This is a personal blog and the opinions below do not necessarily reflect those of TheSixthAxis.
Yesterday, whilst scouting the internet for gaming news, I saw that a couple of sites had reported that Official Playstation Magazine UK had the world’s first review for Call of Duty: Black Ops. I had a quick read through the news items and as expected the game had scored very highly – but OPSM seemed to have changed their scoring system this issue as the game was rated as five stars, not an out-of-ten score.
I had been expecting someone to bag the ‘exclusive’ first review of the game and it made sense it would be a high profile publication like OPSM. They are a well respected magazine with strong ties to all publishers.
Now this is may come as a bit of a shock to you all but I do have some morals and I decided if I were to quote OPSM magazine in a TSA news item about their review I really should buy a copy of the magazine rather than just take the quotes from another gaming site. A quick stroll to Sainsbury’s and there’s the magazine on the shelf, the cover featuring the Black Ops guy sitting down with “EXCLUSIVE VERDICT!” in nice big red letters on the front. I dutifully pay my £5.99, throw the useless Blu-ray in the bin and sit down for quick read.
At this point I make a schoolboy error and one that we regularly discuss on TSA – I ignored the text and looked straight at the score, or in this case, scores as OPSM have rated the game on three separate aspects: Technical, Online and Campaign. I am confused and flip to another review and it has the usual OPSM out-of-ten score. I guess they decided that as Black Ops is the biggest game of the year they decided to give it a special scoring system. Fair enough, but lunchtime is over and I have to do some work so the magazine gets jammed in a jacket pocket and I think nothing more of it.
Later that evening I decided to read the magazine properly whilst waiting for dinner to cook. The Black-Ops feature confuses me. It’s laid out differently to a review and has gushing quotes from the games designers and those three separate scores are just odd for a…
Wait.
Backtrack. What did I just read in the top left hand corner of the page.. Feature? FEATURE?! This is a Black-Ops FEATURE and not a review? Why the hell has it got scores? Why is written like a review? Why the hell does the front of the magazine have ‘EXCLUSIVE VERDICT’ on the front?
Then it clicks.
Black-Ops is still embargoed and OPSM have not got an exclusive review, at least not in this issue. They have a preview with scores. They’ve put it on the front of the magazine and boasted about their ‘Exclusive Verdict’ to boost their sales and coax the unwitting public – including me – into buying their magazine.
What is really galling is that in the latest OPSM podcast in which they discuss this very issue they have the nerve to discuss and condemn websites that go “hit whoring” by posting sensational headlines. Pot, meet Kettle.
I feel betrayed by OPSM, a magazine that I have read and trusted for many years. Well done chaps, I will not be buying your magazine ever again and Firstplay can take a running jump too.
I’m sure you are going to claim the writing was never meant to be a review but if it’s got feathers and quacks, it’s a duck. Official Playstation Magazine has Black Ops on the cover, the words “Exclusve verdict” emblazoned on the cover of the magazine and scores for the game.
Quack.
As I mentioned earlier many sites had made exactly the same mistake as myself and read the OPSM feature as a world exclusive review. Activision PR have now contacted these sites and informed them “that the content from Official PlayStation Magazine UK in question was not a review but an extended preview ‘verdict'” and asked them to change any headlines to reflect this.
Jumping Monks
Kinda reminds me of that GT5 “review” 3xg or whoever they are posted. It was merely a collection of information we already knew coupled with some old screenshots.
MrBlack
Outrageous Preview Sells More
Foxhound_Solid
I stopped buying OPSM many moons ago for this very reason, infact, I stopped buying all of them because of this. Tied in with the fct that PSN, PULSE [I have a Yank PSNID on my PS3 too], Internet and the polished, shining beacon that is TSA.
TSA is my main place for Gaming News and Views with the occasional, Google News, N4G and Eurogamer.
mcduff1979
i read play magazine, generally there slighlty cod biased but the reviews are fair
MrBlack
i’d heard that they were more into haddock
ico
VERY questionable antics by OPSM there. I’ve always been a little suspicious of the ‘Official’ magazines whatever the format as feel they may well be biased towards publishers / platforms and it’s surely not in their interests to damn a game by potentially posting an ‘honest’ review. As I said this is just a gut instinct I’ve held for years and may be baseless but there you go.
Yellow 13
erm…. who cares?
they have put one or 2 scores for a preview? I don’t see what the big deal is. Chill out.
and who the hell buys magazines these days?
PoorPaddy89
I have to agree. They’ve only found a way around the embargo and are giving their thoughts on what they’ve seen – isn’t that what you’d expect from a magazine? I agree that some sites have been sensationalist recently, particularly around PSPhone or whatever, but I don’t see how this is the same thing.
SpikeyMikey23
your missing the point, they are making out they have an exclusive review, and in that they are cheating people into buying the mag
PoorPaddy89
Not really. They’ve just rated what they’ve seen. I honestly can’t see the harm, and to say they’re ‘cheating people’ is, I think, rather harsh.
Ed the Penguin
I gave up on OPSM as soon as they started giving PS3 exclusives and timed releases 9’s or 10’s.
They still won’t learn.
hol
Because of this sort of thing and a poor editorial (in my opinion) is the reason I stopped buying any future publishing title. Opsm I did get when first got my 60gb but quickly found nothing to read in it. Sad really as it was great in the ps1/2 days :(
Yahavage
I stopped buying this magazine way back when PS2 came out. Went downhill at the point in my opinion, pleased to see that I did! Shame though, I used to love it for my PSone reviews, and the demo discs.
theaface
So sad to see so many gaming outlets (websites, magazines, etc) happily sacrifice their journalistic integrity for the sake of hits/sales.
As it currently stands, the only sources I trust/respect are TSA for online, and GamesTM for print. Oh, and maybe Zero Punctuation because at least it knows it’s a joke!