'sigh' Not this again. Pretty soon, no gamer is going to trust any review anywhere.
You may remember the whole Gerstmann/Eidos/ Kane & Lynch fiasco from a few years back and although this is slightly different in nature, the same unethical business practices sit at the root of the matter. It seems that Bethesda has been trying to keep less than favorable Fallout: New Vegas reviews from hitting the Internet. This as noticed by Duck and Cover citing Dan Hsu's recent Tweets. Hsu is the former Editorial Director at 1Up and now works at Bitmob. Here are the Tweets in question:
"One site was forced to pull its Fallout Vegas review because advertiser Bethesda was unhappy w/ score. Sad this crap still goes on."
"Heard (but haven't confirmed) two more sites delaying publishing poor review scores for Fallout Vegas until Fallout ad campaign is done."
"To clarify, the site's boss pulled that review because advertiser wasn't happy, against writer's wishes."
"RT: JustinHaywald @bitmobshoe To be clear, 1UP has not published a review because both the reviewer and I felt he needed more time with the game.
"@BenKuchera I did get a 2nd, independent confirmation on this, tho. The review was pulled by CEO, then put back up when ad campaign was over."
Advertising. Reviews. Both are necessary for everyone to stay alive and healthy. Without ad campaigns, you guys get nothing. Well, you might get something but it won't come from paid professionals, that's for sure. It's all well and good to talk about integrity and decency in business but then someone says, "don't publish this for a week or two until the campaign is over…everyone will have their money by then. No big deal." We understand why sites respond.
Whatever. We're hovering at that point where we're big enough to matter but not big enough to matter to most publishers. So if we want to post a less-than-glowing review of New Vegas or any game in existence, we'll do just that. …just have to look for other ad campaigns, that's all.
Related Game(s): Fallout: New Vegas
Enraging but not surprising. I haven't trusted paid reviewers in a while-gaming is business. Most sites/mags are owned by one dominant advertiser or another. The man with the money calls all the shots.
Fellow gamers know and are usually brutally honest if something is up with a game. I trust them.
Er…that means you don't trust us, either.
I trust you guys! I'm curious though, who pays you? Is it Sony?
Sorry Benny. I read em, take em into consideration but I feel the true review is in the comment section. Taken with a grain of salt of course.
I feel that comments add more of a biased perspective… granted that can have its utility at times as well.
I prefer to read a variety of professional reviews and eat the meat but spit out the bones, so to speak. It's typically pretty easy to find bias. When someone has a legitimate point to make, you can tell by the thought that's gone into it. When there's bias, there's a sort of… sarcastic/half-assed/"If I act like I only kinda care about it, they'll believe me" sort of approach.
I read this site's reviews more religiously than any other because I'm more likely to believe what's written. Another good indicator that this site is legit, is the fact that their scores are often remarkably close to the overall metacritic average. To me, that's a good indicator of a journalist without bias.
The best review gives no score, in my opinion. I want to know what the game has, and how well it preforms.
I disliked many games that had high scores. I liked many games that had low scores. It all comes down to opinion, everyone has one and they are all equal. No matter how 'smart' someone thinks he/she is.
I am not saying I disagree with Ben and Arnold writing reviews however. They write very well. And I hope they continue forever. I just ignore the score is all.
That is my outlook on the matter. 🙂
"Sorry Benny. I read em, take em into consideration but I feel the true review is found after playing it myself."
I fixed that comment for ya, free of charge 😉
laxpro: No, we're independent. Ads is the answer.
Thanks for clarifying Ben.
@Nlayer, I like reviews without scores as well. Scores are just numbers whereas words convey so much more.
No score reviews was the reason I read Joystiq reviews and take them seriously (except for their Nier review though). Now they have a score system, but still nice reviews.
@ Nlayer
All opinions are most assuredly not equal. It's that kind of thinking that allows idiocy to run rampant.
Egalitarian ideals are good and the law needs to treat all people equally, but the opinions of experts are worth more than those of the un-informed.
Would you want some dude off the street to diagnose your illness?
Last edited by Fane1024 on 10/21/2010 5:24:28 PM
Wow. That's really sad. Well the game's high scores makes sense now at least.
There's really no excuse for the game to release in the near broken state that it's in.
Sure patches are incoming, but what about people who don't have internet connected consoles? They were basically lied to, and duped out of hard earned money.
I do want to still play this really badly, but no patch, no buy.
People who don't have internet connected consoles are losers. What does it matter if they're ripped off?
losers now thats no nice at all
The fact that there are "Less than favourable" reviews for this game kind of saddens me. I loved Fallout 3, even though it had some less then stellar reviews for glitches. I had hoped that those issues would have been fixed for this game. As long as the glitches aren't worse then any of the minor ones I ran into in the last game, this game is a definite purchase for me, but if they've screwed up the storyline or the fun gameplay? Well I guess I'll have to wait for Ben's review to find out. What about you guys? Have any of you played it yet? What are your thoughts so far?
See, the problem is they went with a new fallout. Whereas they really should have focused on a new elder scrolls. Though I have warmed up to fallout considerably, the post-apocalyptic environment still annoys me.
Last edited by laxpro2001 on 10/21/2010 11:26:50 AM
I have about 6-7 hours invested in the game and so far I'm really liking it. The few things that frustrate me (i.e. certain critters seeming to be nearly unkillable) are more due to the haphazard character construction I did. The game did freeze up on me once and when I tried to get to do it again, it didn't happen. The most annoying thing I've found is that there a 1 second lags or something here and there, though those don't happen often, either.
Other than that, I've had no complaints. The non-player-being-stupid issues haven't been major and I've had a good time with the game.
