Is it ETHICAL to review a game you have a financial stake in?

[combathanger]

I just noticed durring one of my 200 lockup reboots that GAMESPY is actually in the credits for Civ4. Now arnt these the same bunch that gave this software that has so many bugs 5/5 ? Without getting into the 'we my pc runs it fine' crap I see so many people use a a copout, does anyone else think its completely undermines a sites integrity when the review a game that has thier logo in the credits?

Its bad enough so many other reviewers seem to have accepted T2 promises that their 'review copy' bugs were already fixed (I particularly liked the one that said they were assured a patch would be out that evening....that was 3 days ago), but to reivew your own game.....thats pretty low....even for gamespy.

 

[Mercade]

You say GameSpy is in the credits, but you don't say in which capacity they are in the credits. Also, what financial stake does GameSpy allegedly have in Civilization 4? Care to elaborate on those aspects before I pass judgement on your question about ethics.

 

[Cironir]

Many games support Gamespy (for internet gaming). Gamespy has published poor reviews for numerous Gamespy-supporting games, so, no, I don't think this has affected the review. I happen to agree with the score, and I have no financial stake in Firaxis!

 

[combathanger]

I can tell you from experience, there is no such thing as a company being so big you dont feel pressure to put a good spin on anything the company does. In fact, the larger the corperation, the less likely you are to feel comfortable casting any ill light upon anything the company does, since those most likey to get irked the most are also those least likely to know you from the last ant they squashed. Most larg companies also like to preach 'having good company attitude'....pointing out flaws, no matter how valid in as public a light as a website review is a sure way to be deemed someone who lacks pride in the company.

 

[GenocideBringer]

The guy who reviewed it was Fargo. He does not run Gamespy Arcade, which is the exact stake that GAmespy has in Civ4. Gamespy would be useless, since SO MANY GAMES use Gamespy Arcade.

And they MENTIONED the bugs in the review...

 

[Mercade]

GameSPY actually clearly indicated that some were having problems.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/civilization-iv/662218p1.html
Civilization IV performed fine on our test machines (which include both NVIDIA and ATI video cards), save for a couple of graphical artifacts that didn't impact gameplay. There's even widescreen support. However, readers on various forums around the net are reporting troubles with certain video drivers, especially with ATI cards. Firaxis is expected to release an update tonight addressing these issues.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/civilization-iv/662218p3.html
(During one game session with people from as far away as Scotland or Germany, a "Synchronization error" message appeared on the screen, but the game progressed normally and the message disappeared a few minutes later.)

The reviewer didn't have a wimpy system, though. Reviewer System Specifications: Dell XPS Pentium 4 3.4GHz, Windows XP, 2.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6800.

 

[Wokcus]

First off, Gamespy isn't exactly known for quality, accurate reviews so the question of ethics may be a moot point anyway.

However, there's a much larger question of ethics in the overall game review industry that you are over looking. Many game review sites get free swag from the game industry. I've read of free gaming junkets that have been sponsered by major publisher as well. Further, they also often get early review copies which allow them to put up their reviews ASAP thus (presumably) getting more site traffic than other sites that post the reviews in a less timely manner.

All this means that just about any game site feels at least some pressure to not totally slag major releases. After all, if you pissed off a major publisher too often your free swag and early copies might dry up.

Have you ever noticed that most major releases never score less than about 70%? If you go to a score aggregation site like Game Tab, or Game Rankings you'll see most of the games score in the upper portion of the scale. When you really start looking at the scores and the games you realize that any game that averages less than about 80% percent is pretty questionable. Anything averaging less than about 70% is usually so bad that all the copies should be dumped in a landfill. Shouldn't those bad games be scoring lower? Yes, there's some budget games out there that are truely horrible and the lower 10%-20% ranges should be reserved for them. But shouldn't the major releases that turn out pretty bad be scoring 40s or 50s instead of 70s?

Now maybe it just "grade inflation" as they call it in colleges. Personally, I think there's some ethical issues coming into play as well. I always take game review with a grain of salt for this reason.

 

[xguild]

First off, Gamespy isn't exactly known for quality, accurate reviews so the question of ethics may be a moot point anyway.

However, there's a much larger question of ethics in the overall game review industry that you are over looking. Many game review sites get free swag from the game industry. I've read of free gaming junkets that have been sponsered by major publisher as well. Further, they also often get early review copies which allow them to put up their reviews ASAP thus (presumably) getting more site traffic than other sites that post the reviews in a less timely manner.

All this means that just about any game site feels at least some pressure to not totally slag major releases. After all, if you pissed off a major publisher too often your free swag and early copies might dry up.

Have you ever noticed that most major releases never score less than about 70%? If you go to a score aggregation site like Game Tab, or Game Rankings you'll see most of the games score in the upper portion of the scale. When you really start looking at the scores and the games you realize that any game that averages less than about 80% percent is pretty questionable. Anything averaging less than about 70% is usually so bad that all the copies should be dumped in a landfill. Shouldn't those bad games be scoring lower? Yes, there's some budget games out there that are truely horrible and the lower 10%-20% ranges should be reserved for them. But shouldn't the major releases that turn out pretty bad be scoring 40s or 50s instead of 70s?

