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.
Pete_UK
Hold on, people still buy these magazines?
bigdon23
LOL good point, i stopped buying when i got the net, the same with other magazines “umm” gaming magazines that is *shifty eyes*
crit10
Hehe I always send PSN messages to the Firstplay team and they respond very fast and in a friendly helpful manner. I find it hard to believe they meant to be so deceiving and sly as this article makes out.
beeje13
Am i the only person who didn’t notice and doesn’t care, im not being awkward TC, but let the journos use their persuasive features.
Deathmunger
Some may call it clever marketing, tsch, more like conning people who are willing to trust an established company. Very naughty Duck shaped Pots indeed.
Quinlank
Newsflash, official mags are full of shit.
I haven’t read one in years, but I’ve heard enough stories to know avoidance is the best move.
Print media for video game coverage is all but dead now, so of course they’ll pull whatever they have to to get attention for as long as they still have shelf space wasted on them.
TheDeathAvenger
I understand where you’re coming from with this Tuffcub. So many people will see the words ‘exclusive verdict’ and assume that means ‘first review’. The websites that you read reported the extended feature (or whatever they want to call it) as a review, which depends on your definition or expectation of what a review is.
I don’t think that the problem is what POM have done, rather how some people are seeing it (whether they intended people to see it as a review so that they could get extra sales is the ‘important’ point).
Basically it’s not a review (in the traditional sense), but as it includes ratings and a verdict it’s not just a normal feature, and therefore has been labelled as an extended feature. I and some others seem to have no problems with it, while others seem to think it is down right unforgivable.
Seems a shame if people end up cancelling (or not renewing) their subscriptions or stop buying the odd magazine, just because of this.