{"id":2007,"date":"2008-12-01T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2018-01-26T10:40:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T15:40:51","slug":"tomb-raider-underworld-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2007","title":{"rendered":"Tomb Raider Underworld Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a phone call from publisher Eidos to a game review site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If you're planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday.<\/div>\n

They (Eidos) came out later and tried to put a good face on things<\/a>, which was a fumbling attempt to convince us we didn’t see what we just saw. I mean, who are you going to believe, us<\/strong>, or what we said yesterday?<\/em><\/p>\n

Just that we're trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that's handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don't put people off buying the game, basically.<\/div>\n

That is to say: We would just like the reviewers to hold off doing their jobs until we can fleece their readers. <\/p>\n

I’ve always had a dim view of numeric review scores. Trying to assign a floating-point value to a subjective opinion is a ridiculous practice, and you need only apply it to other things in life to reveal it as such. Oh yeah. I love tacos. Definitely a 8.7 on my personal food scale. My new wife? Yeah. She’s pretty great. At least a 9.2 for sure.<\/em> Numbers are the refuge of reviewers who don’t have the ability or license to express themselves in words, which is ostensibly their purpose.<\/p>\n

But a numeric score that is manipulated by the industry is worse than just absurd. It’s a calculated lie, and reviewers that take part in this scheme are salting their own fields. Whatever reprisal Eidos might deliver in response to an honest and timely review is nothing<\/em> compared to the realization among your readers that your entire enterprise is a sock puppet on the hand of the marketing department of Eidos. <\/p>\n

Why did you spend all that time and money learning to be a journalist if you were just going to end up working in advertising? (Disclaimer: I realize most reviewers would probably love to tell it like it is, and are held in check by editors, who are held in check by managers, whole are ruled by advertising money, which comes from the publishers. It is a system that works to undermine itself from start to finish.) <\/p>\n

This makes me want to go into videogame journalism myself. I’m thinking of sending out some resumes with a cover letter:<\/p>\n

\n


\nDear GameScoreFactory.com,<\/p>\n

Thanks so much for taking time to consider my application. I am applying for the position of \"Videogame Reviewer\" because I believe I can add a unique voice to your publication. <\/p>\n

If you hire me, I promise to be relentlessly<\/em> hard to please as a reviewer, to the point of expressing open hostility towards anyone with the audacity to send me one of their titles for review. I will author reviews so scathing that they will cause the developers to flinch and weep like battered housewives. In some cases, my words may even draw blood<\/em>. I will be so merciless and hate-filled that the government will have to invent a new arm of the witness protection program just for people who make sub-par games. Not only will publishers refuse to buy ad space in your publication, they will do their level best to prevent their offerings from falling into your hands. I will not rest until every publisher has dragged all of us into court for libel. <\/p>\n

I'm really looking forward to working with you!<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Shamus Young<\/tt><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, someone is already doing this<\/a>. And he’s the most well-known game reviewer out there. This is not an accident.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a phone call from publisher Eidos to a game review site: If you're planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday. They (Eidos) came out later and tried to put a good face on things, which was a fumbling attempt to convince […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[139,138],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames","tag-eidos","tag-tomb-raider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41650,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/41650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}