The Price Is Shite (Starring Gillen, Taurus, Porter & Mott)

Well over a year ago, we were asked to write a piece on how much reviewers should take game prices into account when reviewing and scoring in light of EA taking the piss out the entire country with its pricing for the original Rock Band set. The mag it was going to appear in folded shortly before it was due to publish (they usually have the decency to go tits up after we’ve administered our kiss of death). It seems a shame to see it go to waste before we disappear again, as it had some excellent contributions from Rick Porter (Editor of gamesTM), Dave McCarthy / Taurus (ex-Editor of Edge and current Triforce slacker), and Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winner).

We also asked current Edge Chief-Editor-In-Chief-Editor-In-Chief Tony Mott for comment, and received some of the finest prose to escape his fingertips:

“I've just had a look at your web site and you don't seem to have changed your stance on Edge (you still believe it to be a piece of shit, as far as I can tell).”


Although the focus of the piece was originally concerned with stuff that nobody cares about anymore such as the Rock Band pricing, the original iPhone, Gerstmann-gate and EA being cunts, it now seems relevant again thanks to Activision openly taking the piss out of you with their pricing for Modern Warfare 2, Tony Hawk RIDE and DJ Hero. So here, without the vast majority of our own wittering commentary, is the piece presented in more of an interview style so you can enjoy it even if you hate everything we stand for.

***

Every editor has their own idea about how much price should affect the scores given to games when reviewed. I've had my fair share of arguments with editors who think prices should play no part in the review, as I couldn't disagree more. Our jobs are to tell our readers whether they should part with their hard-earned money for the privilege of playing a game. Some editors get so totally lost somewhere in the yards of intestinal tract they spend most of their adult lives inspecting that they forget this simple fact. They become utterly blind to the notion that just because they get sent everything for free, along with assorted bribes and freebies, and of course the free parties where they play with all their little chums and have a jolly good time, all of their readership will have to pay out to enjoy the same experience.

Fortunately I'm describing a minority here, as most editors and review outlets do adopt a policy in their style guides that prices should be considered when awarding a score. Fifty quid for Audiosurf? Fuck off – 2/10. Five quid for Audiosurf? Yes please – 8/10.

But hey, I'm not always right, so I asked some of the mags and review outlets what they have to say about all this.

Rick Porter (Editor, GamesTM): “How to score titles when the price-tag strays away from the norm? It's something that myself and the team have struggled with plenty over the last 18 months. When a game is more or less free, it is very easy to justify treating the price as a distinctly separate issue. Besides, if pricing were allowed to be a contributing factor to scores then any flash game or title that's made available for free should almost certainly be awarded a perfect ten. Therefore, when reviewing games, the only way is to have a policy that disregards external factors such as pricing.”

David McCarthy (Former Editor, Edge): “I remember when I was working on Edge, the reviewing policy was to simply assume that Edge readers, being the early-adopting technophiles that we all imagined them to be, would assume that price was no object, and we reviewed games accordingly. And actually, that was fairly easy for me, because, impoverished though I was, price was no object for me when I bought Samba de Amigo, or when, for example, I bought an import GameCube with the money my mum had given me one Christmas to buy a bed. I'd rather play Super Monkey Ball than sleep comfortably.”

RAM Raider: “Now that's an interesting viewpoint – if your readership are so hardcore that they've learnt Japanese so they can play Final Fantasy "the way it's meant to be played", and think nothing of crashing the Tokyo Game Show whilst keeping a copy of their Scandinavian Game Development supplement with them for the plane journey, then it would be senseless to punish the quality of gameplay through a review just because of its associated RRP. In a way, it's moving away from critiquing the pure quality of the game. Nevertheless, £180 is still taking the piss.”

Porter: “When something is horrendously overpriced, the conscience begins to nag a little harder. When you're advising a largely young audience to part with hundreds rather than tens of pounds, you feel obliged to take things such as value for money into consideration. Fortunately, being one of the more mature videogame magazines on the market, I choose to assume that anyone reading gamesTM knows the worth of £180, is aware of the risks involved in spending it on a videogame and are, ultimately, sure that they can afford to spend the amount without too much consequence.”

RR: “So it seems that both Edge and gamesTM are familiar enough with their readership to know what the majority of them want – reviews of the games, rather than their price tags. But this brings us around to the question of whether particular audiences are that demarcated from Mr Average Gamer. If someone outside of the demographic picked up a copy of either mag hoping to see whether the game is worth mortgaging their house for, would it be reasonable for them to expect the reviewer to have considered the price?”

Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winning journo): “There's some very well meaning people, including several of my friends, who believe that the price shouldn't influence a review. I think they're about as wrong as you can get. A review in a consumer magazine is primarily a consumer guide, and the mark a shorthand for 'Should I get this or not?'. If a game is drastically overpriced – that is, giving an amount of entertainment beneath what a consumer would expect – I think it should affect the mark. It's part of the consumer protection part of the gig, and punishing developers who try to gouge consumers. You deal with everything in the body copy, allowing people to make up their own mind. But you can't give a 10/10 for a game that's ludicrously overpriced, because then people will think you mean 'It's worth it'. And you *don't* think it's worth it.”

RR: “Three reviewers, three different perspectives. On one extreme, we've got Gillen who thinks reviewers should take pricing into consideration. On the other, we've got McCarthy who thinks the dead opposite. Somewhere in between the two, albeit closer to McCarthy's camp, Porter thinks pricing should only minimally influence the reviewer when it's extraordinarily high. Are you following all this?”

Porter: “Could there be confusion? Almost definitely. When we gave Wii Play a fairly low score, there was a cry from many forums claiming that we were wrong to score a game that essentially cost five pounds in such a harsh way. It was agreed that it wasn't a great title, but all were willing to pay the asking price due to the Remote they received in the package. A shrewd piece of marketing by Nintendo who were obviously aware that all who purchased a Wii also owned Wii Sports – a title that near demanded a second Remote to be fully enjoyed. In the case of Rock Band, we awarded a high score. The game is excellent. Would we have come under fire from the same people who didn't agree with the Wii Play score had we marked it down to a four simply because of its high price? Definitely.”

RR: “So what about import reviews – can mags really be blamed for reviewing foreign code for the sake of an early review?”

Gillen: “Imports isn't really relevant to what I mainly do – a lot of mags re-review when it gets a UK release, like the lovely NGamer. What may be relevant is when I get sent a boxed copy of a game which is available much cheaper online, like many casual games. In that case, yeah, it affects the mark – as I'm reviewing the package I was sent and I'll actively point people in the direction of where they should get it from in the text.”

RR: “There's a lot of sense in that argument. To describe the job of the reviewer as being to review the game purely on its merits to the exclusion of all else would be misleading semantics. The real reason reviewers exist is to allow the reader to vicariously experience the game through them so they know if it's something they need to buy. In this sense, wouldn't ignoring the price be effectively ignoring the fact that in the real world, people have to pay for stuff?”

McCarthy: “I don't have a massive amount of sympathy for people complaining about the price of Rock Band. If you don't like the price, don't buy the game. Or move somewhere better than Britain. I mean, it's not just games, is it? As for the general point: if reviewers want to review a game based on its price, that's up to them, as long as they make it clear that's what they're doing. I'm basically in favour of reviewers reviewing a game however they want, as long as they make clear the basis upon which they form their judgements.”

Porter: “Wherever there is room for confusion and complaint, you can be sure that some will be confused and complain about it. I doubt there's any real solution to the problem. All that can be asked is that each magazine team is aware of the readership it has and points out issues where they see fit.”

RR: “The most important point underpinning McCarthy and Porter's argument is that there has to be clarity when it comes to the magazine, or the reviewer, getting the approach they're taking in the review across to the reader. But in an age where people will log on to MetaCritic to view a list of scores, or will happily just flick through to the last paragraph of a mag's review in WHSmith, what are the readers expecting?”

