Missing The Point
September 19th, 2008John Keefer over at Crispy Gamer suggests that game embargoes aren’t actually necessary. This is true, albeit also rather obvious. Unfortunately, Mr. Keefer seems to imply that this doesn’t benefit gamers. Although I can’t fault him for the sentiment, I would actually disagree.
Keefer argues that there are two reasons for embargoes: first, to time with some publicity drive from the company (earnings calls, conventions, etc.), or second, to reward a journalist with an exclusive. Let me suggest that there is really one reason for them, and it is the latter. If companies really didn’t want journalists to potentially write something about a game - if they were planning a grand reveal of the product on some particular schedule - they wouldn’t give them the game in the first place until it was absolutely necessary. I suspect very few games need their reviews timed in this way. It may make publishers’ lives a little easier to provide the embargo, but look at it this way: if they couldn’t trust people to hold off, they just wouldn’t provide the game at all. Rather, the exclusives are pretty much the only reason to have an embargo.
I agree, it’s a crappy practice. But blaming gamers - “[t]he sad part of this whole equation is that the existing system, coupled with many gamers’ insatiable desire to read whatever information is first available on their favorite big games, leaves those trying to establish some type of journalistic credibility in the dust” - is pretty unproductive. It also happens to be true. But what you end up with in the end is the fact that the existing system exists because of the people it’s designed to serve. More people want exclusives than care about the very valid issues that Keefer raises. Therefore, it won’t change.
But there’s not much that can be done about that.
Posted in Geoff, Journalism |
September 19th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I always figured it went something like this.
The publishers wants reviews hitting the “press” around the time of release assuming positive buzz will drive sales.
In order to get reviews at release, reviewers need the game days or weeks in advance to get some solid play time and do a credible write up.
So to balance these 2 simple facts, an embargo is pretty much required. If they give the “press” the game early to give them time to play it and they put out reviews too early, buzz could die down by launch and sales would be hindered. We all know that games do much of their overall sales in the first couple of weeks, so to have a dip in buzz in the first week could be devastating. I don’t see any problems with embargoes, really. It’s only the crazy kids who can’t keep their dick in their pants who are bothered by it.
The alternative is to give the reviewers the game on release day and then watch as reviews go up the same day.
I suppose one benefit of this might be that in this scenario, the reviewers would have a lot harder time pretending they played more than an hour or 2 of the game.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
I don’t disagree. The embargo makes sense to me from that perspective, but it still awards a de facto first review.
Put another way: either the company rewards a reviewer for promising a favorable score, or the first person up rushed the review. Either way, you probably don’t trust the first reviewer too much. But the end result is the same.