NOTE: I'm playing the 360 version of the game. Not sure how much better or worse the PS3 version is.
Last edited by SirLoin of Beef on 10/21/2010 11:35:24 AM
@ laxpro
Bethesda is (probably) working on a new ES game. New Vegas was made by a different developer (but published by Bethesda).
Please do post your review Ben…. this is kinda bs. Mediocre games (like this? can't judge yet I guess.) get huge marketing campaigns and superb games like demons souls get nothing.
I DON'T TRUST ANY REVIEWER ANYMORE !!! NOT EVEN THIS SITE i'm sorry ben and the other reviewers on this site but i just don't give a **** any more.
D.T.A.R Dont trust any reviewer.
Last edited by n/a on 10/21/2010 11:40:18 AM
Why not this site? Especially if ben is considering putting up the review anyway?
Remember that annoying dude in Family Guy who points and yells, "HEY EVERYONE, THIS GUYS A PHONY! HE'S A BIG FAT PHONY!"
yeah….. I wish you were a cartoon sometimes… Then there'd be an excuse.
Then leave. You rarely add anything to the discussion anyway. Most of the time your just trolling or making contradictory statements.
That's your call. But I got bad news- trusting the gaming masses might not be the best idea all the time, especially when the majority are casual gamers who know very little…and considering you're posting on a game site, I'm guessing you're not part of that group.
So, Ben, quick question. Are we as users allowed to put up a review of a game before you or Arnold get to it? I have one for this game.
I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, though maybe wait for Ben to reply. You are't paid and you weren't given the game, you bought it so yea you can probably do whatever you want. Please post it! I look forward to reading it!
Last edited by laxpro2001 on 10/21/2010 11:37:08 AM
Do it. i love user reviews.
I will write it up and submit it and if Ben or Arnold see fit they can post it then.
@Coverton
This site has a user reviews section. You can write and post up a review whenever you see fit.
All right, so I wrote it up and sent it in for approval, and lol at the thumbs downer, probably someone who REALLY wants F:NV to be the next best thing since sliced bread.
Approved. See how easy that was? 😉
Lol, thanks Ben. I just got back from company meetings and such to find it up. I answered some questions for you guys that posted in there as well.
This kind of publicity is enough for me. I doubt I need a review now… lol… Never a good sign when a publisher is scared of the reviews…. *cough FFXIV cough*
lol good point, though I can see Kazunori Yamauchi doing this maybe if GT5 gets anything below a 10, after all he is a perfectionist, and GT5 will most likely be "perfect"
Indeed, no company should be doping this to avoid a bad review score, that's simply ridiculous.
@lax
All the more reason for the game's makers to be muzzled during the launch period…
open mind and a pinch of salt… thats all i got.
Ha, I won't buy games from companies that feel they need to bully people into giving their games favorable or fair reviews. Shows the lack of confidence in their own product. And from what I have been reading, New Vegas is quite broken. Especially the console versions. Pathetic that games are still released with such subpar standards. I don't trust too many review sites. Manly this one and PlaystationLifestyle. They seem to be fair too.
Keep up the good work PSX.
I've dealt with PSLS here and there. Don't have any problem with them.
I only recently took notice of them. Their readership seems far lower than PSX's but so far they have given me no reason to cringe either. Still enjoy the PSX community and articles more. PSX seem's far more focused and I love your on schedule updates here. Dedication. 🙂
Jawknee, PSX has a certain something, I think it's a combination of the writers, editorial independence ( Ben, I do think that you are ethical to the core and if you were faced with an ethical decision you'd make the right choice. That's based on my reading of you as seen through your writing.), the readership and commenting community. The tone is set by the quality of the writers and their articles and reviews, the editorial policy, and not trying to be first or quickest with every snippet of news. It's a nice balance because it allows more depth of discussion in articles and comments. Combined with the thinking and reading community who post, the result is a very readable and mature site with a lot to recommend itself. I haven't found that elsewhere, there's too much emphasis on re-reporting someone else's re-reporting of another site's story, too much emphasis on reaction and not enough thought or analysis.
I see the issue with both sides. I don't really see anything wrong with delaying a review (there are plenty of other sites out there with one) as long as the real review eventually makes its way to the readers.
I don't either, but the reason behind that delay is a little shady…which bugs me, to some extent.
They probably want time to patch all the bugs before major reviews start rolling out. Something they should have done before they released the game.
I like having patches open and available to us but these devs have started to use it to fix their broken games after the fact when they should have made sure it was running right before hand. Seems a lot of companies are taking the MS, "release now, fix later" approach just like they have been doing with their OS for years.
Last edited by Jawknee on 10/21/2010 12:37:25 PM
This issue reminds me of a magazine with a name like this site. A long time ago that mag talk sh.. about a Madden game and EA retire all ads forever.
And reminds me too Final Fantasy 13. How can u review a game that took months to finish it? Fallout 3 took me 70 hours and and i left a lot of things.
It can be done. I think that's obvious. Don't have to finish to game to know what's wrong or right about it.
Well, it's why I take every review with a grain of salt. Even the ones here at PSX, even though I do have this site's reviews at a much higher standard.
I believe that a reviewers personal taste of games is easily seen when they decide to review any given title.
In my book, it's up to the individual themselves to take EVERYTHING into consideration prior to any purchase.
For example, I will generally not listen to a review of an airplane game unless I know the author shares the same passion for the genre as I do.
Too funny, considering that if you click on Gamespot's review of New Vegas, you get a 404 page not found error.
Well not only New Vegas, something is wrong with the site.
I see now they're got a review up, but for the first time I can ever remember – no score.