Exclusives in magazines

[Sorrow]

So, I was thinking about GI and I think that there should be a law that prohibits exclusives in magazines that rate media products, because such deals stop magazines from giving an objective ratings for games.
What you, people things about this?
Would be there a possibility making a law against this?

 

[JR Jansen]

You're right. Allthough making a law against it, is not the way to handle this, i suppose.

In the case of Fallout 3, it is handled badly, especialy if they have a 'rating' clause. Exclusives don't have to be bad though. Sometimes a developer chooses to give an exclusive first before giving out more info themselves but Beth handles it very poorly.

 

[Sorrow]

You're right. Allthough making a law against it, is not the way to handle this, i suppose.

I don't see any other way. Exclusives give magazines a huge advantage on market and basically are a form of corruption of press which should be illegal.

 

[JR Jansen]

Well, freedom of press and all.

Going the 'forbid them to write something' goes in the wrong direction.

Off course if they just pay lip service, then that's going in the wrong direction too.

Just something we have to live with.

 

[Sorrow]

The problem is that a press that is dependant on people whose products it rates isn't free at all.
It's not about forbidding them to write about new games.
It's about forbidding gaming companies to form special relationships with press like exclusives.
Also, exclusives themselves limit freedom of press because only one magazine can write about the game in given period of time.

 

[Vault 69er]

In my mind, exclusivity contracts requiring favors for the developer should count as bribery and those responsible put up for corruption charges.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Why not juse ignore/boycott the magazines in question?

 

[Sorrow]

Convincing hundreds of thousands people to boycott the magazines in question would be difficult.
Besides, I'm not reading computer game magazines anymore, because the computer gaming journalism went down the drain about 8 years ago when the last magazine in Poland that had traditions from the times when people were still reviewing pirated games, like writing real reviews for example.