Now maybe it just "grade inflation" as they call it in colleges. Personally, I think there's some ethical issues coming into play as well. I always take game review with a grain of salt for this reason.

I totally agree with you, I challenge anyone to find a "High Budget" game that was pumped full of marketing dollar that got a review less then 70% from either Gamespy, Gamespot or IGN.

The bottom line is that these publishing companies pay top dollar to advertise on these websites, it would be a conflict of interest for the website to turn around and give it a bad review. It would be like me working at Mcdonalds and wearing a Wendy's shirt.

 

[Jecrell]

I totally agree with you, I challenge anyone to find a "High Budget" game that was pumped full of marketing dollar that got a review less then 70% from either Gamespy, Gamespot or IGN.

The bottom line is that these publishing companies pay top dollar to advertise on these websites, it would be a conflict of interest for the website to turn around and give it a bad review. It would be like me working at Mcdonalds and wearing a Wendy's shirt.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/153/153095p1.html

 

[GenocideBringer]

...

that would be because by the time that the info about the game is realeased to the public, the developers have a good idea of what the game is going to come out as. They only hype games that they know will be quality games, or they will get their customers pissed off at them.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

Didn't you think that perhaps, just PERHAPS, that they were in there because of Gamespy Arcade?

 

[wit>trope]

IGN is the only major independent game review site I know of. All the other major ones are just advertising for game companies IMO. However IGNs reviews are not perfect. Sometimes they are not perfect the other way -- giving a game too low a review because the reviewer didn't bother to figure out some things (for example in Wizardry 8 review the reviewer says there's no way to see the formation on the radar during combat -- well there is; you just press Z -- I think IGN doesn't bother reading the manual all the way through before writing their reviews)

If a company reviews a game they are associated with, they should be upfront about it in the review.

Bookmark this site:

www.metacritic.com

You can look at dozens of reviews at the same time for games -- that way you'll see both positive and negative and be able to make up your mind based on several reviews. It's kind of like rotten tomatoes but it includes game reviews as well as movies and stuff.

 

[MobBoss]

Done. There were several, but on gamespot... they only gave Xwing Vs Tie Fighter (a very popular game in its day from Lucasarts - certainly a big budget company) only a 70% rating. There were several "franchise" (i.e. Madden NFL) games that only had 70% or so, several bad console ports, and some games based on high budget movies that just didnt make it.


"I totally agree with you, I challenge anyone to find a "High Budget" game that was pumped full of marketing dollar that got a review less then 70% from either Gamespy, Gamespot or IGN."

 

[Mujadaddy]

Not only is it ETHICAL, it's UNETHICAL to NOT review games you have a stake in!!

 

[Scatter]

The bottom line is that these publishing companies pay top dollar to advertise on these websites, it would be a conflict of interest for the website to turn around and give it a bad review. It would be like me working at Mcdonalds and wearing a Wendy's shirt.

and there it is, discussion over. the vast majority of reviews on the major sites are not objective at all.

i like civ 4 - it has problemns to be sure, but the basis is there for a good game - but to give it 5/5, a score which implies it is the perfect game, is just laughable.

 

[Shakes]

i like civ 4 - it has problemns to be sure, but the basis is there for a good game - but to give it 5/5, a score which implies it is the perfect game, is just laughable.

5/5 does not imply the game is perfect. There are only 11 rankings given the marking system goes in .5 increments. It would be pretty stupid to not use one of them (since if you reserved 5/5 for perfect games you'd never use it because no game will ever be perfect). I think you should instead think of 5/5 meaning it's in the top rung of games.

And as far as the financial stake thing goes, how does anyone know? Unless you know that gamespy has a licencing arangement where they're being paid a fee per copy sold, you can't say there's any financial stake. If gamespy licensed their technology to firaxis for a flat fee (which is quite likely IMO) then they don't have any financial stake in the game selling more units.

 

[diffusionx]

IGN is the only major independent game review site I know of.

GameSpy is owned by IGN.

A few months ago Donkey Konga 2 was given an average review by GameSpy. The writer of the review came forward and said that he hated the game and gave it a scathing review. GameSpy actually deleted several negative paragraphs and raised the score a full star (20%) without the writer's notification or consent. This happened right after GS signed a major deal with Nintendo to work on their DS internet software.

So no, GameSpy is not to be trusted.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Ignoring the Gamespy thing since I don't know if they have a financial stake or are just acknoledged.

If you have a significant financial stake in a game, you can still review, but should so state at the beginning of your review. I like how some TV programs now do that acknoledgement.

 

[JiggleTheHandle]

Reviews are just as useless as everyone heres' opinions. Find a reviewer you trust, whether they work for a website, magazine or are one of your friends and go with that.

And the idea of giving better scores than a game deserves is absurd. Every game would get high marks and with the more trusted sites, that's simply not the case. They get the same gold master you get and give their opinions of it.

But at least you can count on them having decent gaming computers to run the games on before they give their worthless opinions... unlike some people who give their worthless opinions.