Russ Pitts over at The Escapist has an article talking about the seedy side of reviews and reviewers. How much are review scores influenced by palm-greasing? (Give too low a score and risk not getting any more review copies) Further, do scores even matter?
“”Any player can write a review of a game,” writes Justin Hall, for Online Journalism Review, “but only sanctioned media outlets have access to games before they are available to the public. Brokering these agreements falls upon an untoward mix of editorial and promotions.” And these negotiations can often lead to long term relationships. Although most journalists and editors plead journalistic integrity in the face of payola or favoritism accusations, the most popular parties at E3, GDC and every other major game convention are the ones featuring an open bar and access to the developers.”
I actually tried my hand at reviewing things a while back, but decided that since reviewing wasn’t my primary job, I just couldn’t devote the kind of time to the project that I needed to, meaning that at most I could muster one review every week to 10 days if I was lucky. I never did get to the point where I was getting complimentary review copies of anything.
Hit the link for the full article.