We game developers and journalists are like a sewing circle with all the gossip and backstabbing. Today there’s news that Zoo Weekly (Australian dudes’ magazine) deputy editor Toby McCasker was fired by Rockstar’s upcoming Red Dead Redemption.
Okay, well, the game didn’t fire him. His boss did. And according to McCasker, the firing occurred because he posted an excerpt from an email Rockstar sent him on Facebook:
The email was allegedly sent by a publicist for Rockstar Games to staff at the magazine, concerning coverage of the company’s new title Red Dead Redemption.
“This is the biggest game we’ve done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world,” it read.
“Can you please ensure Toby’s article reflects this — he needs to respect the huge achievement he’s writing about here.”
Hmmm.
Now, first off, anyone who works in a professional environment should know that publishing an internal communication of any kind on an open forum like Facebook is a no-no. If one of my employees published an internal email on Twitter they’d get… maybe not fired (depends on the content of the message, I suppose), but they’d get the fear of god put into them. Visits from the HR director and Legal and long lectures and everything. Notes in permanent records, etc etc etc. If by this point people haven’t realized that being 100% transparent on the internet can be dangerous, they never will.
I don’t like Rockstar, having once described the company as the Bob Guccione of the games industry (a comparison I’m quite enamored of and stand by), and I wouldn’t put it past them for a second to send out messages like this. The veiled implication – it doesn’t outright tell the magazine to give Red Dead a good review – is that a bad review would… not go unnoticed by Rockstar. Does that mean they’d pull advertising? Who knows. The general threat is loss of ad revenue as retaliation for bad reviews; it happened to Jeff Gerstmann during the Kane & Lynch fiasco at GameSpot, and it may well have happened to McCasker here.
This is why game reviews aren’t respected. Well, it’s one of the reasons. Here’s why game reviews aren’t respected:
- The audience assumes that the press is manipulated by publishers
- The press is manipulated by publishers
- A large number of game reviewers are illiterate morons or obnoxious fanboys
- Game “reviews” rarely go beyond that and into “criticism,” which is different
The whole “anyone with an opinion and a keyboard” argument is valid, but doesn’t have the impact that some claim; cream naturally rises to the top, though in this day and age it does so very slowly. Interestingly, if everyone read Tap-Repeatedly reviews, all four of those issues would magically go away. We take ads from Google, yes, and we’ll take ads from publishers too, but we aren’t in this for the money (God knows) so threats don’t impress us; none of our writers are illiterate morons or obnoxious fanboys; and we make a point to talk about what games mean, not just what’s in bullets on the back of the box. Clearly we are the solution to all game reporting’s woes.
As for McCasker and his Facebooked email, well, it was a stupid thing to do, publishing that. It cost him his job. And on the surface, Rockstar’s eagerness to point out positive elements of its own game isn’t even unethical. After all, if I made a game, I’d totally write to reviewers saying “hey, don’t forget this feature! And this one!” I’d drive them crazy. Now, offhand I’d say that McCasker was fired because he violated his magazine’s acceptable conduct policy – he made public a communication that was by implication internal and confidential. But was Rockstar partly to blame? You decide.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tap-Repeatedly. Tap-Repeatedly said: New post – Red Dead Redemption is Best Game Ever (or else): http://cli.gs/RB6nG http://cli.gs/RB6nG […]
What Rockstar was doing here is wrong, but Zoo Weekly had every right to fire McCasker for what he did.
I must admit, I do love the line: he needs to respect the huge achievement he’s writing about here. I may try to use some form of that from time to time.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Rockstar are taking a particularly hard line with Red Dead Redemption due to the difficulties the game has had throughout it’s production. It’s been delayed countless times and it wasn’t that long ago (relatively speaking) when rumors surfaced that the game had been canned. Infact my first reaction when I heard the game was coming out in April was one of shock. I’m still shocked that it’s not slipped since.
If rumors are also to be believed, Red Dead Redemption needs to sell pretty big numbers to make up some of the spiraling production costs it’s accumulated. Some of the sales estimations I’ve seen banded around have been very ambitious for a game such as this, and Rockstar could be out of pocket if they don’t meet those targets. I think behavior such as this is pretty abhorrent in all fairness, but given the pressure and possible paranoia about the games success at Rockstar HQ I’m not totally surprised.
