let them squabble about who gets what exclusivity (that's a word right??)!!!! Do reviews really matter that much, do we not know when a games good or not????? Rent if you have any doubts it's that simple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

freespeech

Ben has not once responded to anyone on the original blog post, not to say thanks, not to take issue with those abusing him, not to justify or explain himself.

But of course, that blog got a shit load more hits after posting that and being carried on Kotaku and everything else...

FunkyJ

Hillary was just protecting IGN while upholding whatever business agreemnt set between them and Rockstar. Whether the score was legit or the circumstances fair is an irrelevant topic. Anyone could argue anyway that reviews are subjective.

ChiChi_BBQ

Hopefully as Mainstream Media moves into video game coverage they also shine a bigger, brighter light on some of the shadier practices that go on between the Enthusiast Press and Game publishers.

crazyscreenwriter

Makidian

Take what Ubisoft and other publishers are doing in blackballing EGM for lower than average review scores. It's just unprofessional. Whose more at fault though, the publisher for encouraging the practice, or the press outlet that actively seeks the right to an exclusive review?

stranger

Brian Ashcraft

LeLoi

Wubbytoes

William "Killer" Shatner

Most, if not all, are in cahoots (on some level) with the big publishers, who decide who gets exclusives, early access, and oh yeah, the MAJORITY of their ADVERTISING.

VicViper

Lyner

Protector one

Anyways, for the people who are taking this opportunity to bash IGN, or specifically Hilary because their reviews are too high, or too low, or both, a great big /golfclap all around.

For the people STILL commenting about how Hilary missed the point and dodged the questions, there's a link at the bottom of the post you can click to get the full story. I'll just copy/paste what should have been a common sense read:

"We in no way trade scores for an exclusive," Blevins said. "All we do for an exclusive is just ask if we can have a first review. We don't promise anything about the text or anything about the score. Publishers are not allowed to see the text or the score before the review goes live either."

BIZ: So not unlike an exclusive cover story, IGN uses placement on the website as a bargaining chip.

Again, call me naive, but I fail to see how there's any incentive to give a better review there. It wasn't Rockstar saying "We'll give you an exclusive if you give us a good review." It was IGN saying "We'll give you front page coverage for a week if you give us an exclusive."

I see absolutely no difference in what kotaku's doing with the "New to Kotaku? Desperate for even more GTA IV coverage? Click here to check out our official review and must reads and here to follow breaking and on-going Grand Theft Auto IV news. If you want your gaming news sans GTA IV, check this out." And various featured posts that keep getting a bump up. Kotaku still pointed out the issues with the game, just like IGN.

Everyone's just putting too much emphasis on the numerical scores when they're really oh-so-insignificant when you read the rest of the review. Granted, IGN's rambles on for seven pages, and I'd much rather read a one page summary like kotaku's layout, but that doesn't change the fact that they let you know what's wrong with the game... and they're a lot of the same contentions as everyone else. Just imagine there's no screaming 10/10 waiting for you at the end.

Long comments are hard.

Bluecell

Hopefully a patch will sort this out.
As for people bemaoning the score because of the game's technical faults, I think they may be missing the point that the games brilliance is not in its technical achievments as much as the scope and depth of the experience it offers.

Cruithne

Many people bring up movie reviews and reviewers. The big-name film critics (Ebert, Roper, Shalit, the list goes on and on) are more known for their words than they are their scores. You would never know that Roger Ebert gave star ratings for movies unless you read the Sun-Times or his website. Even New York Newsday - my local newspaper with game reviews every Tuesday - doesn't have any kind of "score" for game reviews. Only a weekly column in the Part 2 section.

Until video game reviews can mature past the necessity of "score" to quantify a "good" game versus a "bad" game, they will forever be as weak as a Gary Coleman career comeback.

As for "exclusive" reviews: it may make the website feel like it has a higher Gamerscore (read: bigger Johnson) than others, but it's all rendered moot when every other site in the known universe gets the reviews at basically the same time - one day before release or on the release date, when they are relevant to the consumer.

Phoenicks

Big Gray.

Big Gray.

Witzbold

IGN reviews are hilariously poor whenever a reviewer actually likes a game. It's strange. When they deal with crap it's like they make an effort to justify their negative opinion. When they deal with something good they just instantly give up trying to justify and just gush all over it.

