The only thing dumber than that is Benchmark’s total lack of guile. Everything they do makes them look increasingly guilty, increasingly corrupt and increasingly stupid. I would simply have claimed that the review was accidentally swapped with some PR text, or that it’s misattributed and by someone who has since been fired, or any of a dozen other things that would’ve made me look less foolish.

P

Exactly, yep. The writer does the writing and most of the analysis – but he has stringers on the ground who provide the core of the information, filtered through their perceptions and prejudices, which any good writer should be aware of. It’d be a foolish writer who doesn’t already take account of other people’s opinions and knowledge when reviewing an MMO.

As a consumer I already use this process to decide whether to buy a game – ie. I read what gamers post on forums/blogs, alongside any traditional “professional” reviews. The professional reviews are often useful for all the condensed details, being the first into print and maybe for humour etc. but it’s the forum posts that I really pay attention to due to having a whole bunch of different opinions, the back-and-forward discussions.

This still means a central role for games writers – to provide a focus and forum for discussion, attract a good community that will contribute to the discussion and the editorial and moderation role.

A more general public might prefer the traditional long-form/essay games-mag style review, the single paragraph newspaper-style condensed ‘buy/don’t-buy’ review or a weekly/monthly ’round-up’/'best-of’ – but maybe these can all be constructed on top of the initial blog-community-crowd-sourcing.

I’m not really saying anything new – this seems to be how things have evolved now already, from where I am sitting (ie. a consumer, rather than a writer), although it seems to have been more successful on newer independent blogs rather than the older sites or magasines maybe because they are actually designed for this and people have the expectation of interactivity/community/relationships/ownership. People’s relationship with older, corporate media seems more resentful, suspicious and antagonistic, even if it has tried to adapt to the newer style.

Do note that Funcom didn’t do anything except putting the embargo on that day + having a way to auto-level any character you made in beta (up until a certain date). In the end, it’s up to the publications how they use it. I think Eurogamer chose the wrong path, but they did also review Star Trek Online from beta only.

And yes, undercutting would be a problem – as I said, readers want those reviews early. I should just count myself lucky that I worked under an editor-in-chief that allowed me to take my time, and is now in the position myself to decide when our review comes out. It’s a tricky situation in general.

Removing solid opinions from early reviews is a definitely an idea – but you’ll be undercut by others in the market who do give scores, as some people just want a buy / don’t buy.

Instead of going through all those steps I’d
- remove the score.
- remove “solid” opinions from the piece, where no such opinions can be formed.
- do MMO-reviews in a similar way to what Eurogamer used to do (i.e. two articles, one from early on and one from after a month – of course very problematic, considering problem #4 above)
- be very honest about what has actually been experienced in the game. The fans of the game will be there to point out any flaws, or opinions taken out of context.

Readers want a review early. Editors usually want a review early. The game publisher prefer to get early reviews too – at least when a good score is assigned. The only publisher I’ve seen so far that actually wanted journalists to take their sweet time is NCsoft when Aion was released. Funcom had a review embargo on the day before Godslayer come out, practically saying “please, review from beta using our auto-level up system”. That’s no good either, for anyone.