Gillen: “I suppose it's a natural conclusion of 'Some People Just Read The Mark'. If that's all they read, you need to actually carry the message, 'Not Worth It', in there. People who read the review will make up their own mind. And – frankly – publishers should be punished for trying it on.”

RR: “As compelling as the well considered and largely well-meaning viewpoints of fine journalists such as McCarthy and Porter are, particularly the attitude of reviewing the “game” rather than the “product”, it's hard not to ultimately agree with Gillen on this one. At the end of the day, we're not just here to tell the readers what's worth investing their time, and nothing more, in. Some other reviewers really do need reminding occasionally that their readers, those people they write for (remember them… anyone?), don't generally get sent stuff for free.

Gillen: “I suppose the central point is, 'I think that games journalists should remember when they spent thirty quid on a game and felt ripped off'. It's a good general rule.”

Eurogamer Editor Tom Bramwell On Embargos

By now we've all read RAM Raider's post about Batman reviews. I wrote Rammy an email on Friday night in which I raised a few points about it, and, as with all good Friday night emails, I regretted it immediately when I woke up on Saturday morning, because I was horribly inarticulate and bonkers throughout. So I wrote another email asking if I could write a clearer reply making a point that I think is often overlooked or goes without discussion, and then maybe he could publish that. If you're reading this, rather than a post entitled "Eurogamer editor sends mad email then panics", then Rammy is a gentleman. (Although, actually, that's still quite a good title.)

I believe we would all be much better off without review embargoes. One day, I hope to live in a world where developers finish making games, and their publishers immediately ship them off to as many critics as possible, encouraging us to write them up whenever we like, and allowing us to tell you whether we love them or hate them well before you find yourself staring at them in the shops. You would have plenty of time to make your mind up, developers and publishers would have lots of feedback to consider, and the quality of reviews would dictate the success or otherwise of the magazines and websites that published them, so there would be no sense in rushing to be "first!" (People would still do that for a while, but they'd get over it.)

That's the dream, so what's the reality?

With websites, the most common approach taken by game publishers is to provide review copies a week or two before release and specify a date and time that the review can go live. This is usually just before the US release date, which is a few days before the European one. Some publishers only specify embargoes on big releases, and allow other reviews to go up as soon as the publication likes after receiving the game. Elsewhere, there are a couple who I'd happily single out for praise. Sony frequently provides review code a month or more in advance of release on major games, and although it does set embargoes, these are usually well ahead of the release date, as with Killzone 2 and inFamous this year. One company, meanwhile, often provides games a month or more ahead of release and seldom sets any embargo at all. Stand up Nintendo, and take a bow.

However, it's not all like that. In the bad old days, websites struggled to get hold of review copies until the day of release, and sometimes had to wait until after that. Or - more frequently with magazines than websites, as far as I know - review copies were only provided if a publication agreed to a high score in advance, which is the sort of thing Rammy is highlighting. This behaviour is much less prominent than it used to be, but it does still happen. One of the biggest publishers in the world, for instance, makes it very difficult to review its games in the UK before the US release date, and sometimes even the UK one, even when said games are actually very good.

In this case, I'd like to separate the two aspects of Rammy's report and try and demonstrate why there is hope amongst the apparent bleakness. Whether or not the events described are true is immaterial - this sort of thing does happen, and the two key parts are: 1) A game provided for review in time for magazines to publish their thoughts ahead of release. 2) An offer to allow people to publish earlier if they really like the game. The part about the 9/10 proposal is something I've written about before, and as I said then, I think that in theory it is acceptable providing the publication behaves honestly. It's then up to its readers to decide whether it acted honourably or not.

In this instance, I think it's worth focusing on the first part: the idea of a publisher providing review copies in sufficient time for all manner of magazines and websites to publish their verdicts before the game is available to buy. This is becoming more common, and I believe that's progress. Similarly, I think Sony and Nintendo and the other examples I provided originally are signs of progress.

One has to remember that a game publisher's ideal scenario is completely the opposite of ours. Theirs is that only positive reviews appear before release, and preferably right around release, so that people's attention is drawn to the launch of something apparently loved by critics. While some do still attempt to stage that situation, plenty are now on the road to siding with us. There are loads of reasons for this, but one of the most prominent is that the internet remembers, and people don't like being fooled. It's actually better, a few Mr Publishers now believe, to live with the fact that a mediocre game is going to get low scores, because one day they will have a really good game to sell, and people will be more likely to believe the good things they're hearing about it.

Let's not paint too rosy a picture: we're still a long way from the dream scenario of tons of early reviews and every publisher taking the bad with the good, and it's important that commentators like Rammy continue to talk about review embargoes and let the people publishing games know that, in the long run, it will be best to do away with them completely. But the point I wanted to make, which I've hopefully stumbled into somewhere in the knots of text above, is that we *are* getting there, slowly but surely, and I believe that, in attacking the practices of PR and marketing people, we must make sure that we define our criticism specifically so as not to discourage that progress.

Tom Bramwell

Editor, Eurogamer

N’Gai Croal: An Academic Responds

We’ve never been accused of being the home of reasoned debate, but we received this response to N’Gai Croal’s Racist Evil 5 rant from an Anonymous Knight. It makes us sad to see that the internet’s so full of ignorance that anyone trying to argue that there’s not only another side to the argument, but that the other side doesn’t have to be racist, is instantly vilified. So we’ve put the whole piece here for you to make up your own mind:


“I never thought I’d live to see the day when the faux-intelligentsia of games journalism declared all out war on the common gamer. By the faux-intelligentsia, I am of course referring to all of those who have sat through a sixth-form philosophy class, or once read a whole book on politics, and like to drop what they remember into any discussion about gaming like bricks into a playpen. The kind of second-rate hack that’s so insecure about the legitimacy of gaming, they have to start flinging in giveaway words like “lifestyle”, “culture”, and “motif” to persuade fellow members of the faux-intelligentsia that the videogame they’re talking about is actually an allegory of a subject that’s of world importance. Dare to question the mutual respect of the faux-intelligentsia, and risk getting shouted down as an unenlightened halfwit.

So, N’Gai Croal, then. A games journalist of no great relevance nets himself an enormous amount of attention by accusing a large development team of being racist. The trailer in question is for the trashiest of big-name franchises, Resident Evil. The teaser in question is overblown and cheesy, even slightly embarrassing as it depicts the tight-topped Chris Redfield pacing into town and becoming embroiled in a host of clumsy firefights with zombies straight out of any Romero movie, replete with a dopey voice-over.

Everybody who has half a brain is aware of the world’s shameful history when it comes to matters of slavery, disregard of basic human rights and terrible treatment of black persons, amongst others. In a world where this kind of treatment was both commonplace and not considered at the time to be utterly wrong lends support to the argument that we should be reminded frequently about just how bad this situation used to be in order to avoid it happening again.

Modern day society has little time for outmoded and flawed theories of the black man being inferior to the white; the positivistic studies which pushed entire nations towards thinking that, in criminological terms, races can be cleansed by the genetically superior super-beings to eradicate the pollution of their own race and discard the criminal element in a Darwinistic fight for the survival of the fittest. Yet Charles Murray, the US right-wing social theorist, still argues that the “underclasses”, particularly black persons, are of lower than average intelligence. Until the 1970s, the state of Virginia was actively sterilising those found to be “feebleminded”. Whilst it’s easy to point the finger at Hitler’s Germany taking ethnic cleansing to tragic levels, it is uncomfortable to recall that Churchill’s pre-war view and social policies took on a lower level support for such theories.

A thankfully low minority (although any number is still too many) will fail to acknowledge that the historical episodes Croal refers to, amongst many others, were far from the finest hours of the nations involved, whether the United States, the British Empire, or otherwise.

I wonder, then, how many of this majority – the decent gamer who despises racism – were amongst those who disagreed with Croal’s comments, only to be shouted down in an abusive manner by other commentators. Many of the issues that have been raised by these gamers have been absolutely valid, yet have not been greeted with the courtesy of a reasoned response.

