The Arrogance Of Entitlement

I was browsing a forum today when I came across a link to a post over at Kotaku (which in turn links to a post at Video Game Media Watch) concerning three publishers who will not be submitting review materials to the magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly over EGM’s coverage of their games. Of this Kotaku says:

“…I can't remember the last time a major commercial publication came out and publicly named names like this. Bravo, Dan.” (Emphasis mine.)

And over at Video Game Media Watch of “Who’s this Tom Chick cat?” fame we have:

“However, if the editorial’s claims are accurate, VGMWatch.com is certainly disappointed with these publishers’ behavior. As corporations, publishers have every right to ban any publication they want for poor coverage. But that doesn’t make it right. Gamers should feel disrespected as well.” (Again, emphasis mine.)

The majority of the forum posters responding in the original forum I spotted this at, along with the blog responders, pretty much feel similar. Myself? Not so similar.

I really can’t say much about the situation discussed in the editorial. For one thing, my information is limited to what I’ve just read; I haven’t seen the actual piece in question. And since I’m not affiliated with the three publishers who have pulled coverage, I don’t know what truly set them off. They may have very legitimate reasons behind this move, or they may simply be overreacting. Who knows? Rather than making wild conjectures on what occurred and the ramifications of it, I want to talk about the core idea here: publishers ‘blacklisting’ review sites/publications.

The relationship between publishers and the gaming press is very much a symbiotic one, although it does slightly favor the publisher. As any indie developer can tell you, you can make and sell games without massive press coverage, but without games to cover a gaming publication has nothing. Of course, it definitely helps to have your games covered, which is why we publishers are more than happy to send the gaming press preview and review builds, have interviews done with developers, and so on. The big publishers feel the same way too, but they also view the press as part of their marketing arm, buying their way to cover stories and multi-spread previews with lots of advertising dollars, flying journalists in to check out their works-in-progress, and even the occasionally lavish launch party.

As a side note it’s really amazing how money influences what gamers are exposed to. For example, when the Dominions II demo was released we were approached by a print magazine saying that they could include the demo on their CD for only $5,000. I didn’t think they were serious but when I talked to Tim I was shocked to learn that this was indeed the way demos ended up on their CD. Not by editorial choice or public interest, but by cold hard cash. Interestingly European publications don’t work like their American counterparts, and in Europe what they put on their demo discs are chosen by editorial interest, with absolutely nothing required from the publisher other than a release form signed. Score one for the Old World!

Getting back to blacklisting, have we ever done it? You betcha! But never because someone gave one of our games a negative score! Bad reviews, though? That’s different.

You see, any person involved in a creative industry realizes that not everyone is going to like what they created. You can’t please everyone, every time. So, as a publisher we’re never going to freak out and raise the black flag of hate if someone gives a game a low rating, as long as the review actually supports the low rating. It’s one thing for a review to make an intelligent argument over why the game isn’t good, it’s another thing for a review to slag something because the reviewer was a poor choice to begin with. Don’t have a twitch-monkey gamer review a serious military simulation, or a casual gamer review a hardcore strategy title.

When there’s a site/publication that is consistently treating your product with little respect why should you continue to support them? Along those same lines if you keep sending someone product and only half the products get reviewed, and when they do it’s a year after you’ve sent them, why bother? As a publisher we’re not in the business of providing free games, we’re in the business of selling games.

Periodically we go through our review lists and cull them. Again, it’s never based on who rates what. You could give every game in our catalog a piss poor score but if the reviews are timely, and the reviewers competent and articulate in their dislike, that’s fine. Maybe the next game will be the one that melts the dark hearts of your review staff.

So personally I don’t think the idea of blacklisting publications is a big deal. Even if you have more marketing money than God you shouldn’t be handing out free games to every yahoo with a blog who claims they’re a game journalist. Trust me folks, you may think you know how many gaming sites there are out there but you have no idea. There’s a steady stream of sites the constantly crop up and then fade away, all begging for those free review copies.

And you know what, if a site/publication is denied a free review copy from a publisher here’s a wild idea, go out and purchase the game and then review it!

Wait, what? Spend your own money on review copies? Madness!

I mean after all, if your site/publication is supposedly one of journalistic integrity and not one designed to simply score free games, wouldn’t it be for the best if you weren’t accepting hand outs? Likewise, I’m sure your reviewers have become reviewers because of their desire to educate the gaming public and better their writing skills, and not because they score free swag, right?

I have to wonder, if every publisher was to one day halt all review copies how many game journalists and sites would show their true colors and toss in the towel at the idea of having to spend their own money?