I trust Eurogamer blindly. Any game review referring to a gameplay experience as "being kicked in the cock by a bull" has my respect. Edge, Gamespot, Gamespy and IGN can go burn.

Sunjammer

Maleficence

Orionsaint

That said, I think the whole review process for GTAIV was flawed. From what I can tell, no-one was sent a review copy, they all had to go to Rockstar's offices to play the game where there would have been a PR handler on-hand the whole time to ensure the reviewer was seeing everything in the best possible light. And I'm sure there was plenty of free food and drink on hand and a nice comfortable hotel room to go back to, to ensure the reviewers were feeling all happy and nicely disposed towards Rockstar and their game.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, I'm enjoying it quite a lot, but I do think reviewers could have been a lot more objective in their assessment and not been so quick to brush over the games many flaws. And considering the drubbing Saint's Row got for bugs, I've seen just as many glitches and weird stuff in GTAIV, yet one of those games got marked down for it and the other didn't. Bit of a double standard really.

photoboy

El-Suave

El-Suave

madrigal77

Using the Bo Derek pic may be a comment by the staff. Although she played in the movie 10 as a 10 she isn't She as is as flat as a stadium bench. She doesn't need a J-Lo, but criminy her ass goes in. It's practically concave.

Hatchetforce

PissedPS3Fan

If I find him...I may have to rape him. Hopefully after that he will learn his place at the bottom of the food chain.

Tietsu

midnight_vii

GAME OVER.

tiredriver

tiredriver

tiredriver

Not properly. You are channelized to conduct missions in some vehicles or else the GPS does not work properly. That is the antithesis of free roam.

And you can paint it how you like but there are tons of games 1 or even 2 years old that look better. By IGNs own justification - it pushes barriers - their 10 doesn't hold up. I understand you like the game and I think it is a decent title as well. But it isn't the messiah in a console. And certainly not a 10 in the graphical department. Damn if those are not some ugly hands.

Hatchetforce

[grandtheftauto.ign.com]

I realize the game is very popular, but still.

reddevil3

I just think they knew that IGN would get more hits than Variety, considering IGN is primary (although become less so by the day) a website about games and a popular one at that. When Rockstar invited journalist to the GTA4 play-through earlier last month, they held it open to a diverse crowd of news publishers in the gaming community. I really don't think there is anything to cry afoul about here, but who knows, maybe I don't know the deep dark secrets of the underground gaming press corp's fight club.

DeeBG

Blogs and news articles aren't the same thing. A Blog is not a journalistic entity, it's an editorial entity. It's there to provide a link to a real story with a little perspective. Stop thinking that Kotaku and IGN are the same, they're not. If Hilary's upset that nobody called him before someone wrote about his published work in a freakin' blog, he needs to get into another line of work tut suit.

You are missing the point here. It's not about the review score, it's not about IGN, it's not really about Goldstien either. It's the institution of exclusive reviews in videogame journalism as a whole. Movies don't tend to get exclusive reviews, do they? Ever anymore? It's because engaging in such practices is ethically reprehensible, and innately compromises the validity of the review itself, which sort of defeats the purpose of reviewing somethin in the first place.

stranger

Well said. And I fully agree.

heretrix

I stated flat out that I don't waste my time reading exclusive reviews, because they are all inherently bunk as far as I'm concerned. I could be wrong about that, but I never said that the IGN GTA review was problematic for me in any way. My problem is with the very the practice of acquiring exclusive critical content, buy any entertainment media outlet, about any game, album, or movie.

To say trading marketing favors (like the promised free advertising in the form of preview articles that Goldstien himself admits to having done to secure the GTA review) for exclusive criticism rights doesn't create a moral quandry is simply naive.

Having read the article, I find it incredibly specious that Goldstien both finagled the review for IGN and then chose himself to write it. There is a tremendous ethical oversight right there on IGN at large he was allowed to do that much. All I was trying to indicate above was that it didn't surprise me that IGN would engage themselves in this way, my opinion of them already being so low...

Ok- according to Goldstien, who himself isn't really to be trusted to be publicly honest on this for obvious reasons, he didn't promise a specific score, he did promise them something. That to me creates a huge ethical conflict, regardless of score, writer, game, or anything else. Besides, do you really believe that Take Two PR thought for a second that IGN was going to have anything else to write about in March & April 08? What, other than GTA were they gonna feature on the front page? The entire videogame industry has given Rockstar a wide berth for GTA.