Croal has made a serious allegation. Whilst it is likely that the development team at Capcom responsible for producing and designing Resident Evil 5 predominantly (if not entirely) consists of Japanese males, one still has to feel sorry for them as the sudden accusation of racism is thrust at them. As far as can be seen from the brief trailer (and that is all that these comments are based upon), Capcom have done no more or no less than any number of developers. Whether pitching the gamer against a glut of Germans, mowing them down indiscriminately without stopping to question their views on the party some have been made to fight for, or even asking the gamer to become the Nazis fighting against the Allied forces – the practice is commonplace.

Some argue that intention is not a relevant factor, but this is quite simply not true. There wasn’t an eyelid batted when GTA: San Andreas arrived, despite the potential for its black central protagonist to be mistaken for the stereotypical rap-loving, gang-raping, drug-dealing “gangsta” worrying the good multicultural folk going about their daily business. That’s because that character was merely that: a character, placed in a scenario for the purpose of narrative in an open-ended games world, where you could indiscriminately murder any nationality you wish.

To take a game where the zombies are black and the protagonist is white for reasons of narrative and accuse it of being a racist premise is to do a great many injustices. It cheapens the issue of racism, which is dangerous. It alienates the audience you’re supposed to be writing for, to be supporting, by telling them that their right to enjoy a simple videogame is contested. Any commentator who has pig-ignorantly attacked these people for stating their views on the matter, to question their moral fortitude for simply arguing that they don’t see the game as racist, is beyond contempt.

And worst of all from Croal’s perspective, he’s shown himself up as a charlatan. By throwing around serious allegations in the same casual manner that MP Keith Vaz wrongly associates videogames with the murder of one of his constituents, and that Jack Thompson wrongly associates videogames with just about everything that’s broken in the world, he’s destroyed his own credibility. The real tragedy is that he’s taken down with him the thin veneer of maturity the games industry has been trying to build up for itself for so long.

For the sake of some cheap column inches, N’Gai Croal has hurt much of what he purports to love. I hope his new-found notoriety was worth it.”

A Good Question

Amongst the many and varied emails we received during our brief hiatus was this tale from an Anonymous Knight. He’s a freelancer who apparently has some experience in the business, and poses a question to editors that we think they’ll find quite tricky to answer. Take it away, Anonymous Knight:


“I sent out personally addressed emails to carefully selected editors of a variety of periodicals, big and small. If I didn’t get a reply, I followed up with a conventional letter. In each case, I always offered a couple of ideas for articles.

The only responses I got were from people I knew already. The majority did not bother even to reply.

It seems that most journalists in high positions are not interested in authors they do not already know, or ideas which challenge them to think. Either that or they’re not interested in communicating with would-be contributors outside their social circle.

When I used to write mailed letters offering articles I got an answer to every single one and many of them resulted in mutually rewarding work. Perhaps email enables us to not communicate more effectively than ever before.

The Guardian’s George Monbiot, for instance, invites feedback from his website, but replies to emails with an automatically generated message saying that he is too busy to answer them.

I’m busy too and I have been in the commissioning seat. And it would never occur to me not to acknowledge an email, let alone a letter, which is written to me personally. At least, “thanks, but no thanks,” which takes ten seconds to type and send; it’s just courtesy.

My intention here is not to moan but to solicit information. I’d love to hear from any fellow journalists, especially editors, how they like to receive information and what their policy is on responding to ideas they receive.”


Editors – you can send your answers to the usual address. After all, you’re not all a bunch of jobs-for-the-boys nepotistic tits who ignore stuff that’s from people you don’t know, or aren’t from eager readers doing your job for you for free at the right time. Are you…?

Proud To Be British

The US has E For All. Germany has the Leipzig Games Convention. Japan has the Tokyo Game Show.

And Britain has the London Games Festival…

Q&A (Guest Starring… Kieron Gillen!)

On our second Birthday, we made a promise to answer your questions. Actually, we promised to answer your questions if they arrived within an hour of posting with the obvious intention that nobody would notice until it was too late. Several of you asked questions, but missed the deadline. We’ll answer some of them anyway. However, one person managed to squeeze in an email full of questions within the hour, meaning we have to answer them. That man was Gillen.


KG: What's the purpose of your blog?

RR: There isn’t really any one purpose when it comes to what goes up on here now. When I first started over two years ago, I was pissed off. Pissed off with the games industry. Pissed off with how it all works. Pissed off that the mags lie to their readers and treat them with contempt. Pissed off that I would get bollocked if I made anything vaguely resembling a humorous or true comment that wasn’t in step with the company line (which means the advertisers’ line too). Just pissed off that the games industry has become this ridiculous joke constantly begging anyone who’ll listen to be taken seriously whilst carrying on like a corrupt, amateurish sixth-form project. Money money money.

KG: Why do you do it?

RR: That fateful night I started the blog, I thought there was very little chance that I could make a difference. I just wanted to get it out there how the magazines are put together, how we’re told to lie, how we get less than 24 hours to turn around preview code and call it a review, and how we get censored unless we’re rewriting press releases. I thought I might get a handful of readers, maybe 50 or so, who read the games mags and would be interested to hear what really goes on behind the scenes.

I never really thought I could make a difference until word got out and I started getting four-figure daily hits. Then I thought maybe I could. The weird thing is, despite blogging about the lies and bullshit, the majority of mag readers don’t know the blog exists because my main audience is games journos and industry workers who know it all anyway. Even the only place that’s had the guts to print my rants as the RAM Raider is the industry’s trade mag, MCV. I did get a mention in PC Zone though, in a roundabout way...

KG: What drives you?

RR: The purpose is just to have fun. If I want to slag something or someone off and Future Publishing (or even smalltime Nazis like the RLLMUK mods) won’t let me because they’re so fucking pathetic about censorship, I can just bung it on here and people get to read it if they want. The purpose now is just to talk about the games industry, get views from the people inside and outside of it, and to let the mags know that they can’t expect to lie without people finding out about it.

KG: What do you hope to accomplish with it?

RR: One of the things that makes me snigger when I’m being lambasted for being cowardly, and hiding behind my cloak of anonymity and all that bollocks is that the journos who are doing it aren’t criticising me for telling the truth. They’re criticising me because I’m talking about them and their buddies, and they don’t like it. They like criticising games (as long as the publisher hasn’t paid for advertising in the mag, natch) perched up in their magazines and on their little websites, and so they should. As games journalists, it’s our right and our duty to criticise bad games. I know for a fact that you feel no guilt when you’re really sticking it to a bad game, and rightly so.

What the games journos really hate though is the thought that someone’s criticising them. The reviewers are being reviewed. When I’m being called a hypocrite for working in an industry I’ve come to hate as much as I love over the years, that makes me laugh hard. So there’s the purpose: it keeps the mags on their toes, it keeps the readers of the mags informed about what goes on, and it entertains me as well as my Anonymous Knights.

KG: *Is* there anything you can accomplish with it?

RR: When it comes to accomplishments, I think I’ve achieved everything I set out to do and then some. Anything else is a bonus. As long as people enjoy reading the blog and the right questions are there to be asked, I’ll carry on popping up from time to time to ask them. And you’ve got to admit – that Top 10 Least Hideous Games Journos thing was a genius idea…


That’s enough for you, Gillen. And for the record, I don’t dislike you or your work. I just dislike some of your work, and the way it’s treated like lost sections of the Bible by certain people. Now, other questions from other readers:

lips said...
Happy Birthday Rammy! My question - why bother?

RR: Kinda answered that above. Thought I could make a difference, but now I’m just pleased to have a conduit to comment without corporate interests taking precedent.


Neil said...
When did you first see corruption in the games industry?

RR: Very good question. A lot of the very early stuff is well documented already, but the first time I personally felt the baseball bat of corruption was when I had an entire article plagiarised from an Amiga mag by a freelance guy like I wouldn’t fucking notice. I won’t name the guy who did it because I don’t know what he does now, and it was a long time ago. And yes, I do regret not suing.


