Electronic Gaming Monthly's Editor-in-Chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu has an interesting editorial in the latest edition of his magazine. The bulk of Hsu's column deals with topics familiar to VGMWatch.com readers: publishers bullying game publications; overly positive previews; and editorial integrity. In fact, Hsu himself has covered these issues in past columns before. However, what makes his latest editorial unique is what he's always shied away from doing in the past: it names names.
According to Hsu, Midway's Mortal Kombat development team, Sony's sports game division, and Ubisoft have all allegedly banned EGM from further coverage of their products. The reason: Apparently, they didn't take too kindly to EGM's review coverage of their games. Still, Hsu maintains that EGM "won't treat these products or companies any differently." We have yet to confirm these allegations with the publishers mentioned. However, if the editorial's claims are accurate, VGMWatch.com is certainly disappointed with these publishers' behavior. As corporations, publishers have every right to ban any publication they want for poor coverage. But that doesn't make it right. Gamers should feel disrespected as well.
VGMWatch.com staff will be contacting the companies involved with this story for further comment. In the mean time, readers may want to pick up the current issue of EGM to view Hsu's editorial for themselves.
"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".
I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.
I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.
Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.
This ship was never meant to sail, this ship was made from the get go to sink as fast as possible. It almost feels that they want to lower the standards of quality in the industry so that they can fit in
I disagree, Xbox from the get go innovated and changed the industry. They did a lot of firsts and standardized a lot of others. It wasn’t till the beginning of the Xbox1 era that things started to go south.
Yep, although I’d argue it started going to shit when they tried to hock Kinect on their audience instead of continuing to invest in their studios and IPs. 2001-2010 Xbox was peak gaming, though.
@Stevonidas
I agree they never should have focused on it after the 360 era. But you do have to remember they were faked out by the huge volumes of Kinects sold. To quote info on Wikipedia, “Project Natal, It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability.” So if your Xbox and see these huge sales on a peripheral where are you going to put some money? Criticism in hindsight is worthless…..if only we could all see our future. In other wards they had no way of knowing. Plus they had engagement numbers and a lot of signs pointed to people wanting it.
Their biggest mistake wasn’t the Kinect, but unlike Sony after the PS3 debacle. They didn’t double on down on exclusive good games. The other huge mistake was letting Call of Duty go to Sony.
Xbox has no soul and Phil has no confidence, and it's impossible to say either do when they killed Tango and Arkane Austin.
Everything they've said since has only made them look worse to a point that they're actually less competent than Embracer.
Whe you release something like the series S and expect it not to hurt your business model, and developers have to have parity with games. Then you know Microsoft don't care. Series s is the final nail that broke developers,
While on stage with Dina Bass at The Bloomberg Technology Summit the President of Xbox, Sarah Bond, was asked about the Xbox studio closures of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios
Of course she did. She's part of the problem and will just tow the company line.
Bloomberg’s Dina Bass could barely read her scripted question without looking at her notes, whilst Sarah Bond who WAS expecting the question spoke without saying anything of substance or answering the question in any meaningful way. Clearly she’s had the same expert PR training as Phil, but this avoidance was disrespectful. In time the short-sighted decision to shut down Tango Gameworks will be seen as of the most notorious examples why Phil Spencer messed up his tenure in charge of Xbox. That’s a fully built out talented team that could’ve been put to work on any project.
Additionally, Phil Spencer should not be using Sarah Bond as a patsy for his mistakes- he should be answering that question.
I think you are all really overselling Tangos value. Hi-Fi rush was a lot of fun. Ghostwire was incredibly dull. Evil within 1 and 2 were just okay.
Evil within 2 was incredibly under rated. I thought that game was surprisingly good
Someone else said it best. I don't think it was a Phil decision. It was most likely a Satya decision. I think Microsoft is done giving out free money to Xbox.
people please boycott Activision Bethesda next release and support Hellblade.
these people mus understand that they cannot treat their fans and employees that way.
scumbags.
She's playing her role. There's absolutely nothing any of them can say other than the truth, this is about profit margins and not quality, so they just don't answer anything and wait for gamers to forget.
I think news is coming of more ps5 release but they gotta be careful cause Xbox is still sitting on store shelves. They can't get left holding all that stock
Come next month they'll flash nice looking games in our faces and expecting us to forget.
The only thing that'll be going through my mind at their showcase is how many of those studios will get shut down after release.
I'm not joking around either. MS probably expects every game to be like COD and do COD numbers. What a way to destroy gaming for the entire industry because they're dumb af at being realistic in what success means for each game.
Always feels she was brought in / promoted for this. Happened just before things started to be out in motion.