Let's just hope that Rockstar's response to this is that the never engage in exclusive review agreements for any game the ever release. Personally I'd like it very much if all publishers would do the same.

stranger

"IGN is a 10 year old web site populated by 20 year old kids with no real journalistic experience whatsoever."

Oh snap!

reddevil3

"Exclusive" reviews should always be suspect. On what condition did IGN get the exclusive? Some kind of favor has to be involved.

reddevil3

Hollowcow

Godzilla-Sushi

Evil Tortie's Mom

Chesu

Samos42

Samos42

He simply diverts the argument to being about Variety and ethics, whatever that actually means in games journalism. Instead of addressing any point of contention towards his own words, he goes on the attack. defensive much? Did he review a retail copy of the game, or was it preview code authorized by Rockstar? Why was IGN favored with such a wonderous blessing?

We're to believe there was no incentive for Rockstar to trust IGN exclusively with the first critical press their game has ever recieved? Bullshit. I for one haven't read his review because I think all exclusive reviews are bullshit. It doesn't mean that I believe all exclusive reviews are bought and paid for, but damnit if the don't all feel that way.

Deadline pressure, fanboyism, whatever it is, I find most exclusive reviews to be noncommittal, and loaded with nice fluffy meaningless platitudes that read more like a really long preview than anything that amounts to thoughtful, intelligent criticism. Be it GTA or Mass Effect, and whether it's IGN or OXM or Gamespot, I just can't take any of them seriously. Niggling complaints get ignored, and many outlets review incomplete code (all too often) that isn't truly representative of what I'll be playing at home.

What's the incentive for the publishers anyway if they don't know in advance they're getting a favorable score? Am I going to more or less likely to buy GTA based on what Hilary Goldstein says because he said it first? Christ I hope nobody answers "yes" to that question!

I think the practice is bunk, and without there being an ulterior motive for developers and publishers to engage in the practice, I completely fail to see how an exclusive review benefits anyone other than the outlet who printed it. Maybe that's why Variety thinks it's shady... I know it's why I do.

stranger

Most Wanted

Games on the other hand, take a lot longer to play through in order to review.
IGN's exclusive review of GTA must have garnered them a fuckton of extra traffic, and that translates into cold cash.
Why did Rockstar decide to allow them this privelaged early review?
I find it hard to belive it was just one of those things.

Cruithne

@WickedOrange: Calling GTA IV merely a production value/graphics update but referring to Portal as a revolution seems inaccurate as technically it's just the production value/graphics update to their former game Narbacular Drop: [en.wikipedia.org]

Nirolak

The issue here is not the 10/10 score. The score is no proof, because a quick trip to metacritic and you'll find many non-exclusive tens. I also find numbers useless when compared to words, so the point is moot for me. But back to that in a minute...

Fritz seems to be worried that when given an "exclusive" review, the publication becomes bias due to the "major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales." But where is the incentive in that to cook up a more positive review because of that? I would think that had GTA been a horrible game, for instance, and that IGN had then given GTA a 5.5/10, that would have brought even more traffic to their website because of all the hype behind the game.
"IGN's Exclusive GTA IV Review: Biggest Disappointment in Gaming History" Doesn't that sound like a more enticing title that would garner more traffic?

Back to the numbers. Unfortunately, Fritz is contradictory throughout his article in his issues with exclusive reviews. He says about Game informer's exclusive Mass Effect review:
"it's very possible that the Game Informer folks just disagreed with me and that's well within their rghts."
But then goes on for an entire paragraph, in perentheses, about how the text of the review doesn't seem to match the numerical score. Which insinuates that Game Informer's 9.75 was higher than it should have been due to the exclusivity of the review. Again, despite the fact that a quick trip to Metacritic and you'd find many non-exclusive tens.

He then went on to update his article with: "Mini-preview: I've been playing it a while and it's really good. But it's not 10/10 "best since 'Ocarina of Time'" good. It does have faults" Which is completely contradictory to everything else he said and further leads me to believe his problem is with the numerical score.

I find no issue with exclusivity, because all publications get it in some form or another at some point. And I fail to see any evidence that exclusivity affects reviews.

Bluecell

Great Ad Hominem there Goldstein. Staying classy, logical, and intelligent like the best of them.