Bonjela said...
Happy Birthday Ram. Answer this please: there are only two magazines for PC games players, so which is better. Pc Zone or Pc Gamer?

RR: PC Gamer, without a shadow of a doubt. I’ve swung between the two a lot over the years. PC Gamer lost my vote when they redesigned a few years back and got all wanky, but then PC Zone was bought out by Future, and was transformed from an edgy adult games mag into a more sterile version of The Beano, and PC Gamer have reeled in their wankiness a bit. Both mags have their faults. PC Zone’s days are numbered the way its ABC’s are going, but they have some genuinely good writers on board which means it’s a shame. Jon Blyth is superb, and weird Irish kid also has his moments when he’s not hung over, but the combination of Future’s dictatorship and the worst editorial partnership in the mag’s history (Sefton/Porter) has sealed its fate. PC Gamer has a more consistent bunch of writers when it comes to quality, with Gillen (when he’s not being silly) and Walker (when he’s not being wrong) standing out. They’ve also got a good solid editor with Ross Atherton, although he needs to reel in the World Of Warcraft features, and stop Tim Chubby Edwards from being so smug.


Anonymous Knight said...
how long have you been in the games business

RR: I won’t give an exact date, but my first published games mag appearance was in the 80’s.


Richard said...
why don't you actually post anything about people taking bribes and that anymore. More rumours of PR intervention, please!

RR: Two answers to this, really. First, despite how much Future and its bitches made out they didn’t care about the blog, they got in an enormous flap. Hatches were battened down, rumours flew, and management wanted to track down their little leak. The problem is, and I hate to admit this, it kinda worked. The way this info works its way around the office means that when stuff does reach me, it would narrow down the field too much if I revealed it. About 10 people know for certain who I am (not including the ones who have guessed) and that's the way I want to keep it for now. The second reason is that it really, genuinely upsets people when I talk about them, so I hold back unless there’s something I really want to get off my chest. Anonymous Knights even write to me with info, but ask me not to reveal it for what I guess are the same reasons, which I always respect. Surreal, but true.


Anonymous Knight said...
How many games industry staff were in the PS3 get-a-free-TV line?

RR: It was quicker to count the genuine customers, and that was after they had to be bribed to appear in the publicity shots.


That’s it folks – the RAM Raider salutes you.

Why The Mail On Sunday Got It Right

It’s not unusual for the non-specialist press to get it completely wrong when it comes to games, but nobody cares. Anyone who’s a proper gamer knows it’s all bollocks, and bad press almost always means better game sales. Last Sunday, the Mail On Sunday led with a front headline of “Slaughtered”, and featured pictures taken from Official PlayStation Magazine’s giddy-schoolboy account of a pathetic press event for God Of War 2. Whilst it was embarrassing enough that what’s viewed as a “leading” games publication was getting all excited at naked breasts, what had really offended the sensibilities of The Mail was the decapitated slaughtered goat from which offal was being offered to the motley collection of journalists.

As soon as Sony found out one of its pathetic “look at me” press events had been given the front page of, as much as everyone likes to criticise it, one of the country’s best-selling newspapers, it immediately back-pedalled by issuing an apology and launching an enquiry. As soon as Future Publishing found out its magazine had made the front page, the brass acted just as steadfastly by… pulling the entire print run of their excuse for a magazine and are now busily ripping out the pages.

It’s so easy to sit back and criticise newspapers for their games coverage, as they always get it hopelessly wrong. Whether games are being linked to knife attacks or GTA is being blamed for the world’s evils, we, as gamers, know it’s just misinformed shit which heretic non-gamers, who nobody cares about anyway, will tut at and everybody else will laugh at. In this instance though, the Mail On Sunday got it right.

Having a decapitated slaughtered goat at a press event and splashing it over the pages of a shit kiddy magazine was totally misjudged. Sony has admitted it was misjudged by grovelling when confronted, and Future has agreed that they fucked up too by withdrawing its OPSM bog roll. The MoS isn’t entirely right – their “review” of the game by “expert” Rob Waugh, whose usual remit is rewriting press releases to make them even more superficial, is woeful (Waugh-ful! Sorry…) However, the games industry has no right to criticise the MoS for running the story.

MCV has reported Tim Wapshott, described as a “veteran industry writer”, describing the story as “screaming”. They’ve also quoted Steve Boxer, hilariously and pathetically all at once described as a “senior games journalist”, whatever the fuck that is, slagging off the MoS with the usual “they always get it wrong” shit.

The industry has already been shamed by being tarred with Sony and Future’s brush of stupidity and gormlessness. Sony hasn’t exactly had the best PR record since the PSP and PS3 have dirtied shop shelves. Even before then, they’ve not precisely nailed the PR machine. We remember a friend who had been into hospital and had a head x-ray about 10 years ago. A week or two later, a mailing marked “urgent” arrived, and in it were plastic reproductions of head x-rays with a letter worded as though he had a serious illness. He realised as he read further down the letter that it was some bullshit Sony “game brain” crap, but not until he’d almost had a nervous breakdown at the thought of being notified to see his doctor urgently after having a head x-ray. Complaining to Sony, they just sent back a letter saying how they were being “fresh”. No Sony – you were being fucking arseholes, just like you are now.

Anyway, that’s what we think to Sony, and you all know what we think to Future. But MCV, who we respect, shouldn’t be wading in with comments from “senior” and “veteran” journalists, who obviously have no vested interest in sticking the knife in because it’s not like they write for competing papers like The Times, The Guardian and The Mirror, or anything, and presenting it as an industry view.

The industry is full of journalists. Many of them are shit, many (but a lot less) of them are great. When the industry as a whole has been humiliated by the stupidity of Sony and Future’s money-grabbing attention-seeking antics, it needs to be left to the specialist journalists – the good specialist journalists – to comment, and say, “yeah, Sony and Future fucked up, we think they’re stupid”. The opportunistic rival newspaper wankers can keep their opinions to their own rags.

Will this industry ever be free of vested interests?

-----------------------------------------
Our 2nd Birthday Q&A will be up soon.

Corrupt Games Journos – Let’s Improve Things

Our thoughts on how journalists are becoming indistinguishable from PR mouthpieces are no secret. MCV (p.17, 3/11/06) published our proposition to lead us not into temptation:


“Every so often, the question of whether games journalists count as being part of the games industry is raised. The question is largely based on semantics: of course games journalists (or at least the specialist press) are just as much a part of the industry as the publishers, the PR and the marketers, but they’re not directly involved in the process of making games.

But the truly important question isn’t about whether or not games journalists are part of the industry.

The question that should be asked – strongly – is: “Are journalists independent of the industry?” If they’re not, the specialist press is in trouble.

In a debate about the first question on Sony’s David Jaffe “cake’s” blog some time ago, I reminded every reader of the true purpose of the games media. The free press is there to commentate, to critique, and to inform the public.

Or, in less flowery terms, to test out games and tell you if they’re worth buying.

To carry out this role competently and fairly, journalists have to be impartial and professionally unbiased. Despite this, publishers pour collective millions into the pockets of PR machines whose jobs are to make sure the journalists are talking about their games.

The PR folk achieve this by lavishing journalists with treats, from previews of games through to expensive trips abroad – complete with a quick look at the code, shoehorned between dinner and a lapdance.

Most press events are overblown and unnecessary. Because of the needless luxuriance of these jollies, which often see journalists being flown to fancy locations around the world, hacks become open to suggestion. Maybe these journalists who are supposed to be taking an unbiased and impartial view of a game aren’t quite living up to their readers’ expectations.

It would be unsportsmanly to suggest journalists are deliberately nice about a game because of the attention they’ve received courtesy of that nice PR man’s credit card. But it’s nothing more than natural to assume that maybe, just maybe, the critics might be slightly influenced, even if sub-consciously, when summing up the latest release.

