(Not) Playing the Game Part 2
We
Arrive at a Crossroads
In part
1, we looked at magazines and the influence they have, good and bad, on potential
purchasers’ opinions of adventure games. Now let’s take a look at the Internet–a
new frontier that should be wide-open and free from the influences that shackle
magazine decisions such as advertising and deadlines. Plus, the anonymity of the
web would seem to allow for many sites to hire writers regardless of race or sex.
But, as we will see, the webzines, especially those controlled by the companies
that also publish gaming magazines, are once again staffed by Caucasian males
barely out of puberty.
Outside of the members that comprise the Adventure
Coalition, there are not many webzines that attempt to present a balanced
view of the adventure genre. This would not be so bothersome if it were not for
the fact that the webzines are poised to become a more influential choice on game
purchases than magazines have ever been. According to a recent online poll conducted
by IGN.com, almost 3,000 consumers were asked, “How do you decide what games
to buy?” Ten percent of the respondents said they rely on friends, store
sales staffs, or publishers’ advertisements. Twenty-five percent said they go
with their “gut” instinct. Almost 31% claimed that they relied on reviews
in print magazines, and a full 34% claimed that they take advice from online reviews.
It is obvious that the average consumer’s opinion regarding the integrity and
reliability of magazines has eroded. Plus the expediency and availability that
the web offers, often posting reviews only days after a game’s release, provides
the potential purchaser with a quick alternative to the monthly publishing schedule
of the magazines. When you consider that 80% of a game’s total sales occur within
the first month of release, it becomes clear why it is imperative that the webzines
offer fair and impartial reviews of the new adventure releases. Yet, as we are
soon to see, many of the same misconceptions regarding the adventure genre exist
on the web as in the print media. Or, as another industry source (who wishes to
remain anonymous) stated, “No matter what I do to convince them of the depth
of the product they get bored after the first puzzle and turn it off. It’s great
to see Just Adventure dedicated to playing games to the end and giving an honest
adventure gamers opinion on it. If only some of the press could take a look at
the professionalism of your site and give these games a fair crack of the whip.”
The
following critiques are by no means a comment on a site’s overall quality, but
rather are intended to examine their reviewing policies as regards the adventure
genre. Now let’s go surfing and flush out some of the waste that has blighted
the adventure landscape.
Webzines and the Adventure Genre
Blue’s
News: Online since 1995, I have often been told that Blue’s News was the
place to go for news updates and links to webzine reviews. Just Adventure, as
our name implies, would not be expected to review sport or first-person shooter
(FPS) games. Nor would we expect a site named, for example, Just Action to review
adventure games. But when you pass yourself off as a “news” site, then
you would think that the reader would be offered fair and impartial links to all
of the gaming genres. Numerous visits to Blue’s News failed to find any links
to recent adventure releases such as The Crystal Key, The Forgotten, or
Discworld Noir. An email to the news editor (which I will be the first
to admit was not worded as nicely as it could have been; the frustration of dealing
with some of the dunderheads in the industry who claim that adventure games are
dead often builds to an intolerable level) inquiring as to the whereabouts of
the adventure game links was responded to with the following, “You are free
to provide us with any links to your site that you want as long as they are not
for Myst-like games.” Of course my subsequent eloquent response was
responded to with a “… you print what you want on your site and we
will print what we want on ours.” No argument there, but I would also recommend
that Blue gets a Clue as to what constitutes a balanced news report. Grade
as concerns adventure gamers–F.
Game Spy: Thank God this
site does not review many adventure games. Their Wild, Wild West lambasting
once again shows us a writer who is more interested in showing how “cute”
he can be in lieu of writing a balanced review: “As soon as I walked into
a bar, some denizen of the west asked me to help him solve a ‘crossword puzzle.’
Though I tried for hours, I couldn’t figure out how to destroy the boss, find
the keycard, or save the girl, so I had to hand it back to him unfinished. My
mother told me later how these ‘crosswords’ worked, and so I was able to finish
that puzzle.” If you do not have a clue as to how to solve a puzzle in an
adventure game, then why review one other than to showcase your ability to skewer
the genre? Here’s a tough one for the Game Spy staff: what’s a five-letter word
for a reviewer who does not understand how to solve a crossword puzzle (Hint:
it begins with ‘M’ and ends with an ‘N’)? Did mommy also show you how to frag
your opponents in Quake? Grade of F.
Gamespot:
Gamespot has gone from being the first stop for adventure gamers to a
rest stop for the constipated. Click on the adventure link on the right side of
their main page, and you will be transported to a fantasy world where the Featured
Reviews are the “new” releases Curse of Monkey Island and Riven:
the Sequel to Myst, where the What’s New column is updated once every four
months, and where the action/adventure game Outcast was voted adventure
game of the year. It is a site that is more interested in pushing magazine subscriptions
and game guides for their Ziff-Davis line of publications than they are in providing
balanced reviews of adventure games. For every Ron Dulin, one of the few staff
members to provide fair adventure game reviews, there is a Stephen Poole, who
fancies himself the Rex Reed of adventure game reviewers. How much neutrality
can you expect from a reviewer who composed a “brilliant” editorial
decrying the low standards of adventure gamers (I assume this is in comparison
to the high standards of FPS gamers). How can you respect a site that interviews
Tim Schafer, creator of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, and the
only subject they broach is the death of adventure games. A site that prints a
retraction at the end of their Stephen King’s F13 review and has an error
in the retraction. The scary part is that according to Access Magazine, Gamespot
receives 900,000 unique visitors a week. Almost a million people a week are being
misinformed by the all-white, all-male twentysomethings of Gamespot that the adventure
genre is dead. Yet, companies will still advertise their new adventure games here
based on site statistics alone, not realizing that the site’s editorial content
negates their advertising dollars. If anyone out there is wondering what it feels
like for an adventure gamer to read Gamespot, it feels like warm apple pie. Grade
of D, but only because of their past history.
