Lack of Blogging; Abner on the take!
Sorry for the hiatus. This is the busiest time of the year for me, so free time ramblins on the blog take a hit in the fall. As a freelancer, this is the time of season that I make most of my money for the calendar year.
I did win my opening ESPN League game against Buffalo 24-3. Woo. To everyone that is playing in the league, the Buffalo owner is a very cool fella. If every owner is as nice as Craig then the league will work out great.
I’m finishing up my CGM review of Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. It’s a great real time strategy game that is agonizingly short. How many strategy games do you know that has an 11 mission campaign and no map editor or random map generator? I finished the campaign in 3 days. A real bummer, despite the fact that playing the game is like watching a Warhammer 40K tabletop game to to life. It’s looks fantastic.
I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about GameSpy of late on game forums and it seems that no one trusts a GameSpy review because they feel companies “buy” reviews for GameSpy. In other words, if you advertise on GSpy or if your game uses GameSpy Arcade then your game is sure to get a good review. Conspiracy theories are really fun, believe me, I love a good History Channel UFO documentary as much as the next guy, but this is pure fiction.
Unless I’m on the list of freelancers that no one talks to, I have never been approached by GameSpy or a game company to fudge a review…ever. Not just a GameSpy review, but in the 9 years I have been doing this, I’ve never been bought. I’ve never even been approached! I mean come on! Bill needs a new pair of shoes! At least give me the chance to turn you down…sheesh. Am I not good enough to get free shit for giving a game 5 stars?
The closest I have ever come to being “greased” is on press tours. EA Sports flew me out to Vancouver back in 1999 to see FIFA 2000. The press members there got the royal treatment man…a trip around the sound on a yacht, free shirts, grade A food, etc. I think that was the most buttered up I’ve ever been by a game company but even then it wasn’t like “nudge nudge..give Fifa a good score.” Like EA Sports needs good reviews to make lots of lots of loot.
Here is how reviewing games works at GameSpy and at Computer Games Magazine:
Situation #1:
“Hey *Insert Editor Name Here* have you assigned Game X?”
“No, you want it?”
“Yeah, sign me up.”
“Cool. ”
“Woo hoo!”
Situation #2:
“Hey Bill, I assume you want to review Sports Game X, right?”
“Sure”
“Woo hoo!”
After that, I get the game in the mail, play it, write about it, capture some screenshots, zip it all up and mail it back to the editor. And…that’s about it. I then wait for my freelance check to arrive a month later. So I hate to bust the conspiracy bubble out there about bought and sold reviews, but either it’s all hot air or I’m doing something wrong because I’m not retiring anytime soon.