There you are ready to start ripping the game apart before you suddenly remember how nice Mr. PR Man always is to you, and, oh, the fun we all had on that trip, and those developers are just so dang ‘nice’… where was I? Oh yes, maybe I won’t mention that below-par bit of the game after all…

And that’s where the danger lies. A critic is supposed to approach a game just as a reader of their magazine or website would. The problem is the critic has played several versions of the preview code, interviewed the developers, and been arse-kissed by the PR. In some cases, they’ve actually had their faces scanned into the game or have got to record their voice as one of the characters. They’re as far removed from an everyday purchaser you can get.

One of my Anonymous Knights recently commented that reviewers should be made to list all the free stuff they’ve been given, as well as any contact they’ve had with the game’s makers.

I’d propose something stronger: don’t assign the review of a game to the journalist who’s been to press events and seen previous versions of the code unavailable to the public.

Give it to someone who can approach it with a fresh and unbiased perspective, just like those who eventually purchase the game at retail.

Reviewers are only human, so lead them not into temptation. Otherwise, they’re more a part of the industry than they ever should be.”


The original comment we posted on David Jaffe’s blog a year ago was this:

“I think two issues have been confused here. The first is the notion that games journalists/writers/critics/whatever aren’t part of “the industry”. Just like movie critics are an integral and vital element of the movie industry and music critics are likewise for the music industry, games critics are just a much a part of the games industry. An industry is made of elements that if one was removed, the whole would fail. The movie, music and games industries would be nothing without their respective press, as there would be no interface between the consumer and the creators. The second issue is that games “journalists” simply don’t live up to their job descriptions. The point made about magazines being full of PR puff is valid as, speaking as a UK journalist, most magazines are glorified mouthpieces that pander to PR whims. “Features” start and end with press trips laid on by PR firms or publishers, and result in little more than speculation wrapped up in positive spin. Good, honest, aggressive (but fair) journalism is all but impossible to achieve now, but it’s not always the fault of the journalists. While some are content to sit back rewriting press releases, the specialist UK games press is monopolised by a publishing house which, in association with the selective PR firms, calls all the shots when it comes to what gets covered by its magazines and journalists. This effectively makes the concept of independent editorial thinking and a truly free press a fiction. The only journalists brave enough to stand up and speak their minds are quickly shunned and blacklisted from the “club”, leaving true honesty to be the bastion of the exiled, or working journalists cowering behind a shield of anonymity.”


And here’s a shit quality scan of the MCV article:

5 Reasons The BAFTA Game Awards Were Bollocks. Again.

1 – Vernon Kay’s jokes going down like a crack about slapheads at a chemotherapy support group.


2 – The award presenters. If it wasn’t the likes of Emma B struggling to read out “Rise And Fall: Civilations At War” as though she knew what she was doing, it was the rest of them wishing the ground would swallow them up when asked if they liked games afterwards.

Bint: Are you a gamer?

Jon Culshaw: Errr, yes. Well, I’ve got an Xbox, but haven’t opened it yet.

Memo to Jon – just say “no” next time.


3 – The features. An obnoxious shit trying to sound like Russell Brand telling gamers what they already know, and non-gamers what they couldn’t give a fuck about. And the bint arguing that gamers aren’t geeks by going to a pro-gamer tournament, where all the participants are spotty twats. Well done.


4 – The judging panel.


5 – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter winning two awards, including game of the year. What the fuck?


Why is the games industry constantly trying to justify itself by searching for the mysterious golden egg of “credibility”? Every time there’s a ludicrous shambles like this put together, it does nothing but piss off the gamers, and bore anyone else who happens to be passing.

Just let the gamers get on with playing – the rest of the world can fuck off.

Antipathy Under Fire

In the 18 months this blog has been running, we’ve taken abuse from all sorts. It’s understandable – human nature means anyone who disagrees with a viewpoint will always be much more likely to bother to respond than if they agree. We learnt that when we disappeared for three months and previously silent supporters e-mailed us until we came back.

Most of the flack we’ve taken has been from certain types of people. Someone we’ve criticised directly or disagreed with their viewpoint, or one of their friends or colleagues. Sometimes fans of a company or writer will jump in to defend their idol. Fair enough, but it’s always weird when someone who’s completely unrelated to the industry pipes up and joins with the nay-sayers, but there’s usually a motive.

If you read MCV or follow the blog, you’ll know about a recent article David McCarthy wrote about new games journalism and the letter we wrote in response. It was standard fare for us. There was nothing new in our arguments, we were just taking the opportunity to put them in print and in context with the views of another writer. And so it took us by surprise when we opened the next week’s issue (29/9) to find two-thirds of the letters page had been dedicated to us.

One of the letters was by Stuart Campbell. We won’t bother typing it here as it wasn’t one of his better pieces of work, (feel free to stick a link to a scan in the comments section if you like though) as despite claiming to be addressing our rants about NGJ, he was really just having another moan about us being anonymous.

“Why doesn’t he say so using his real name (or even just ‘Bill Smith’ or whatever), instead of cultivating the (cough) mysterious ‘RAM Raider’ persona?”

What difference would using “Bill Smith” instead of “RAM Raider” make? Oh well, moving on…

The letter which really caught our eye was by a certain John N Sutherland who is a self-professed “Senior Lecturer in Video Games” for the University of Paisley (funny they only offer courses on computer games technology and art – not quite the same thing, is it?). If it was April, we’d have thought he was having a laugh. In fact we still thought it was someone having a laugh, but this guy really exists. Here’s his largely incomprehensible letter:


“RAM Raider descends in the lowest form of naff media-ism. It’s the kind of laugh, grunt and burp school of boys drinking their first beer from a bottle. What form of mass entertainment other than games would consider taking his (I assume Ram is a him) approach to critical enquiry into the medium? (The kind of industry which rates Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter the BAFTA-winning game of the year seeing as you’re asking.)

Indeed, what, when and how he says what he says is itself a text to be duly analysed. He is part of the message that games put out: a sniggering in darkened rooms at block graphics, of body parts coming apart in mock gore, tempting the Daily Mail to mock schlock horror. (Yes readers, he’s subjecting a rant-blog to an NGJ-style analytical deconstruction. You couldn’t make this shit up.)

There is another possibility, which is the one used in the critical analysis of movies, television, music, drama, books, painting, clothing, language, form, etc. It is to ask the question: what is going on here? Video games are not a unique medium never seen before; they are simply another mass entertainment medium as capable of being subject to deep questioning as any other form of human activity.

From where he stands, Ram Raider is quite possibly, as he admits, incapable of understanding this ‘crap’: the analyses, concepts and sentences used by such critical analysis. But, with a little more education I’m sure he could.

There are probably a range of courses on textual criticism available at his local universities. For one, he needs to realise that objectivity is not an absolute. For example, the meaning of a word such as ‘fun’, which is core the video gaming [sic], is almost entirely subjective. I too play games that I enjoy playing. The question is: why?”


Yes – why? Why talk a load of fucking bollocks about games when you’re supposed to be entertaining and informing your readers – that’s what I’ve been banging on about for so long now.

Perhaps Sutherland should take his own advice on reading up on how to write a legible piece, as responses from friends and colleagues we showed this to ranged from “Is it meant to be a poem? The structure’s all fucked, he’s trying to make it into a poem” to “He’s taking the piss – he must be.”

The best response was from a veteran games journalist who wrote for the mags in the 8-bit glory days of the C64 and Spectrum. Being away from the industry and games journalism for so long, he was completely baffled by it all.

“None of this shit went on in my day. I mean, who the fuck cares? We just had to load up the tape and write some shit about whether it was worth buying. It’s like these people are writing in a different language now – how is that helping? Jesus Christ, I’m pleased I got out of this lark. What a load of bollocks.”

Amen. Anyway, our response was published the following week (6/10):


“My goodness, it looks like I’ve got some thanking to do. After Stuart Campbell pitched up last week asking why I moan about NGJ (although he seemed far more perturbed by my anonymity), along comes Mr. Sutherland to answer the question for me.