This is the biggest game we’ve done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world
This is another reason game review publications get so little respect. We’re talking GOTY for a game that has yet to be released. I find it very difficult to not believe these publications are not involved in the hype of certain releases when it seems like they’ve got their review scores determined well in advance of a release.
No offense to management types and their codes of conduct concerns over secrecy, but if anyone had ever tried to bend me over a table like Rockstar did to this reviewer …I would Facebook it in a New York minute. No…I don’t need to respect anyone’s “achievement”. Actually I would tell the editor of my intentions just to be fair, but if the publication couldn’t nut up against the devs then, bye bye. Also Jason O. is probably very accurate in his assessment. Perhaps the reviewers in these compliant publications should just start their reviews with FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE just to be clear.
My poor, poor country… so little positivity is coming from it lately. We once had Olivia Newton-John, you know.
Call me naive (I’ve only spent a bit of time in the PR world, but I’ve worked in news a fair bit with people sending ‘samples’ or bullying etc in the hope of positive stories), but I thought this kind of release was fairly par-for-course? Surely game companies *always* want their games to be reviewed in a positive light – and there weren’t even threats in the note.
I don’t know – but I don’t think the Rockstar comments would have rocked my boat in the first place. I would have written my review (if I was a decent review writer) the same way regardless. Hell, if they threw in some samples I might have even mentioned the nominations etc – but I would have reviewed it fairly, regardless. I’ve seen far, far worse far, far too often. IMHO this is nothing to get one’s nose out of joint over.
And if Toby wanted to make a point *and* keep his job, he should have posted it anonymously somewhere else. I’m sure Toby will head on to bigger and better things, having learnt from this. I don’t read Zoo, but I’m aware of it, and there are much more reputable magazines out there.
Actually, I think the writer missed an opportunity. I would have written the review and THEN publicized the email.
I think the right thing to do in this case would be to publicize the email in the magazine. On a personal site it’s inappropriate to share corporate communications, but if that letter were included in the magazine, with the review like Scout says, that would have been more effective.
It’s true, Jarrod, there’s nothing in Rockstar’s message that explicitly threatens the magazine. But there’s something about the tone – essentially “this game is awesome and you really ought to point that out” – that comes across as a bit skeezy to me. Of course, it’s true that press releases like this are common. But this wasn’t a press release, it was a private communication to the editor of a magazine. “Can you please ensure that Toby’s article reflects this…”
Suspicious.
It would have been perfectly legitimate for him to have written a review and alluded to the email’s contents, revealing them only when Rockstar denied having sent the email. Publicizing something that was intended to be private and internal is not only poor professional judgment, it’s also bad ethics.
I do wish more sites provided reviews similar to Tap Repeatedly’s; as it is, this is one of the few sites where I trust the reviewers’ motivations implicitly, even when I don’t necessarily agree with the reviews.
The state of big game reviewers is just sad, especially with the huge “slobber machines” as someone here put it, like IGN. You’ve got to think that it’s possible for the occasional big name release to flop, but it never happens: the pre-release hype completely jacks up the scores just because everyone wants it to be so good.
Case in point: Modern Warfare 2. I can confidently say I find it one of the most disappointing games I have ever played; no dedicated servers, lousy post-release support from the developer, $15 “map packs” (though when I remember “map packs” from 10 years ago they would include dozens, or hundreds of maps… not 3), horrible latency issues, and lazy network code. Yet it has a Metacritic and GameRankings score of somewhere between 93 and 96 I think? It’s a farce.
I don’t want to get all medieval and regressive but I’ll just say what’s on my mind: I think a lot of it may have to do with the “coolinization” (okay, I’m patenting that word) of video games over the last…. I don’t know, 6-7 years? Basically the hi-def era, because I don’t remember many cool people with SNES or Genesis or playing Heroes of Might and Magic; I remember maybe like, four cool people with N64, but then definitely not many cool people with Gamecube, PSone/PS2 or even Xbox. I think it was really Xbox 360 that made playing video games “cool” and “manly,” which as any smart person knows is a horrible thing!
