Guest: Leigh Alexander. Gamasutra/Kotaku/Sexy VideoGameLand Topic: Games Journalism
Happy Birthday 2009! Our gift to you is a new episode of the podcast. I know, we really shouldn't have.
This show's guest is Leigh Alexander who is the news editor for Gamasutra, contributor to Variety and Kotaku, and blogs at Sexy Video Game Land. Can you guess what our topic is going to be? You got it, the role of press in games and how they interact with developers and consumers. And since we knew the topic was going to be a good one, we decided to skip first words this time and get right into the meat of it all.
So give it a listen and let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
This weeks show notes:
Game Press Symposium
Metal Gear Solid Voice Actors Improv
Episode 16 - The PRESSures of Games
(right click the above to download)
Saturday, January 10, 2009
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8 comments:
Great show! As someone who is still a consumer it really interests me how people in the media look at or should look at reviewing games. How are you going to be able to tell someone what they might like? I'm still not sure that many of the reviews are all that effective at helping me decide if I'm on the edge about purchasing a game. Recently I've started to find that understanding someone's experience with some sorts of games helps me understand their review and opinions on a game much more than just reading what they have to say in the review. But I don't find those aspects covered in most reviews.
Another aspect of the media that I was wanting to hear from Mike and Ryan is the impact of media on game development. I imagine that if it has any impact it is on the higher ups but I would be curious to know if you guys have ever had any direct impact or adjustments on a project because of media or reviews. What value does the media have on game development other than just the impact of marketing?
Thanks! I was actually thinking about the last bit you mentioned yesterday and you're right, it's definitely something we should've covered.
The impact of Metacritic scores is pretty important, often unfairly so but it's often considered to be a necessary evil. Even though it's a horrible metric for a game's quality, a better one doesn't yet exist.
In the past (and probably still at some studios) it was not uncommon to have bonuses/royalties tied to a metacritic/gamerankings score, which inevitably build animosity between developers and press. EA's quality initiative last year was heavily tied to 80+ Metacritic scores.
As reviews can range from thoughtful critiques to childish man-boy tirades and still be counted, it's pretty heartbreaking to know how much of your fate (and your income!) can be effected by them.
Like Leigh aptly pointed out, many so-called games journalists out there are are just people who want to work in games and lack an applicable skill to do and the reviews often ring of "I would've done this instead..."
Anyway, I've always liked Leigh's writing on Kotaku and Gamasutra but after our chat, I'm further convinced that she's a power for good and not evil. I learned a lot from our conversation and similar ones would probably do both the press and developers a lot of good (but no NDA breaking!)
Yeah, as soon as we stopped recording I realized we forgot to talk about that, as well as the practice of getting an early review of an alpha build from an independent source. The idea behind that is you can gauge what the critical reception will be, hit on the biggest trouble spots and marketing will use that to figure out their game plan (ie how much to spend, where to spend it, etc)
I can definitely see us having enough follow-up questions to have Leigh on again in the future if the podcast Gods so demanded it.
Nice podcast!
Very interesting to have insight into both sides of the dev/journo divide. Big help to us beginners.
Mike
http://wildtyme.blogspot.com
Thanks Mike, I'm glad you liked it and I hope you find some value in the rest of the episodes, even if they tend to be more development-side focused.
And man, I checked out your blog and I hope you love Okami as much I do! It may not be my top game *ever* made, it's sure as hell Top 10. I would hug the crap out of the former Clover Studios crowd if I ever met them.
Ryan, thanks for checking my blog! I'm really enjoying Okami at the moment. Completely in love with the design and tone of it. I'm still playing through it, though, but it has been classic material so far.
Will check back through the archives once I get some spare time. Keep up the good work!
Mike
No problem, Mike.
If it wasn't for the "meep-meep" made-up-language that some Japanese devs seem to think is a really clever way to bypass expensive localized dialog and $*@#ing fishing minigame, Okami would've been pure gaming perfection. But damn-close to perfection is nothing to balk at.
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