From a ‘senior lecturer in video games’ (suddenly ‘Games Journalist’ doesn’t look so bad on the old CV), Sutherland’s letter is a living and breathing embodiment of exactly the kind of nonsense that needs to be kept out of games journalism.

In a series of disjointed and unrelated paragraphs which appear to be making points but, upon closer inspection, aren’t actually saying anything, Mr. Sutherland suggests I’m too thick to understand the needless deconstruction of the magic of gaming.

I’ll be sure to sign up to his three year degree course in video games at the earliest opportunity to rectify this, and get to know the three people in the UK who failed their A-levels whilst I’m learning a whole new art.

I’d also like to thank Mr. Sutherland for putting me straight on a few things that I’d so foolishly been mistaken on. Objectivity is a relatively recent concept apparently – and there was me thinking it had been around as long as subjectivity. Aren’t I silly!

And ‘fun’ is also actually almost entirely subjective, which makes virtually unanimous praise of excellent games such as Half-Life and Elite nothing but a hilarious coincidence. What a fool I’ve been all this time!

Thank you, Mr. Sutherland. Thank you for proving my point about why over-analysis of video games should stay well away from the realm of games journalism.

And thank you for making me quite literally laugh my grunting, burping backside right off.

‘Bill Smith’
RAM Raider Towers
ramraider.blogspot.com”

Sony’s Arrogance Pays Off… For Everyone But Sony

We usually steer clear of stories like this which the whole world has already flogged to death, but it would be a shame not to jump on a bandwagon as beautiful as this.

Here are some choice comments from SCEE chief twat David Reeves being a smug cunt in the glorious MCV earlier this year, as reported by gamepro.com:

“David Reeves, the head of Sony's European PlayStation 3 launch, has gone on record in MCV as saying that 'it is my job to match [the European PS3 launch] with the U.S launch,' adding that 'I am doing my very best to make that happen.'

Reeves also takes a moment to scold analysts who speculate about a possible PS3 delay, saying 'no one really knows the facts.' Reeves goes on to say that he is 'very, very confident' about Sony's launch plans for the PS3.”

Well Dave, we’re “very, very confident” that the analysts are laughing in your cocky face, and you’ve failed to do your job.

Let’s face it, after watching Sony i) fucking up the launch of the PSP, ii) turning the PSP into a white elephant that’s been shoved aside by the Nintendo DS, and iii) replacing the PS3 controller with an old dual shock with the rumble pack replaced with a motion sensor in a panicked reactionary response to the Nintendo Wii controller, the analysts had plenty to go on.

Happy Christmas, Sony!

Dave Perry & The Death Of Celebrity

Top 10 Celebrity Games Journalist Dave Perry wrote an article in industry arse-rag MCV recently about the lack of proper gaming celebrities on TV. We agree with quite a lot of it, especially the bits that agree with what we’ve said, not to mention the list of celebrities we’ve championed in our Top 10 and also-ran list. We don’t agree with the second half of the article though.

Perry talks about the wealth of talent in the games industry who could step into the role of a TV celebrity. We’ve met and/or know plenty of games journalists. The ones who can string together great articles that are informative and funny (as the OGJ code demands) would never make it when away from their desks. The ones who aren’t informative and funny should fuck off and work in PR.

The ones who have tried – step forward Triforce guy Ste Curran and his brave attempt at games radio One Life Left – are undoubtedly talented writers, but do struggle outside of the comfort zone of the written page or webspace. The World of Stuart forum recently criticised Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe for being like watching someone reading out their weekly column into an autocue.

Dave mentions Dominik Diamond as someone who’s transcended the games arena. It’s true that at the time, Diamond did a reasonable job of presenting GamesMaster. The thing to remember is that he wasn’t a games journalist before landing the job, and he’s never been able to cut it as a games journalist since. The proof of that is in his embarrassingly unfunny column for kids’ comic PC Zone that’s now been axed, but Diamond at least bowed out with his dignity by taking the piss out of his crucifixion disaster and admitting how much the readers hated his monthly deposit in his final article.

Perry also thinks that there are no games celebrities because the viewers keep slagging off the limp excuses masquerading as games TV that sometimes pop up instead of supporting them. The fundamental problem with that argument is that viewers slag off shows like Bits and Games Network’s crap because they’re utter shit scraped from the crack of a PR’s arse.

The reason that there aren’t any proper games celebrities is partly down to the paucity of genuinely talented games writers, and the undeniable truth that television (and podcasting and all that shit) are totally different mediums. The solution is simple – bring back the tried and tested talent from the past. Get Perry and Diamond onto a show together, have Jaz Rignall lurking around talking about new games in the background, and bring in some underrated talent like the wonderful Chris Long. Make decent TV shows with decent presenters, and the majority will watch and support them. We’re only here to criticise shit.

How To Be A Games Journalist - In 10 Easy Steps

For someone that likes games, writing about them for money sounds like a dream job. If you’ve learnt anything from this site, you’ll know it’s not. Everyone who wants to be a games journalist has heard this warning but still wants to do it anyway, as they assume they won’t become as cynical as the scores of journalists giving the warnings. If that sounds like you, here’s the RAM Raider’s definitive guide to becoming a games journalist.

Read Stuart Campbell’s guide

Stuart Campbell wrote his “So you want to be a videogames journalist?” guide for Digitiser over 8 years ago, before he was exiled, but it’s still essential reading. The gist is you need to do loads of reading of good and bad writing. He also predicted games magazines would be better in five years from when he wrote that article. We’re still waiting.

Don’t bother with journalistic qualifications / training

A common question with an easy answer is whether it's worth spending time doing a writing course or degree in journalism. Don’t bother. Honestly – you’re either a good writer or you’re not. If you’re not, getting qualifications in journalism isn’t going to make any difference – you might end up being slightly less shit, but you’ll still be shit. Magazines never look at what qualifications you’ve got, only at whether the stuff you’re writing makes sense and is entertaining. Practice writing – write sample reviews, copy the styles of writers you like, and eventually you’ll find your way. Editors receive loads of begging letters wanting jobs, but most of them are dire – if you can write, you’ll be noticed.

Don’t bother learning about games

In the land of make-believe, game reviewers know their subject inside out (just like the magazines always claim their writers do) and can write brilliantly. In the real world, only being able to write is important. Seriously – the people we know in the industry who know fuck all about games is astonishing. Ask many staff writers of prominent mags what they think of some major releases, and they’ll look at you blankly or mutter something about “not having time to play those yet”. The knowledge you already have from playing games is enough. Anything else can be easily picked up through web research (Gamespot.com is your friend). You’re not entering a twilight zone where everyone knows everything about games – chances are they know less than you.

Expect shit pay

Nobody writes about games to get rich. When you start as a staff writer, you’ll be paid around £10,000 to £12,000 a year for a lot of hours and have to contend with living in an expensive city. A lot of staffers supplement their pay by freelancing on the side, but that’s extra work on top of what you’ll be landed with already. You can forget about going purely freelance for several years at least, and then only if you’re lucky.

Remove the word “morals” from your vocabulary

This is so you don’t get pissed off with being lied to, and having to lie to your readers. Everyone lies in the industry – you’ll be lied to daily by PR scum, who are all mentally incapable of forming a sentence without including some bullshit. You’ll also have to lie to your readers by writing previews of games you’ve not played (Gamespot.com is still your friend) or writing reviews based on unfinished code. If you’re really good at lying, you’ll be offered a place at Official Xbox 360 Magazine. The advertisers tell the publishers what to do, and they tell you what to do, so if you can’t lie, you won’t get any work.

Join the old-boy’s network

You’re not in unless you’re in. To be really in, you have to be in a gang. The way the magazine industry is run at the moment means to really get ahead, you’ll have to apply for membership of the Bath Elitorati or the London Cronies Network. Which one you go for depends where you live or where you’re willing to move to, but the Bath Elitorati consists of Edge, GamesMaster, PC Gamer, some PS2 mags, Gillen, and alumni Campbell, and the London Cronies Network comprises the Xbox magazines, some more PS2 mags, PC Zone, and UK:R lad Cutlack. If you have a choice, go for the Bath Elitorati. Joining an old-boy’s network is as simple as getting staff work on a games mag and forcing yourself to socialise with the other writers. Once you’re in, you’ll be used when freelance work is being handed out. If not, it doesn’t matter how good your writing is – old boys come first.

