The business of reviewing videogames

[ratsoalbion]

Following up on (and pretty much reiterating) what I and a couple of others were saying in the TLOU2 thread, regarding professional videogame reviews:



Now, I think for the most part I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think it's important to try - even if it is pissing in the wind - to have internet punters understand a little more clearly how the business does, or doesn't, work including honest and candid discussion of the "shady" areas and imperfections in the system.

Of course Alanah here could be spinning the same yarns as every other former or current games journo, and I'm sure not everyone will have their suspicions assuaged, but please trust me when I say, she speaks the truth.

[Suits]

WTF

[Scrustle]

Good vid that talks a lot of sense, but honestly these conversation points are very old and nowhere near a revelation. Not to my perspective anyway. "Preaching the the choir" is right. It's kind of exhausting that we still have to bring up these things over and over again through the years, as seemingly they still elude a lot of people. I suppose it's down to the nature of who plays games. Lots of teenagers, where at any given time a huge fraction of the audience will still be fairly new to the medium, and still full of immature ideas about how the world works. I fear that makes the poor conversations about game coverage an unsolvable problem.

[Angry_Kurt]

I have a friend who is a casual gamer who sent me that video before it was posted here. He was honest in saying that previously he did think that paying reviewers to give good scores did take place in some cases, even today. But the video seemed to have worked as he has now changed his mind and found the video a enlightening insight into gaming journalism. So it seems to have worked in changing peoples views for at least one person.

[ratsoalbion]

That’s nice to hear.

[James]

A useful reminder that however many times I've heard the same issues and the same arguments aired, there are always people coming to the discussion for the first time. Thanks for sharing, Angry_Kurt!

Alanah's video and points might be eerily familiar to many of us, but the more times distinct, unconnected games media folk present rebuttals (with unique examples from their own experience) the more that presents a weight of evidence against the notion of collusion or corruption.