How IGN's Daemon Hatfield Should've Responded, Instead of Removing Review

GameZone's Matt Liebl analyzes the uproar over IGN's review debacle and why IGN never should have removed part of the PixelJunk SideScroller review. He offers insight as to how the whole situation should've been handled.

[JellyJelly]

Very interesting read. Describes most of todays gaming journalism in a nutshell. Amateurs rushing through games to get their articles out as fast as they can, without properly exploring the games they are writing about.

[LeShin]

lol damn, talk about getting caught red handed! Man, I never trusted review scores, as I relied on the actual written content of the review to sort of give me an idea about whether I should or should not purchase a game.(Of course I don't always agree with the review...I bought Lair and loved it!)....but it seems you can't even rely on that these days...

I think I'll just stick to playing demos and listening to my friends to see if a game is worth the £40

[lance42]

Yea, I understand the tough position the reviewer is in, but just man up to what you did.

[BushLitter]

More controversy in the reviewing industry.

[Agheil]

He might have been on a tight deadline but its not fair to the developer. IGN is well known and if a bad review goes up it will have an impact.

[AriesSiren]

well ign does have a bad reputation already as being inconsistent. this confirms that their reviews are rushed and unfair. seriously a bad move. im sure the reviewer is going to get probation or terminated. this affects sales of the game and is not taken lightly.

[John Kratos]

One review out of tens of thousands, by hundreds of different people, in their history proves their reviews are rushed and unfair. Kind of a leap there don't ya think?

[AriesSiren]

nope thats the reality of it. im not gonna butter it up for you. from a business standpoint, this is pretty bad when sales can be affected.

[John Kratos]

But where's you're evidence that IGN isn't fair. Do you have some insider knowledge or something. Does all of IGN meet in smoked filled rooms and decide who they're going to screw over in their reviews. You're making a generalization of a giant company based on one person's ignorance.

[KongRudi]

It's nothing wrong with beeing dissapointed in the ending if it's bad at casual.

However, it is incredible dumb to pretend that there isn't a good ending aswell, when beeing informed about it, if you play on normal settings.

The game should have informed him about it when he selected the casual mode. And the score shouldn't be changed if that's the case.

It's nothing wrong with changing the review wich has errors in it. However, he should also mention that he didn't see the good ending, since he did not play on normal, so his reader dosn't go in the same trap as he did.
Right now, IGN readers don't know about this, if they didn't follow anyone of the involved on twitter, or competing websites.

And that's not who IGN write reviews for I assume.

[mrsatan]

IGN is terrible at reviews and this goes to show why. They try to beat everyone else to the first review which in turn leads their reviews to be rushed and incomplete.

[ambientFLIER]

All I'm going to say is that it's very easy to sit there and talk trash about something that already happened and give your "expert" opinion on what should have been done or what you would have done...

[InTheLab]

Oops...

You can't argue with opinions but lies?

Wonder if this was the dude that review GT5????

It's clear IGN has issues with their staff. I wonder if these people are actually gamers??? How do you give an opinion of something playing at the lowest level. Often times, it's a completely different game. Reviewers should disclose what level they're playing on and how much time they've spent playing the game.

I think there's a larger issue here. Once reviews became big business, the reviewers (in their own minds...Jim Sterling says hi!!!) became bigger than the games they review. So you get guys fumbling through games to reach deadlines or worst case, flat out lying about their experience with the game.

I remember reading something on one of the dudes at Respawn having an issue with someone not completing his game. It's obvious this issue pops up more than it should. If this were any other form of media, someone would be getting fired and apologies would be issued.

Unfortunately, gamers tend to not give a shit about anything but the games they're playing...not the industry as a whole.

[Hicken]

Gamers are the people like you and me that come to sites like n4g. Gamers are also the type who are raising a fuss about this sort of review, as well as the one Eurogamer did for UC3. Gamers actually do care about the industry, not just the games. Those people are not gamers.

That aside, it's true that reviewig has gotten to be bigger than its purpose. People who have no love for a genre are reviewing games in it, others are all but copy/pasting the reviews of their peers, and some seem to be capable of nothing objective. And too many people do it, if only to remain relevant in the reviewing world.

There are no standards for any given genre, nor for any given reviewer or group. Games superior to their predecessors can receive inferior numbered scores, while the text itself raves. Games that fell short of the glory of the originals are criticized for it, yet the scores are higher. Still other games are hailed as genre kings while their competitors are picked apart, each being graded on different criteria.

To make matters worse, most people can't simply go to the store to get advice, as increasingly fewer game store employees have played the games, or even care about gaming. Their job is made more difficult by corporate mandates that insist they focus on numbers rather than the games, and it's either that, or lose their jobs.

Still worse is that people's friends are often swayed by marketing, so they only buy what's popular. Believe it or not, a whole lot of people just follow the trends, and they enjoy games because their friends play them, little more.

It's really hard to find trustworthy sources of information on games, these days. Everybody's got a bias or an agenda.