UPDATE: The full text of the editorial is now available on Hsu's blog.
In his latest editorial, Electronic Gaming Monthly Editor-in-chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu publicly calls out three companies that are allegedly refusing to work with the magazine due to negative reviews of their games. According to Hsu, the members of Midway's Mortal Kombat team, Sony's sports division and Ubisoft as a whole are refusing to give EGM access to early preview or review builds of their games (in the case of Ubisoft, Hsu specifically says "it seems our coverage of Assassin's Creed was the last straw").
As a result, Hsu says EGM readers will get "little, late, or no coverage" of these companies' games. "We won't treat these products or companies any differently, and we'll just cover them to the best of our own abilities, with or without their support," Hsu writes. "Because, after all, we're writing for you, the reader -- not them."
These types of allegations aren't anything new around the game industry water cooler, and stories of publisher reprisals in the form of pulled advertising or blackballed journalists occasionally bubble up in the game press. But editors are usually reluctant to publicly name names in these situations, for fear of pissing off publishers further. Are we seeing the beginning of a new age in game journalism, where journalists aren't afraid of standing up to publishers that try to push them around?
We'll be following up with Hsu and the companies involved and let you know what we hear.
(Page 1) Reader Comments
Reply
http://www.mercurymagazines.com/
http://www.mercurymagazines.com/pr1/101/10115
And i never could be bothered with those free subscriptions, so the lemming posts ends here. not sry.
Best gaming mag AND best gaming store, no doubt.
Reply
Reply
Or let's put it this way. Case in point, Shaq-Fu.
Why Shaq-Fu? This legendarily bad game? Simply put, before it's release, it was thrown on a TON of magazine covers. Magazines got exclusive interviews, previews, etc. In all of this coverage from EGM to Gamepro, never was spoken a critical word. Launch dates were hyped. And so one reading these magazines could feel confident in a purchase. The reviews came out three weeks after the game. All magazines were hyping this title as the greatest thing since SFII and suddenly they pulled a bait and switch. EGM is no different. In lots of their previous, they hype the game, lead people to believe it's all good, just to save any and all criticism for their review. This is deceptive. So when publishers read the preview write-ups, they aren't REALLY getting a lot of the feedback they want and suddenly have to deal with horribly low scores because no one mentioned the issues with the game in question.
I give Shoe all the props in the world.
If Gamespot wants to restore some of their credibility, they could try some of this sort of transparency.
Oh, and Gamespot gave Assassin's Creed a 9.0. I'm just sayin'.
I've always loved the fact that Shoe was willing to let us know where the magazine stood. That meant that whatever was on the cover, or whatever the exclusive reviews, they wouldn't be there because EGM had bent over for any of the publishers.
Reply
All in all, I'm surprised how little pub this is getting. It's been floating around the internets since yesterday and joystiq only now gets a hold of it?
Reply
You do realise that it's not the fans, but publishers which gives them jobs? Yay, people hate Publisher A. Boo, Publisher A only gives previews to other people, so I don't have any advantage, and now lose my job.
Seriously though, lets all grow up and act all adult like. How can you blame a mag that rates things on opinion for bieng wrong? How can you blame a company for not agreeing with an unfavorable review?
Seriously, all parties involved STFU, no-one cares ;) there are many more mags and many more developer companies.
Reply
Assassin's Creed is a divisive game. Some people genuinely loved it, and some people genuinely detested it. You can see this in how defensive Penny Arcade was in their praise for the game.
You are suggesting that it was unethical for EGM to give out low review scores if they didn't like the game.
You are suggesting that it would have been much more ethical for EGM to average out what other media outlets were giving the game, and replace their score with that one instead of giving their own opinion.
That's pathetic.
what i'm saying is that all parties involved are acting like children.
The Publishers for getting pissed at EGM for getting a bad review.
EGM For getting pissed at the Publishers for the above.
When your job is to critique things, you can't expect everyone to be happy with the result. No producer, be it game, movie, or audio, sets out to make something that ranks a 5 out of 10, they expect a 10 out of everything, otherwise why would they bother making the product in the first place?
EGM isn't at fault, they gave a fair review, and thats all you can ask of them.