Expect your gaming hobby to die

Writing about games changes the way you play them. At first, for a long time, you’ll be getting all the shit to plough through. You’ll also be subjected to unrealistic deadlines forcing you to cut corners, and the rate at which new games will be fired at you means you’ll have little time to devote to games you'd choose to play. Playing games before they’re released sounds great but the novelty wears thin quickly, especially when you have to go to a PR office and try to look interested as a husk lies about it in your ear or patronises you as you manage to shoot a barn door. Press trips aren’t free holidays, and press events are mostly shit.

Start an anonymous blog

After you’ve spent precious years of your life ruining your hobby for not much money, you’ll be due a mental breakdown. Venting in an anonymous blog is the perfect way to waste work-time as publicly as possible, and is the best massively-multiplayer online text adventure you’ll ever play.

- Sit at desk (enter)
- Check coast is clear (enter)
- Load Blogger (enter)
- Type “WELL-KNOWN ED models himself on Dr. Fox” (enter)
- Wait one hour (enter)
- Listen (enter) (Hear someone saying “he says WELL-KNOWN ED looks like Dr. Fox” whilst tittering)
- Wait (enter) (Receive e-mail from WELL-KNOWN ED blowing it out of proportion)
- Receive ten points

It beats the fuck out of In Memoriam.

Build a time machine

Ask anyone who was writing about games about 15-20 years ago what it was like, and you’ll see a happy look wash over them. It was joy. Games were better. Times were simpler. The whole thing was less corporate, and you could get away with writing copy that was funny and THE TRUTH. Those days have long gone, so the only way you’ll get paid to write about games without selling your soul is to climb into a Delorean and hit 88.

Don’t work as a games writer

You’ve not got a Delorean, so forget it. Get out whilst you're still young. You can get free games without selling your soul to “the man” and spoiling your hobby by downloading them. If you think the world of gaming is great, carry on letting ignorance be bliss. Most of all, make something of your life. Leave a legacy, or make loads of money, or do anything that makes you happy. Writing about videogames isn’t where it’s at. Not any more.

If you’re going for it though, good luck! And don't say we didn't warn you...

Introversion’s New Clothes

There’s been some buzz recently about Brit developer Introversion winning three prizes at the IGF awards. We read about their success on Gillen’s site and tried to comment on it, but he’s installed some new spam filter that’s so effective it’s stopped twats like us from posting. He said he’d put our comment up then fell unconscious into his nightly drug-induced Oblivion haze and forgot, so here it is:

“What's ironic is that they won an award for a game that needed to be 'fucked with' by publishers. Uplink was a better game that didn't stink of self-indulgence. Defcon looks promising though - be nice if they finish it before releasing it.

'Being likeable is over-rated.'

Good quote Gillen - I'll drink to that.”

First of all, we’ll get the nicey-nicey bit out of the way – we’re genuinely pleased that Introversion has been given some awards, as the guys in the team deserve them for their past achievements. Now for the bit we’re going to be lynched for: Darwinia didn’t deserve those prizes.

The three awards they won were for technical excellence, innovation in visual art, and the “Grand Prize”. Darwinia isn’t a technically excellent game. It doesn’t run as smoothly as games that look much better, and the gesture system was so ridiculous they virtually admitted it was ludicrous and unnecessary by adding in an alternative system in a patch. There’s no AI there either – Lemmings let you set waypoints, and that was 15 years ago.

Ironically, the unreliable Eurogamer’s review of Uplink (where a mysteriously unnamed reviewer gave it an undeservedly low score of 7/10) is more appropriate to Darwinia:

“Sadly graphical glitches, [and] a slightly awkward interface… lets it down somewhat, but it's still well worth a look if you fancy something completely different.”

We’re not arguing with the “innovation in visual design” award, as its style is original and arresting, but the “Grand Prize”? Really? We’ve played better independently developed games over the last year, and so has everyone else.

We don’t mean to sit here tearing into Darwinia. Games that are poorly executed and aren’t properly tested are released all the time. What we’re really getting at is we find it ironic that, despite Introversion’s speech at the awards, they were in desperate need of a publisher “fucking up” Darwinia, assuming by “fucking up” they meant “play-testing and ironing out obvious design flaws before release.”

But why are so many industry names and figures spreading their ejaculate all over Darwinia when it’s not very good? When Uplink was first released, it was ignored by most of the industry.

Uplink is a classic game, but with the exception of PC Gamer’s early review thanks to Gillen noticing its brilliance, it won no awards, and barely registered on most of the industry’s radar. It was left to the gamers and consumers to discover and support. Now it’s too late to sing the praises of Uplink, the industry has entered into a “guilt” phase of trumpeting Introversion as the saviours of gaming. Projecting the success of Uplink onto the inferior Darwinia, and defending any misguided views with the response that Introversion are British independent developers and therefore “cool,” (so that means any shortcomings in their game is excusable, natch) or it’s been designed for higher beings to understand, the industry has shown itself as being about four years out of touch. Worse, it patronises Introversion and cheapens their success.

We’re looking forward to seeing Defcon, as Uplink is proof that Introversion can make good games. If it’s bad though, we hope the industry has the guts to judge it objectively and say so.

Another Awful Review, And A Press Release

Our readers have been on top form this week, alerting us to two points of ridicule. The first follows last week’s report on PC Gamer’s wank-stained review of Oblivion. Tom Francis’ hopeless attempt at padding / NGJ / whatever-excuse-him-and-his-mates-are-using can’t even claim to be original, as a hawk-eyed reader spotted the unreliable Eurogamer.net had beaten him to it with its review of Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Written by some guy called Mathew Kumar, (if this was Harry Hill’s TV Burp, the audience would be unfunnily shouting out “who?” – he's a freelancer for places like InsertCredit) the 2344 word review is peppered with exactly the same brand of jizz. Here’s the intro:

“The first thing I remember is waking up in the back of a warm taxi cab, speeding through the driving rain. The driver, a frog, introduces himself as the Kapp'n, and asks me a variety of questions to find out who I am - secretly it helps me ascertain that very thing myself. It turns out my name is Mathew. I'm heading to the town of NewGenki, a small town populated by animals, and I have no money to pay the fare.”

No Mathew, you’re having a bad trip.

Over a third of the text is taken up by this meaningless drivel, making it a 1500 word review (complete with typos – well done EG’s sub-eds) padded to the ends of the earth. Check this out for a finale:

“In the middle of the night I awaken, and look over at her, sleeping peacefully in her little bed fit for one. Some nights I could just watch her sleep. I put on my goggles, an awesome purchase from the Mabel sisters that makes me look super cool, even with a bee sting, and walk out into the empty streets, heading for the museum's observatory. The lyrics of Aerogramme's 'In Gratitude' run through my head - "I wanted to show you the stars... I wanted to show you the stars.”

I inscribe her name into the heavens and send her a letter, those lyrics the only content.”

Man alive, we couldn’t make this shit up.

And now back to the world of PR, courtesy of another reader who sent us a press release from RR favourite Crazy Frazer Nash. Headed “Teenage Goth-Metal girl designs extreme metal racing video game based in Hell”, the release is a load of empty platitudes about a racing game nobody has heard of, or ever will. Cue Frazer:

“Frazer Nash of Frazer Nash Communications describes how his daughter created the game during work experience at developer, DDI: “Sky, then just 15, was given a huge responsibility to design her own (tongue in cheek) game. By the end of the first week, she had created a Gothic-looking game, complete with drafted levels and an awesome soundtrack. 12 months on and with professional development courtesy of Sam King and Mike Rooker (art), Mark Gemmell (production), Karl White and Julian Salter (Programming) at DDI. (Looks like you forgot to finish your sentence there, Frazer - RR) Aimed to appeal to Goth / Rock music fans the world over, Metro 3D have created EARACHE EXTREME METAL RACING - a monster of a game.””

