OK before we open a flaming war lets hit the brake and say how we got here. At the same time this is not aimed at anyone being wrong or right... this is just a Point (rude to do so but sometimes you don't want to speak to tell someone where to go).
I recently watched the Dead Space 3 review and went to put my opinion in the forum and saw someone being extremely sarcastic! Why the sarcasm?... someone made the comment for comical purposes that someone random person would make accusations of selling out... THAT COMMENT ALONE LIKE A RED RAG TO A BULL! and the equivalent of a "Super Quintiple, Quaduple, Triple, Double Dare" and someone for fun (as you do on the forums here) made the uber sarcastic remark...
... you know what go look at the comments for the review and see why I needed to say this. Instead I'm looking to define the idea of selling out.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.400170-Dead-Space-3-Review?page=1
The concept of selling out is as old as Kane N Lynch and Gamespot who together commited marketing suicide and so was born the concept of selling out (unofficially).
This is the obvious list that defines the concept of sell out:
- Is there is undue influence in terms of additional revenue streams
- Is the size of the company/business/website large enough to require that revenue stream?
- Is there the threat from external companies made by the revenue stream?
As you can see, the fact is that every company and website is vulnerable to the sell out concepts, we live in an economy driven world and is why the Sell Out Brigade is ready with loud speakers positioned behind bigger loud speakers.
But there are two important factors that create the defining line.
- Is there an intention to deceive the public with the review (malice)?
- Has the Publisher limited the reviewer to a certain level of access?
And here is where the term Sell Out is made or broken.... has the reviewer chosen to lie to please a Publisher?
At the same time, if they have only been given limited access to a "good" portion of the game then they have not sold out, they have only been given half the picture, how can you expect a reviewer to give a full view with half the knowledge.
Ask these four questions:
- Is there is a history of reviewers giving low reviews to non revenue stream games?
- Is the review heavily unbalanced towards the positive?
- Have they played the game for longer than 50% of the game's run time?
- Have they chosen not to place any disclaimers on the Review if any of the above has occured?
If the answer is yes to all four then you are dealing with a Sell Out, otherwise no.
Now remember the idea of Sell Out is different to being biased towards a genre, this is a completely different idea and can change reviews; but this one is for dealing with much later potentially by the Reviewers themselves (Hint so big you can see it from Neptune).
EDIT: A lot of the opinions have argued me to be wrong and some proved me right. I think its only fair to thank those that have taught; I'm not a journalist but I'm a gamer and I like to say what I feel is going on. I go from my own expieriences and actually like when I'm being proven wrong because I have learned.
I recently watched the Dead Space 3 review and went to put my opinion in the forum and saw someone being extremely sarcastic! Why the sarcasm?... someone made the comment for comical purposes that someone random person would make accusations of selling out... THAT COMMENT ALONE LIKE A RED RAG TO A BULL! and the equivalent of a "Super Quintiple, Quaduple, Triple, Double Dare" and someone for fun (as you do on the forums here) made the uber sarcastic remark...
... you know what go look at the comments for the review and see why I needed to say this. Instead I'm looking to define the idea of selling out.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.400170-Dead-Space-3-Review?page=1
The concept of selling out is as old as Kane N Lynch and Gamespot who together commited marketing suicide and so was born the concept of selling out (unofficially).
This is the obvious list that defines the concept of sell out:
- Is there is undue influence in terms of additional revenue streams
- Is the size of the company/business/website large enough to require that revenue stream?
- Is there the threat from external companies made by the revenue stream?
As you can see, the fact is that every company and website is vulnerable to the sell out concepts, we live in an economy driven world and is why the Sell Out Brigade is ready with loud speakers positioned behind bigger loud speakers.
But there are two important factors that create the defining line.
- Is there an intention to deceive the public with the review (malice)?
- Has the Publisher limited the reviewer to a certain level of access?
And here is where the term Sell Out is made or broken.... has the reviewer chosen to lie to please a Publisher?
At the same time, if they have only been given limited access to a "good" portion of the game then they have not sold out, they have only been given half the picture, how can you expect a reviewer to give a full view with half the knowledge.
Ask these four questions:
- Is there is a history of reviewers giving low reviews to non revenue stream games?
- Is the review heavily unbalanced towards the positive?
- Have they played the game for longer than 50% of the game's run time?
- Have they chosen not to place any disclaimers on the Review if any of the above has occured?
If the answer is yes to all four then you are dealing with a Sell Out, otherwise no.
Now remember the idea of Sell Out is different to being biased towards a genre, this is a completely different idea and can change reviews; but this one is for dealing with much later potentially by the Reviewers themselves (Hint so big you can see it from Neptune).
EDIT: A lot of the opinions have argued me to be wrong and some proved me right. I think its only fair to thank those that have taught; I'm not a journalist but I'm a gamer and I like to say what I feel is going on. I go from my own expieriences and actually like when I'm being proven wrong because I have learned.
