Here’s Variety on the problems associated with exclusive reviews, in the context of the IGN GTA IV that went up a few days ago and gave the game a 10 out of 10. Ben Fritz brings up the Game Informer Mass Effect 9.75 review that was also an exclusive (and mentioned some massive flaws).

A comment on the piece has some details about how this sort of thing works:

With the release of GTA Vice City, the rules where simple: Take 2 permitted you to publish a review BEFORE the game was released if you gave it 95% or more. You sign that document, you got playable code. All the others got their first playable code in the form of a retail version, at the day of release. By then, the press already had tons of 95+ releases, and no-one dared to oppose these reviews, in fear of getting butchered by GTA fanboys.

Depressing, really. Me? I’m cynical like a truckload of dadaists, so 10/10 from IGN means very little. Any > 9 review of a triple-A game on a big site doesn’t mean too much. Not that I think GTA IV will suck; I’m preparing to devote many hours of my life to it. But still, 10/10 implies no past or future game can rival its greatness, which seems a little over the top.

Here’s a great followup to the Gerstmann affair, that supplies lots of salacious details while fitting the sad tale into a broader context. Two editorial staffers have quit since, for example. And an ad sales guy is in charge of editorial. Also, did you know that basically any element on GameSpot’s front page can be purchased by advertisers?

In my opinion, we should view the controversy from the larger perspective of journalism as a whole, and not treat games sites as some distinct, recent phenomenon with their own set of rules. If you learned that any story on the front page of the Globe and Mail could be purchased by an advertiser without clearly being marked as an ad, why would you read the Globe anymore?

This article about boomer gamers (PDF) is impressive to say the least. It’s the results of an online survey of 40-plus gamers, and it paints a picture of a breed of gamer we hear little about. You can’t describe them as casual players – they play too frequently for that. They prefer adventure games. Women are more active than men. They overwhelmingly play on the PC. Myst and the LucasArts adventures are seminal works. “Generally, players seemed dissatisfied not only with the current offerings not only of the mainstream game industry, but of the mainstream game press as well.”

We talked about the Jeff Gerstmann saga a little bit on the podcast we recorded last night (which I hope to have up by tonight BTW). Nadine considers it business as usual, Toku and I were perhaps less jaded and still somewhat disturbed by it.

(One-line summary: Gerstmann was fired from gamespot after giving Kane & Lynch, a massive advertiser on the site, a negative review.)

But since then I’ve been thinking a bit more about the positive aspects of the whole mess.

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Great editorial over at Gamasutra on the topic of the Jeff Gerstmann firing and the supremacy of numerical scores:

But many outlets have failed to stir up any reader interest in the text behind the review, or the overall atmosphere of the mag or website they’re exploring — instead, readers increasingly care exclusively about the score, so they can praise and/or whine about it online. Entire game-media outlets have been, and are defined by, the numerals they publish…instead of, you know, how fun they are to read.

This just can’t be ignored. Of course, Penny Arcade is all over it.

So I’m finally finished this badboy. Might as well check in with updated thoughts.

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The failures of game journalism. It’s a subject that comes up frequently, perhaps because despite the birth of new games journalism, the usual mainstream subjects seem only to have gotten worse.

Not so, says Christian McCrea in The Escapist, because… well, I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps it’s because those who have “the inclination to make simple, human connections between technology and human truth” are already in good supply, as indicated by the links throughout the article to key NGJ writings. Those are worth checking out.

The one comment on the article (as of me writing this) takes issue with its reliance on mainstream sources, and thankfully counters with a list of good sites:

Arthouse Games
Mentisworks
Only A Game
The Artful Gamer
The Cultural Gutter
Grand Text Auto

A couple of those are already in the blogroll, but I’ll make sure they all get there.