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From the Pulpit: Are Embargoes Really Necessary?Crispy Gamer's EIC John Keefer wrangles with an issue that videogame journalists have faced for years. But is the policy outdated ... or even needed?
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You've anserwed your own question in the first paragraph:
"Embargoes in the real world have a definite place: {snip} ... financial information that could affect stock prices."
If you go around telling everyone the game's crap weeks before it's due for release, then no-one's going to buy it, which'll make the studios tank. Think about it, it's the same for movies; nothing gets out without their say-so except in rare cases, which they usually scream and bitch about anyway.
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Great piece. The practice of having exclusive reviews at all is a terrible one, and in my mind few things damage the credibility of a game site more. Reviewers are constantly accused of being biased or bad writers simply because gamers disagree with them, but kowtowing to that benefits no one.
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One of the problems is that some (not all) companies use embargos as a weapon. If you write a positive review you can break the embargo but if you write a bad review (like early Alone in the Dark reviews) then they use the embargo like a hammer..
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Exclusive reviews are silly.
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For me, the big problem with embargoes is that they aren't really embargoes much of the time. When positive reviews are given a waiver, publishers are trading in the perceived value of traffic numbers, giving sites an incentive to be a little bit nicer.
Of course, that's a marketer's job - make things better for your company. I can't blame them for playing on these sorts of impulses. But if one site breaks an embargo, I don't see the embargo as being in place anymore.
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So, do the video game publishers send out copies to their 'friends' with the implicit threat that if the review is brutal, the next advanced copy may be a little slow getting to the writer's doorstep. Does this lead to the question whether or not to trust the first reviews anyway? And we wonder why a 7.5 out of 10 is really more of a 'this game sucks but we can't write that' situation. If I have to spend $50 on a game, I don't want some hastily published review with a thumbs up.
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dont look at me im a noob
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@TroyGoodfellow
This is exactly what I was pointing out. Embargoes seem to be fast and loose for those willing to play ball and fire off a positive review with a score that fits in nicely with whatever Metacritic score they all need to hit.
What's even more disturbing is how companies are so enamored with numbers from Metacritic and Gamerankings - these sites decide who gets bonuses and who get punished.
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"Yes, first on the scene will get the initial hits, but in the end, no matter when info is released, intelligent readers will gravitate to the best-written, the most evocative and the most accurate information available."
You seen IGN's traffic figures lately?
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