Phil and co have someone to throw under the bus and share the blame with
I always wondered why xbox had multiple leaders with similar titles like Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, like, how many heads do you actually need?
Seems to me it would be more cost efficient to cut 2 of them instead of all those studios.
Frankly, I suspect she is the most competent of them. I don't mean that I like her more, I mean that she's the best at articulating herself and giving the talking points MS wants to give. The others are starting to sound more like her than her sounding like any of them.
Are any of these people "responsible" for what's happening? No. This reeks of Nadella. But that being said, I don't see any of the Xbox heads stepping down in protest.
"Don't shoot the messenger", sure, but at the same time, the messengers don't seem to take umbrage with the message. Not enough to remove themselves from it, anyway.
I disagree. Nadella is looking for profit as a CEO should in my opinion.
The problem is Dr. Phil & Co. had 10 years to bring Xbox back on track and have been failing woefully.
Phil needs to sell to Nadella that if we are to make a profit, we need to make great games. And to do that we need employees here for the long haul and the freedom to work on creative projects.
But as Phil said himself he doesn’t believe great games sell consoles.
Dude, 100%, forgot Major Nelson and Aaron Greenberg, like what is the point for all these suits? They have more C-level executives than games released in a generation.
This is just so they can all pass along the hot potato one at a time and in between all of them can say a lot without actually saying anything, misinformation at its finest.
"Midway’s Mortal Kombat development team, Sony’s sports game division, and Ubisoft have all allegedly banned EGM from further coverage of their products."
Hrm.. Looks like good 'ol Sony isn't above requesting slanted reviews.. Wasn't everyone going off on MS for paying off reviewers because of the Halo 3 goodies they send to them? Oh and who can forget EGM is on MS's payroll!
Looks like the jig is up Sony! Just another reason why I don't trust games reviewed for the Sony platform.
I applaud EGM for standing up to these publishers and exposing them for their dirty tricks.
Oh, and I love how you used a picture of Halo 3 for this when it should be a picture of Duderaider! Nice way to deflect!
You have to be joking...
The worlds biggest Microsoft media whore for their overhyped Halo 3 game, Dan Hsu is writing an article about 'video game media' INTEGRITY!!!
LOL!!!!
This is the clown who tried to tell everyone that after the realtime Killzone 2 E3 trailer was unveiled last year - you know the one that Xbox fans claimed wouldn't be possible until the PS4 - and the realtime PS3 graphics matched the original Killzone 2 trailer shot for shot in quality that it didn't look as good a Gears of War...LOL!
This is the clown who out of the blue made up an 'award' for best AI and shockingly, LOL!, gave it to Halo 3, LOL!, last year and somehow put Killzone 2 at the bottom of the list of, uh, competitors even though the game was still a year from release with nothing more than a graphics demo shown!
This is the clown who works at a place, EGM/1UP, that effectively functions as a place for Xbox fans to get hired away to Microsoft by spouting constant pro-Xbox BS. Four people from EGM/1Up have been hired away to Microsoft in just the past year. 0 people from EGM/1Up have been hired away to Nintendo. 0 people from EGM/1Up have been hired away to Sony.
This is the clown whose site tried to do damage control for Halo 3's 640p last gen graphics by trying to claim there was some sort of 'subtle beauty' that other games lacked in comparison. LOL!
This is the clown whose site seems to mention or hype Halo in every single piece they put out.
This disgusting whore of a fanboy is writing a column about 'media integrity'???
If you had any hesitation in believing that game media and 'reviewers' had hit rock bottom in credibility...
submitting games/products does not mean advertisement.
>.>
<.<
=_=
Sony's MLB game was pretty good but I can't say the same for NBA 08. I'm not surprised by Ubisoft because EGM gave Assassins a low score but how will Shoe respond to the xbox exclusive Splinter Cell since he's clearly an Xbox 360 fanboy.
If EGM is correct and has proof that they were pulled due to poor reviews then that is a shame. I don't agree that Halo was 10 but it is a solid and good game full of innovation.
Sharing, editing and recording is a huge deal.
I wouldn't say they are xbox slaves. They have rated 3's to many 360 games. GOD did those games deserve it too.
Superman Returns: The Videogame 3
Shrek the 3rd 3
Vampire Rain 3
Reviews do carry weight with the casual gamers though.
I applaud EGM for standing up to the publishers and bringing this to light. A game shouldn't be reviewed by only select gaming mags.
I have played some great games in my time and the only reason i tried them was due to great reviews. Beyond good and evil, Okami, Indigo prophecy, etc.
Sadly, it seems the duds that get HORRID reviews still sell.