Sessler's Soapbox: Let Us Review Your Games!

egoless

I don't see the problem. First we have AOTS doing a sarcastic review last week of AppleTV to downplay their apple fanatasim and now this.

In the case of the former, we (the viewers) all know the double standard that exists and how iProducts are reviewed. We accept these "reviews" because we know what to expect, we accept it, and choose to skip that part of the show entirely or watch and laugh at their attempt at so called objectivity.

In the case of the latter (Adam's recent rant), if I were a publisher, I would not change a thing form the current status quo. It's completely natural for people to gravitate towards certain trends, people, brands, etc. Again, we the viewers accept this and move on. At this point we know what to take with a truckload of salt. Watching all your shows from the very beginning, watching all your feedback episodes, reading your tweets, your reviews, your site posts, etc., we have a pretty good idea of where a review will lean. For instance, we know the mountain a Kinect game must climb to even be considered worthy of the time of G4. That's fine.

If we know this, certainly a publisher knows this. So why should they (in this case Microsoft) waste their time, money, and resources on people who's minds are already made up? Yes, G4 is as objective as any other source out there, but again, you cannot deny a degree of fanboyism that's purely natural which hangs over every person's critique of anything. So a publisher should take advantage of this with a mix of known opinions AND wildcards with their wares (especially knowing how influential reviewers like yourself are on the opinions of the general public... [have you forgotten the study you mentioned not long ago]).

Otherwise, look what's happening with Medal of Honor. They already had to spend time, money, resources to get noticed in the CoD hype. Now they're in full damage control (sales figure reminders to the press, press releases, etc etc) on top of that, after the reviews. That's JUST to recover from the initial hurt of the reviews and get sheeple to actually look at the game. Sure, G4 is one of those giving the game high marks and explaining why. But your lone gold star for the day does nothing when the stock takes a significant hit, actual sales are off to a slow start, and so on because of a heap of "low scores".

Are you going to start a crusade to get people to place higher value on your review, and show other reviewers where they were being unfair? Of course not. That's not your job. But a publisher can head that off right at the get-go so you won't have to (such as your blurb on gamebreak to the effect that the game is getting an unfair shake). The hard part, to the publisher then, is making sure the credibility is there over the mix of reviewers with their wares. We the viewer can smell a shill a mile away, but also, we understand when certain outlets don't have reviews up on day one.

Keep up the great work. Always informative and entertaining.