Even Call of Duty 2 (a PC game….. you little console-bred bastards) was not cool. When the hell did games get cool? Can someone pinpoint this? It seriously happened overnight. I mean, one Christmas family gathering my cousins were probably making fun of me for playing video games, and then the next Christmas I’m over and they’re like “God of War 2 is so normal and cool! If only all things could inject this much preposterone into my bloodstream!” There’s no denying that IGN is no longer for gamers, but instead cool people: They review UFC and RATE WOMEN, for christ’s sake! No offense to anyone who enjoys that stuff, but I’ll take it separately from my gaming, thank you.
In all seriousness though, criticism is an important part of any medium. Steerpike makes a great point in that there is so little of it to be had in gaming journalism, if you can call it that. For example, go on Metacritic and look in the individual sections, Film, then Games. In games you see all the expected blockbuster titles with sky-high scores, usually anywhere from 85-98. There are absolutely no surprises in that scoring range, save perhaps one or two. Then in the 70s and 80s are games from mildly exposed publishers that were never going to sell well anyway. Finally anything 65 or below is basically stuff nobody has ever heard of or adventure games, which is kind of the same thing.
Now look at film: film critics can see through the blockbuster bullshit. Last time I checked, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had something pitiful like a 36 metascore, while The Bounty Hunter has an 8. Damn right. Where are all the bitter, no-nonsense game reviewers?
Is it that games are such an investment, time- and money-wise, that when they completely and utterly fail us we just lie to ourselves because we can’t reconcile the fact that we’ve wasted everything we have on them?
I completely agree with Xtal (seems I am following you round this morning! 🙂 ) I genuinely don’t believe that the vast majority of people who actually review games look at them critically.
I recently looked at Edge Magazines “most played” which they listed Mass Effect 2. Now, I have never played Mass Effect 2 (I was bored enough with the first) but all I EVER think when I see that game is Meho’s sentiments. He was so on the money with that article I brings me to tears of rage that no other reviewers see it.
Are we living in some sort of higher plain of reviewing on Tap? Perhaps we are just worldly people who know that the general public are stupid, 99% of games are shite and the media rule the world.
I’m looking forward to reviewing Hamlet…but I pray its good and I will be honest!
@xtal: something you’ve got to remember is that many film reviews are ‘interpreted’ for the sake of a Meta score or ‘Freshness Tomatometer’ or whatever it’s called, because they don’t use scoring systems for their criticism. I personally don’t mind using numbers to gauge the level of a recommendation but it has to be relative to the reviewers tastes and other similar titles. My Penumbra: Overture review score, for instance, is relative to other horror games I’ve played and reflects my taste for slow burning terror rather than cheap visceral cat scares, so in that sense it’s a top game in my books.
You’re so right about the ‘film critics can see through the blockbuster bullshit’. I know too many people who say things like ‘film critics speak out their arse, Pearl Harbour was mint’ and in truth it only reflects their level of scrutiny as a viewer. Though having said this, The Hurt Locker is one of the most irritating and ultimately overrated films I’ve ever seen.
Game reviewing has some way to go though in my eyes because they get so bogged down in hype and truly cosmetic stuff. What irritates me the most is when huge gaping flaws in big releases get smoothed over by praise for superfluous cosmetics but smaller releases get hammered for seemingly minor issues. Look at Penumbra: Overture again, that game scored in the 70s. Now I know that isn’t a ‘bad score’ per se but many of the ‘reasons’ for those scores were either paper thin at best, unfair or both. For instance slamming a story that hadn’t been resolved, criticising graphics that really weren’t bad (I thought they were fantastic), bemoaning perfectly sensible and satisfying puzzles and generally missing the point of the game: it was a horror, of course there was going to be cliches. Bah! *mumble mumble*
Oh and I think the exact moment games became cool was when Barry Burton said “You were almost a Jill sandwich”.
Gregg, I thought Hurt Locker was overrated too and another example of reviewers getting swept up in hype. It was a good movie, very good in places but not the towering masterpiece etc… it was being touted as.
I think the real issue here is people don’t trust game reviews. Why? Because the perception is that reviewers take their marching orders from their bosses whose only interest is in pleasing the game development companies. Say what you will about the ethics of this kind of corporate whistleblowing (it’s obvious where I stand on this..tweet…tweet…), I think it can only benefit game criticism.