. . . here’s the long and short of it: A PR flack complaining about unfair representation of a videogame is like a mugger complaining about unsafe working conditions.
They say advertisers sell the sizzle, not the steak. Videogame companies regularly sell not the steak, not the sizzle, but a recording of the sizzle of aged Wagyū steak, the audio captured under ideal acoustic conditions and sweetened with frequencies proven to make people hungry. Then, often as not, they present you with a microwaved hamburger and a promise to remove the bugs — which in this metaphor are actual insects — just as soon as they can.
I don’t write many reviews these days, but as far as I’m concerned, eviscerating shitty games with snappy sarcasm is a public service. If 500 words of my resentment are more entertaining than 10 hours of your game, then you wrote a crappy game.
And let’s get this out of the way: Don’t come crying to me about the hard work of the developers and how they’re being abused by reviewers. You know what developers really hate? Working on crappy games. Nobody enjoys feeling like they’re being paid to tie ribbons on manure. You want happy developers? Let them make the best games they can and present them honestly.
So here’s the deal. I’m all for civility. In any future game reviews, I will completely do away with venom and mockery, but only if the ad agencies do away with exaggeration and hype. If you start lying, I start making vicious, spiteful fun of you.
Lore Sjöberg, “Alt Text: After Duke Nukem PR Fail, Terrible Games Are Fair Game”, Wired, 2011-06-24
June 25, 2011
QotD: The game marketing game
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