Lixie

samaine

So, whey TT sends a goodie bag full of GTA merchandise, it is unethical for you to accept it.

Tyrannical

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but in order to call something revolutionary, it much be a new concept, new gameplay, something we've never seen before, and must blow us away. GTA IV does all except isn't a new concept, open gameplay has been around and we've seen it with GTA III, Crackdown, Saints Row... the list goes on. All GTA IV brings is better storyline, a good name, and some next gen graphics, otherwise... blah

WickedOrange

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

I think that Penny Arcade podcast (the one where they insulted their own fans' comments and opinions on Assassins Creed and got into a hissy-fit whinefest about a Penny Aracde that wasn't about them in the first place) was their lowest point.

They're kind of entertaining at this point, but I can't think of them as professional in the least.

EmTeeZ

I have logged a few hours so far and sevreal areas clearly fail to push the bounderies set by games from LAST YEAR.

Design flaws are more than 1 or 2. For a sand box game simple things like removing the GPS when not in the designated mission car are ridiculous. That just scratches the surface. There are some (several) AI moments in the game that are below the level of Crackdown.

I think the game offers a vast enjoyable environment but it hardly pushes the bounderies across every single area of consideration.

Hatchetforce

supercrap

Sorry for the double scoop.

hikergirl

[www.sacbee.com]

I'm sure that video games have their Eberts and NY Times, but the reviewer that fits into those categories may be different for different gamers. My approach to reviewers is

1.) Does the reviewer have a somewhat similar taste in games as me? If so, what they like and dislike about gameplay, stories, etc., will jive with my tastes.

2.) Does the reviewer have a complete 180 difference from me. Same kind of (but opposite) deal as #1.

3.) If there is a score, does the text of the review fully reflect the final score (be it numerical or letter) of the game? Does that site have a general guideline of what their particular scoring system represents.

I don't have much (if any) control over the politics behind some game journalism, but I do have control over what I read and what I choose to do with that information.

hikergirl

Screw you, Occam's Razor!

exaggeration17a

IGN is a 10 year old web site populated by 20 year old kids with no real journalistic experience whatsoever. For Hilary Goldstein to suggest Variety wrote this out of jealousy frankly just shows his immaturity as both a critic and as a person. He honestly thinks Variety wrote this because they couldn't get a copy of the game?

I've got news for him: if Variety wanted this game, they could have had it sometime around 1993, before Rockstar or IGN even existed. Yes, they're so powerful and well-established, they can bend space-time.

Variety, like all other respectable publications, does not do "exclusive reviews". And good for them.

badasscat

Brian Ashcraft

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

Wolfers

The problem is not that this is happening. It happens with movies all the time. The problem is that the most trusted reviewers (by the general public) are the ones taking the money.

A trailer for a shitty movie will have quotes from unknown reviewers, and the studios try everything to keep you from knowing it--swooshing quotes by in an effort to give the absolute minimum disclosure required by law. If the best quote you can find is from Jim Ferguson from WBAI Radio, the public knows that is shit. They know the major papers and reviewers, and those reviewers are mostly above the studios' influence. But in gaming, where are our Eberts, our New York Times? They are buried in obscurity, because almost no one has risen to the level of prestige that the game companies have to deal with that reviewer on his or her own terms.

This will happen once outlets like the Times starts devoting real resources to video games, but the game companies will do everything they can to delay this.

Minister of Fun

globones

I personally don't see IGN thinking twice at all about journalistic integrity in any case if at all and that is definatly reflected in that statement.

The real problem here is that the game is great so great. That reguardless from the perfect score very few people were going to think twice about the extra day or two IGN got. Which I see as a very sad thing.

trunk3h

siempre

This is also IGN we're talking about... any chance I have to brand them as contemptuous is one I'm going to take.

exaggeration17a

okenny :)

Mikintosh

KirbyMorph

Kai_

doctorwily

DigitalHero

okenny :)

DigitalHero

@okenny :): Oh, just referencing a well known IGN review. Perhaps I should've gone with 9.9?

Michael McWhertor

okenny :)

Flippy_D

I'll comment about the story later. I just wanted to point out that the stories picture's file name says "10.jpg" but the alt text of the image says "7.9". Are you trying to say something?

okenny :)

riffleraffle

Guitaratomik