I guess what i originally said was a bit misleading, but EGM playing dumb dosn't fly with me, they know why they publishers are mad at them, and they should take thier medicine.
Where, exactly, is EGM playing dumb? In other editorials, Shoe has consistently explained that this is common practice. In this editorial, he documents such practices going back for a year.
He doesn't sounds terribly naive or surprised to me.
It is completely legal for a publisher to blackball a gaming magazine because they didn't like the coverage. But they shouldn't have any expectation of anonymity when they do so, and they should not be surprised if some of their customers object to this practice.
To me, that's the bigger issue. Why the game could do no wrong suddenly did everything wrong. And this coming from the same magazine that had their lips firmly pursed around some Crackdown dick which was much more repetitive and pointless than Creed.
It's a fact of the matter that EGM was every bit a part of the Creed hype machine all the way until they snapped back at it. I could understand the sudden reviews if they actually toned down the hype post E3 when they expressed concern, in small print, in a sidebar, below a small image of Altair, towards the very back of their E3 coverage (you'd think they were trying to HIDE this blurp), but they didn't.
And so for a full year and a half, EGM did everything in their power to convince you that Assassin's Creed was a good game, just to pull a bait and switch.
Of course not. Assassin's Creed has a mesmerizing art direction and a great deal of potential. I was very excited about the game before E3. If you are suggesting people shouldn't provide preview impressions of a game before they get final playable builds, I disagree.
The only thing that would disturb me is if EGM witheld a bad review after the game was released so that consumers had access to the positive previews but not the negative reviews.
It has been documented that Gamespot had a policy that games that get 9.0 or above get their reviews released early, while poorly reviewed games have their reviews released days after the game is already on shelves. THAT is unsettling.
You also seem to have trouble understanding that there is more than one editorial voice at the 1UP network. The EGM reviewer who gave it a 4.5 is probably not the same guy who gave a positive hands-on preview report. On the 1UP Yours Podcast, there were editors that were extremely critical (and complementary) of Assassin's Creed, before and after its release.
This idea that Ubisoft is somehow a victim here is ludicrous. It sounds like whining.
Reply
Reply
Want a better review make a better game and not rush it to the market so you can get the holiday rush...
AC could have baked in the oven another 6 months... but Ubisofts foaming at the mouth for Holiday dollars is the problem not EGM...
Reply
w00t!!!
Reply
I cannot wait
Piss off, will ya?
The MK series is and will always be one of the best fighting franchises out there. Dumbfuck!
LOL
That is all.
Thank you good sir.
And Armageddon is the absolute worst one yet.
And CONFIRMED: All of xFenixKnightx's writing is copy/pasted directly from No More Heroes. FUCKHEAD!
Also CONFIRMED: tagging your name in extra symbols FTL.
Sincerely,
-=xXxWiNGxXx=-
It's good to see EGM still has it in them, and by it, I mean BALLS!
In that same amount of time, I could have received a copy from GameFly, tried it out first hand, and mailed it back. I'm to the point now where I don't even read reviews unless there are a ton of really good titles coming out all at once and I'm trying to prioritize. It costs me nothing to try out a game that sounds like it might be fun, even it goes back the day I get it. (Star Trek: Legacy - I'm looking at you...)
Of course, it also means I'm not *buying* games anymore, either. Instead of seeing a rock-solid review in EGM and then buying the game on release day, I rent. In the few minor cases where I know I'm going to play the game over and over again (Orange Box, Halo 3), I just click the "Keep It" button and it's mine.
I moved to this method of playing because I couldn't trust reviewers any longer to give me the straight story. If I believed a bogus review, I was out $60. Now, I pay about $35 a month and always have 3 brand-new games on tap with more coming whenever I am ready.
Reply
Reply
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/20
This is a good trend, game media should say the things they really think without having to ask permission to speak to anyone.
This issue would have been in production right around the time Gamespot was in a lot of hot water, deserved or not, for allegedly bowing to publishers.
What better time to milk gamers emotions to gain some extra credibility points against the competition?
Yay, we're independent! Screw you, developers! Stand back, gamers, and watch us be all, like, renegades of the industry and stuff. We stand ALONE! Don't nobody mess with us!
Reply
The 6.0 and 7.0 review seemed in line. . . the 4.5?
Reply