the release of Kayne & Lynch: Dead Men, but they were essentially confirmed following the resignations of four editors (Alex Navarro, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella) at Gamespot, due to the fact that they no longer wanted to work for an organization that was perceived to have given in to the demands of an advertiser (Full Story). 

But nothing really changed in the industry after this; publishers and developers still advertise directly with videogame publications, and the same environment that got Gerstmann fired can still be found today. 

A more on-the-nose example of this would be the story of Robert Florence at Eurogamer in 2012. Robert had written the article that essentially sparked #Doritogate and only just stopped short of calling other videogame journalists as the corporate shills that some of them actually are. What followed was a forced reediting of his article by Eurogamer without his consent due to the threat of a potential libel and slander suit. This in turn caused Robert to resign from his position. 

What I found amusing wasn't that the largest figure highlighted by Robert was Geoff Keighley and his "coverage" of the partnership between Halo, Doritos and Mountain Dew where he clearly committed something unethical, but that the action he took isn't even good marketing. It's terrible, and speaking from my background as a marketing consultant, it's just plain shoddy work and a clear signal that developers and publishers aren't even that concered about hiding their clear ability to manipulate video game journalists, or protecting the strength and credibility of their respective product brands. 

Clearly, this is a situation someone with strong ethics would end up in.

Robert was pretty unfortunate in that he wasn't incorrect in any of his assertions, he was simply in a position where the people who would be hurt by his article could easily cause him harm, and much like the previous example of Gerstmann, very little has actually changed in the industry since Robert's resignation. Now I’m not saying that all organizations have this problem, or that the problem of corruption can’t be dealt with, I simply want to state that this lingering doubt is damaging the relationship between videogame journalists and the public. 

A more recent example that can easily demonstrate the pressure of advertisers on reviews and the fact that the public is sick of this relationship would be the reception that COD:MW3 received. The game was given to essentially every relevant publication that could be found under the sun, and these organizations dutifully went to work producing their “reviews.” Soon, COD:MW3 found itself sitting on the very comfortable score of 88/100 on metacritic with regard to critic “reviews.” 

Now I placed reviews between quotation marks earlier because many of these articles provide you with about as much information about COD:MW3 as a piece of toilet paper would have. As a result, there was a massive gap between what people were told and what people received once they bought the game. Now seeing how people don’t like getting lied to, around 7,280 user reviews have been submitted on COD:MW3’s metacritic page about the game and have resulted in the game being scored a 3.2/10.

Pressure from developers and publishers however isn’t simply confined to the realm of financial advantages, sometimes it comes in the literal form of intimidation and insults. A great example of this would be the comments made by Cliff Bleszinski during at interview with VG247, where he labeled Eurogamer as “haters” for giving Gears of War 3 an 8/10. To me, this situation really represents the arrogance that some developers currently have in the industry, because Bleszkinski isn’t mad that his game got a bad or even a good score, he was mad that his game got a great score. 

Bleszinski has since attempted to back-pedal from his comments and has publicly stated that as journalists, videogame reviewers do have a right to their own opinion. What bothers me though, is the possibility of threats and insults being flung away from the pubic eye, because to me, Bleszinski’s comments represent the tip of an iceberg of the culture of intimidation between videogame journalists and videogame developers and publishers.

WHAT?!?! They only like my game?? THEY HAVE TO LOVE IT!!!
(A dramatization of Cliff after reading the Eurogamer review)

However, this feeling of being owed something isn’t restricted to the journalist-developer relationship. It has even found its way to the relationship between developers and the public. An example of this would be the case of COD:MW3; as I stated earlier the game has a rather low user score on metacritic. What is remarkable though is Glen Schofield, head of Sledgehammer Games’ Studio, actually requested that people give favorable reviews of COD:MW3 on metacritic, a request that he has no right to make for a treatment I feel his game deserves. 

Here again, I want to make it clear that I don’t view people that exhibit this behavior as the children of Satan or unredeemable because their responses and rejections of such opinions are part of the human condition. That condition being that people feel pride, attachment and have their self-worth tied to things they feel they have ownership of.

The current circumstance the videogame industry finds itself in is also YOUR FAULT, that’s right, you are part of the problem. Well, alright it’s not really your fault, it is certain elements within the gaming community. I’m fairly sure everyone knows what element I’m talking about: it’s the fanboys. It’s not their love for something that I fault, it’s the criminally insane things it makes them do, such as bombarding reviews with comments that can only be described as written diarrhea or harassing reviewers and other individuals on their personal emails. 

But, much like the overly defensive behavior of developers and publishers, these people have become so attached to a game that they simply lash out. Their reason for feeling this sense of ownership isn’t grounded in anything as they had no part in the games production. No, their attachment stems from the perverse dream of an evil marketing executive in that these individuals actually associate their self-worth with these games, causing them to lash out at great scores that they perceive as unfair and at others for simply having different tastes. 

This is fucking pathetic. I mean if you subscribe to this kind of reasoning you might as well judge people based on what toppings they like on their pizza. These are the people that make me think that everyone should just stop giving games numerical scores so that these “people” are forced to actually sit down and read a review before spewing bile across the internet when they have had no hands-on experience with a game.

Your Heresy Against Kirby Shall Not Stand!

All is not lost, though. There are steps that everyone can take to alleviate the problems that modern videogame journalism is facing. The most difficult of these changes will be transforming the ways things work inside videogame publications, not only due to their monetary value, but also due to bureaucratic inertia. I’m not going to attempt to say anything more on the this aspect of the subject due to the fact that I don’t feel I have nearly enough information or authority to do so. Something that reviewers can do on an individual level though is to be honest; it could hurt you in the short term, but in the long run your honesty will reward you tenfold with a loyal following and the respect of your colleagues. 

As gamers all we need to do is calm down, and some of us need to learn to be secure in the fact that people are going to have different opinions. Let me use myself as an example here, I’m a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors series; I’m pretty sure most people reading this just uttered a profanity at that. But yeah, I like Dynasty Warriors, I recognize it’s a completely mediocre series at best and well, that doesn’t stop me from loving it, and I couldn’t really give a crap how anyone else feels about it.  

Haters gonna hate.

Getting back to you though: stop wasting your time and energy arguing on the Internet. If you don’t like a writer or a site, take your patronage elsewhere. That is quite literally the best thing you can do for yourself and modern videogame journalism.


This post was originally published in Tamim's blog on videogames. Click here to find out more about him and where else on the internet he can be found.