News Exclusive game reviews ethically troubling?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/04/28/exclusive-game-reviews-ethically-troubling/1

In a recent article, Variety's Ben Fritz has called out games journalists who offer exclusive reviews as 'ethically troubled'.

 

Games reviews are usually almost worthless in any case. I only trust independent user assessment and demos.

 

i usually wait until there are enough reviews on the web so that i can clean the high scores and the low scores and have a mid score.

 

semi agree, there are some good pubicans out there still, but i do tend to look at about 3 or more reviews about a game.

 

Anyone who buys a game off the back off a review has more money than sense, especially when the scale is out of ten. Most people could argue anything over 7/10 would be 'worth buying'... so bar video reviews where you can see for yourself I dont think they sway me much.

 

I would agree that IGN's review could be a little biased, but then you look at all the other reviews for GTA IV and they all say the same thing - i.e. 95%+, so I think their integrity remains intact.

 

Ive seen before where mainstream magazines have given out highly suspect review scores for exclusive reviews (*cough* PC ZONE *cough*). Whie i can appreciate the commercial value of an exclusive review, it does tend to create feelings of suspiscion about the impartiality of the publisher.

Saying that, I recall PCGAMER had the exclusive review of Hellgate London, and gave a very balanced review, and eventually awarded the game a 77%ish grade - about right for the game, so not all exclusive reviews are tainted in the same way.

 

Back in the days of gaming on the Gamecube, no where in my town had games to rent, so most of my purchases were based entirely off reviews. When you're spending $130NZD on a game once every several months it's kinda important that the reviewers opinion hasn't been bought. But then with nintendo it was always safe to get the zelda, metroid, etc.
From what I've heard about GTA IV, a 10/10 is reasonable, so the exlusivity/ethical thing isn't really relevant.

 

Simple, obey Bit-Tech on all fronts and ignore everyone else.

Following the God-Joe is the only true way to gaming redemption.

 

Example: The Secret of Monkey Island is better than Doom.

 

...and I am his disciple

I would make a comment about bowing down on your knees before The Mighty Joe, but I wouldn't want for it to be misconstrued

 

This might be a hard one to explain to the politicians:

"no sir, the game the game that gives extra points for decapitating police officers with a chainsaw is not the problem. The problem is the exclusive review! it's unethical!"

I do agree with the main point of this though, these reveiw sites are rotten and biased.

 

[EDIT: What, no delete function?]

 

90% of the time that applies, but he was way off on the witcher. That is the single most dull game i've ever encountered. Yahtzee hit the nail on the head with that one

 

Really, I enjoyed the Witcher quite a bit. This is why I find reviews worthless, its the opinion of one person, possibly one person with very different taste than your own, so take it for whats its worth, don't act like they forced you to buy the game by giving their opinion on it.

 

don't worry, i don't, i only bought it because i had a £20 voucher for GAME and a free afternoon, i wouldn't have gone out of my way to get it

 

There is only _ONE_ review site on the net i trust, and that is gamerevolution.
They don't take crap from anybody, and even take their time to bring the occational insider slant blog.
As a rarety they once in a while bring up a real article, like when they wrote about how violence and games are more and more in the media focus, even though youth violence has never been lower.

 

Having gone back and read The Witcher review again, I think it's pretty fair. It's a game for the hardcore, which I don't laud too highly or damn unforgivably. I had a good time with it myself, but recognised the game as average to bad in the eyes of many others unaccustomed to the style.

 

reviews can never be trusted as being an accurate impression of the game, there are games i thought were quite good but they've scored something like a 6 on gamespot.

 

I'm really enjoying the witcher, but probably wouldn't be bothered with it had it scored lower. I do think it's a good game post prologue, but it's definitely aimed at a specific audience. Would probably give it about an 8/10 with the patch on it.
Over rated for me would be audiosurf, I can not get into games like that, but that doesn't mean I think the score Joe gave it was wrong.