Happy Puppy: Happy
Puppy asks its reviewers to be equally adept with every game genre. While I disagree
with this policy since most reviewers dot not possess the talent to fairly assess
such diverse genres, Happy Puppy is also the type of site, unlike Just Adventure,
that attempts to appeal to all gamers. I was therefore initially disappointed
when the following review of The Amerzone stated, “Before I begin
this review, I think it’s important to point out that I’ve never been a big fan
of static graphical adventures. To put it bluntly, Myst bored me almost
to tears as did its popular sequel, Riven. That, of course isn’t to say
that these games were bad, but it takes a certain type of gamer to fully enjoy
them. That being said, I didn’t have high hopes for Amerzone: The Explorer’s
Legacy when it arrived at my door a few weeks ago.” Initially, I was
taken aback by this statement, but after an extended correspondence with editor
Charles Grey, I can see his point of view that if a non-adventure gamer can present
a fair review of an adventure game and then recommend it, even if hesitantly,
this might in turn convince non-adventure gamers to try a product they would otherwise
avoid. And The Amerzone review does conclude with, “Overall, I couldn’t
help but be pleased with Amerzone’s original story line and eye-popping
graphics. Although the game will be boring to some, judging by the sales numbers
achieved by Myst and Riven, there is still quite a demand for a
mind-numbing adventure like this. If you are a Myst fan, you have no excuse
for not buying this game and it will no doubt breathe new life in a dying genre.
If you didn’t like Myst and prefer to use your reflexes more than your
brain while you play, give this one a miss.” Fair enough. While Happy Puppy
is not an active proponent of the genre, neither do they engage in the vicious
bashing propagated by Gamespot and GameSpy. Worth taking an occasional look
at, grade of C+.
Games Domain Review: The Traveller’s Inn: At
one time the most informed and dependable site for an adventure gamer. Yet since
Games Domain was rescued from bankruptcy last year by The Globe (who also own
the Happy Puppy site), their reliability regarding adventure game coverage has
gone way downhill. What the correlation is I’m not sure, but a site that used
to be depended upon to convey the latest adventure information now has only periodic
updates. Minor titles are largely ignored, and the coverage of major releases
lags way behind other sites. Most of their newer reviewers seem more interested
in taking cheap shots at subjects that have little to do with the game itself
(disk swapping, gold masters) than they do in the overall quality of the game.
A recent review of Atlantis 2 that advised consumers to not purchase the
game only because the reviewer did not like the puzzles is just another example
of an ego gone wild. There is a nice balance of nationalities and male/female
writers on the staff, but like Gamespot, they are living off past glories. Their
backlog of adventure reviews is impressive, and they are also one of the few sites,
besides Just Adventure, to offer second opinions of adventure games. It would
be nice to see new editor Karen Zieler raise the roof and restore the Traveller’s
Inn to its former days of glory. Grade–C+.
The Adrenaline
Vault: Like Gamespot, the Avault concentrates on all genres of gaming,
but unlike their counterpart, Avault clearly states that, “Games are not
marked up or down based upon the genre they are in.” Bravo. Bob Mandel is
one of the few, if not the only, reviewers on the Internet who can write fair
and balanced reviews of games as diverse as the FPS Mortyr and the Myst-like
The Crystal Key. Articles like the excellent “The Silent Majority”
further establish his reputation as someone who fully understands all aspects
of the industry. Editor-in-Chief Dave Laprad provides responsible leadership with
introspective articles like “The Dumbing Down Dilemma.” Let’s hope these
guys don’t sell their souls to the Ziff Davises and Imagine Medias of the industry.
Outside of the members of the Adventure
Coalition, the Adrenaline Vault is the only site that we wholeheartedly recommended
without reservation for all adventure gamers. Grade of A+.
Once again,
what has this exercise proved? The openness and easy accessibility of the Internet
has finally given the adventure lover a positive voice to counteract the waves
of adventure-hating young males. But just as in the publishing world, the larger
sites that are financed by Imagine Media and Ziff-Davis, in their quest to appeal
to the largest segment of the gaming community, draw an unfair portrait of adventure
games. Not to mention that their usually all-white, all-male staffs are more representative
of the action and sports gaming communities than they are the gaming world at
large. While nothing we say or prove here is going to change any of this, we do
need to stop frequenting these sites. For by justifying their existence, we also
provide them with the statistics to attract advertisers. Until the day that these
statistics are tallied by demographics, advertisers will continue to squander
marketing dollars promoting their new adventure game at a site that is not frequented
by adventure gamers. What I find most dismaying, though, is that a world that
offered a future free of sexual and racial bias has instead been relegated to
the creation of genre-specific sites like Just Adventure and even female-only
gaming sites like Women Gamers
to counteract the exclusion of women and minorities from the larger, advertising-driven
monopolies of Ziff Davis and Imagine Media.
Be here next week for part 3
of “(Not) Playing the Game” as we go inside the gaming industry and
take a look at how publishers, distributors, and PR firms view the adventure genre.
Not only do we guarantee you will be aghast, but what we reveal about the powers
that be behind the industry’s biggest spectacle, the E3, will shock you.