Stop the presses – it’s a racing game set to rock music. With bands like Linea 77 and, umm, Akercocke, a new dawn for gaming has been heralded. And you heard it here first.

Anatomy Of A Poor Review

When a big release comes along, Future decides which of its mags will get the exclusive. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the biggest releases this year, so they gave it to their best selling PC games mag, PC Gamer. But after allocating EIGHT pages for the review, reviewer Tom Francis has managed to fuck it up. Considering he had EIGHT pages to fill, you can’t blame the guy for having trouble finding stuff to waffle on about, but resorting to padding it with NGJ is inexcusable.

The shit starts on the second page of writing where the review suddenly stops, and Francis starts blathering on like he’s a character in the game:

“I dismount a good distance from the entrance and creep the rest of the way. Stealth, my friends. The cave floor’s wet inside, but a master like me is still near-silent when – aaaarrghh!”

We were wondering whether that last bit was where the sub-editor had committed suicide, but it goes on. And on. And on, taking up three-quarters of the page. Then another “story” begins on the next page taking up half the page, until by the end you’ve been subjected to four of them.

What’s worse than taking up a third of the review with that shit is the justification he gives for it:

“It would be more informative – and more importantly, fun for me – to recount some of my adventures…”

There you go folks – it’s there in black and white. It’s much more important for a review to be fun for the reviewer to indulge himself with writing tedious bollocks than it is to be informative.

To give Francis credit, the proper OGJ review parts aren’t bad, but why give the reviewer EIGHT pages when he can’t fill them without resorting to padding? Perhaps he struggled to meet his word count because he had to drag himself to Take 2’s offices to play through their code (which went gold after the magazine had gone to print) whilst a PR husk was perched on his shoulder. He says in the review that he spent at least 30 hours playing it, but that would have meant going down there every day, 9am-5pm, for a whole week. [EDIT: OK, we've got reliable information from Gillen that he did, but our criticisms stand]

Reviewing pre-gold code in the publisher’s office isn’t good practice, but it’s not uncommon. PC Gamer’s bitch PC Zone did the same for Oblivion, and all Future’s mags do the same for big releases. Reviewers had to fly overseas to review Half-Life 2, but the reviewer-to-magazine ratio meant some of them had to write the review more than once so different versions (by the same reviewer) could appear in different mags.

We’re going to get rounded on now by PC Gamer’s brigade for daring to criticise them, but we’ve got no problem with the rest of the mag. They just fucked up their review of one of the biggest releases of the year because Future would rather send reviewers to PR offices to play pre-gold code than wait for finalised code for the reviewer to play through properly. You can judge for yourself when the mag’s in the shops on Thursday, and tell us what you think.

Merry Christmas From GMX Media!

We love this time of year, especially when firms take the time and trouble to send out messages of Christmas cheer and goodwill. One of our readers received this “Christmas card” from GMX Media and was instantly filled with seasonal spirit.

“Wow, really nice of GMX to send out a Christmas card and not, for example, a blatant advert with the words season's greetings tacked on.”


Christmas in the GMX household must be great.

“But daddy – I wanted an Xbox360 for Christmas”

“You’ll take this leaflet about our shit games and bloody well like it. And make sure you show all your friends at school. And their parents”


At least the e-mail provided an address to complain to if the contents of it were spam. Seeing as an advert posing as a Christmas card is obviously spam, we’ll be e-mailing steven@gmxmedia.net to tell him, and urge you to as well.


Happy Christmas, readers!

RAM Raider Makes Print Debut

We're going to pretend to be a workblog for once. After some courting by industry rag MCV, we decided to fire off a response to an article they printed about how being a games journalist is the best thing ever. They printed it on page 61 of the 18/11/05 issue:


“Another week, another ill-judged, misinformed and overly-aggressive editorial. In the last issue of MCV (11/11), Matt Martin took it upon himself to declare that games journalists have "one of the best jobs in the world", and forcibly poured scorn upon those of us who have dared to complain about the games industry. Well excuse me Mr. Martin, but you can take your "put up or shut up" attitude and stick it up your arse.

In case Mr. Martin has forgotten, games journalists are part of the national press. The press are there for a specific reason – to tell it how it is. We witness incompetence and poor practice flying at us from all angles, and it's our duty as the press to report this to the consumers. Of course the job is better than scraping grease from biscuit-making machinery, but I bet when Martin did that for a living he wasn't leaping out of bed every morning praising the heavens that he wasn't a one-legged leper with AIDS. Everything's relative.

Ignoring Martin's point about the "hundreds of talented kids out there who would kill" to be in our position (purely because they don't exist – ask any magazine editor how many legible applications he receives in a year and you'll receive a single-figure answer), scolding us for not appreciating the "perks" is yet another flaw in the argument. Does he really think PR trips are laid on as a massive favour for the journalists? They're there solely to convince us to portray their forthcoming games in as favourable a light as possible – glorified advertising at best, borderline bribery at worst. [The second half of that sentence was edited out]

But we should of course all follow Martin's advice immediately, and leave the games industry. After all, why bother standing up and speaking out against everything that's rotten and joyless about the games industry when we could just take the coward's way out? Oh, that's right – because it's our jobs to tell the truth.

We're moaning about the games industry because we care about it. We've seen how great it can be, and it can be saved if only more people would make a stand against charmless asinine journalism promoting poor industry decisions. Martin demands that we should "rekindle the passion", but if there's anyone more passionate about games than the journalists who are prepared to openly debate the games industry, warts and all, regardless of what the PR and publishing overlords dictate, then they've done an excellent job of flying under the radar.

How about this for a counter-proposal – end the sterility coursing through the veins of modern games journalism and rekindle the fun and honesty, or piss off.

RAM Raider”


MCV’s reply was “It’s great to see such passion, but surely the “coward’s way out” is criticising from behind the safety of a pseudonym…?”

The answer to that is simple and obvious. We’ve all seen what happens to journalists who actually do their jobs and tell the truth instead of toeing the corporate line so, to quote from a comment we left on some guy’s blog a couple of weeks ago, “honesty is the bastion of the exiled and the anonymous”.

We’re not ready to be exiled from the industry yet, so we’ll stick with anonymity for now.

PC Zone transformation into PC Gamer complete

As the RAM Raider predicted, PC Zone has become PC Gamer. Months of sneering at PC Gamer’s irrelevant Extra Life section has given way to the birth of PC Zone’s Freeplay, which is an exact copy. You might almost think they’re being written by the same people.

The RAM Raider knows this isn’t true, but it might be happening sooner than you think. Recent ABC figures have shown massive drops in circulations that Future suits have desperately tried to justify with the excuse that summer has unexpectedly happened. Losing nearly ten thousand readers each, Future knows that the only way forward is to merge them.

We’re going to get a book running on who’s going to lose their jobs, and even worse, who’s going to be pushed off to the editorial Siberia that is the pathetic CVG.com website. Place your bets.

PC Zone To Become The New PC Gamer?

The RAM Raider has heard a rumour that the reason Jamie Sefton has been installed as acting editor of PC Zone magazine over at Future Publishing’s London office is that editor Dave Woods is working fulltime on a total redesign of the magazine, presumably in an effort to halt its declining sales.

PC Zone still has a fearsomely loyal fanbase from its heyday, which is sadly long gone. For a long time now, it’s not so much been a magazine with attitude as a games comic, but will this be rectified?

Dave Woods has always been a vocal critic of PC Gamer’s stupid and largely pointless Extra Life section, but is ironically planning a section called “Freeplay” that’ll basically emulate Gamer’s pages of glorified look-at-me filling. Only time will tell whether the Zone team can prevent Freeplay from turning into yet another desperate source of irrelevant commentary – has nobody learnt anything from the NGJ debacle?