Tidbits on Fallout 3 reviews

Brother None said:
And I thought most people here realised that, and the "paid for positive reviews" is just short-hand for more nuanced views. Perhaps I'm mistaken.
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I don't know. On the one hand I'm sure there have been cases where reviewers have been straight out bribed (in the history of gaming history, not necessarily with regards to Fallout 3), but it seems to me that Bethesda, and most other large game companies today, don't have to pay for good reviews.

Anyway, it sounds like this is a case of IGN having screwed up. In my opinion their other complaints are as bad, if not worse, than the PS3 thing and they left those in.
 
Manipulation of media is something people get paid lots of money to do professionally. Bribing would be a pretty amateurish way of going about it. I'm sure there are lots of more subtle ways to nudge things in the desired direction, especailly when there's a big budget involved.

For example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4741259.stm

I'd say if you believe Bethesda has no influence on these reviews, or that they wouldn't try to influence them, you're being naive.
 
The PS3 notification / freeze thing has really pissed me off.

Why do developers let this type of shit through?
 
Because they have to test all sorts of hardware configurations.

Oh, wait. PS3 - consoles, same hardware. My bad.
 
Pope Viper said:
Because they have to test all sorts of hardware configurations.

Oh, wait. PS3 - consoles, same hardware. My bad.
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I'm having a brain-fart here... this went right over my head.
 
Air Rifle said:
Stegelson said:
It's reached the point where consoles are basically PC's with less functionality.

"Computers are hard! Just gimmie a game box..."
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The reason a lot of people play games on consoles isn't because they're too stupid to play it on a PC (because that's soooo difficult), it's because it's more viable economically. I don't have the money to upgrade my PC every two or three years to play the newest games.
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Buying a console AND maintaining a PC is more cost effective than just having an up to date PC? :roll:

Consoles do not save you from upgrading, you still have to buy a totally new system every 4-5 years or so to play the newest games. With PC's, you can change out parts one by one as is needed, and selling used parts will further reduce the cost.

Most people would rather just shell out the cash for a new console, though, rather than keep their PC current. The end result is sub par computer (probably) and a console that will be useless in a few years.
 
Brother None said:
Either that was somehow IGN's own fault and Bethesda tech support helped them through (in which case it's reasonable to remove the complaints) or something is iffy.
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I'm curious though, since the problem was with the PS3, how would tech support fix the issue from happening. Since there are no drivers or such wouldn't other people run into the same issue? If it was the PC then maybe but for the PS3 it looks bad for at least IGN.
 
Brother None said:
Eh? No, JR Jansen, as "insiders" know, "bribery" or "paying for positive reviews" doesn't happen. I mean, it might, but why woulod they? The pressure is there, but it's not through bribery.

And I thought most people here realised that, and the "paid for positive reviews" is just short-hand for more nuanced views. Perhaps I'm mistaken.
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Well, that all depends on what you call bribery. Making allusions that 'You either write a positive review or youi'll be blacklisted so you wont have any exclusives in the future' is, in my view, bribery. Of course no money is involved. But this is what game companies have been doing.

Besides, we know that Beth uses strong arm tactics. They have even done it to this site. Didn't they threaten you guys in order to have some content removed ? It's a long while ago and i'm not sure anymore what the reason was but still.
 
rcorporon said:
Pope Viper said:
Because they have to test all sorts of hardware configurations.

Oh, wait. PS3 - consoles, same hardware. My bad.
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I'm having a brain-fart here... this went right over my head.
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As in the console has the same damn hardware, hence no need to test different hardware configurations as if you were testing for PC configurations.
 
JR Jansen said:
Besides, we know that Beth uses strong arm tactics.
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No we don't. They're not even big enough for that in some ways, this isn't EA we're talking about.

JR Jansen said:
Didn't they threaten you guys in order to have some content removed ?
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Not that I know of.
 
Brother None said:
Either that was somehow IGN's own fault and Bethesda tech support helped them through (in which case it's reasonable to remove the complaints) or something is iffy.
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I don´t think it is reasonable, because it will always look suspicious. They should have put in an "Edited" section, where the solutions are revealed. Just leave the text in but cross it out and point to the edited section.

It is not bribery, but only giving 15 hours time to test before the release, has an influence on the resulting review.Doing that in a luxury hotel and paying for everything helps too.
 
Moving Target said:
That's a good point.

Was the version that IGN reviewed a console or PC version? If it's the former, it seems like it would be far less likely that that's the case. Though now there's that "downloadable" stuff from consoles... I don't know how much of a difference it makes; I'm very, very out of the loop as far as consoles go. I can take only so many twitch shooters, sports games and free-roaming GTA clones.
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Ya, it was totally the PC version that the review was talking about in the newspost.
 
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