Battlefield 3: EA Allegedly Tried Filtering Reviewers

[W1zzard]

That's good to know. What would you do if they did?

good question .. probably answer the q with answers backed by fact, not opinion. for me a company is good because it does a good job, not because it has a pretty logo or anything.

somewhat related, if they tell me "you can't take it apart", i won't do the review.

oh and if it breaks it's your fault because your engineering sucks for that case I will provide extensive documentation, photos and suggestions

 

[treboRR]

Out of all the ppl buying BF3 im willing to bet 80% of them could care less about a review

and...

Quite right they should filter who gets to do an early release review!

Year after year CoD is the same old pile of wank yet year after year the gaming media score it in its high 90's across the board. None of these reviewers who rate CoD should be trusted for whatever reasons and I for one think it is a good thing that EA make efforts to overlook them.

Nothing worse than reading a review written by a blatant fan boi of a competing franchise (especially when that franchise is a pile of soggy CoD wank).

U 2 ARE F...ing right!!!!

 

[Prima.Vera]

Just launch the game already!

 

[MatTheCat]

Ahmadinejad could of made this game and I'd still want to play it.

If Ahmadinejad made this game I would most certainly want to play it, cos then instead of it being all about brain washed gung-ho Americans invading foreign lands and then killing repressed and impoverished Muslims it would be the other way around, which would be infinitely more to my liking.

 

[Bundy]

the story is posted all over the internet.

It's the same half story all over the internet.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Nothing worse than reading a review written by a blatant fan boi of a competing franchise (especially when that franchise is a pile of soggy CoD wank).

Some what true.

I have seen no end to the amount of youtubers who are in the business of posting commentaries of their CoD gameplays slag BF3 off and comparing it directly to MW2 or BLops after less then 15mins of playing the Beta.

YES filtering is bad. but its better to find unbiased reviewers to make impartial unbiased reviews. otherwise reviews would just be full of Hardcore 'CoDsole' (see what i did there) fans that will start moaning, bitching and complaining about everything thats RIGHT about the game, because they are looking at it from a CoDsole perspective.

I know BF3 (or CoD) might not be everyones cup of tea, but in this case its like handing the keys of your Bugatti Veyron to a car jacker/criminal rather then a close friend to look after while you go on holiday.

Of course.....EA could just let the people get on with it. and if reviewers give BF3 a bad review because they are mainly CoD fans then that would come back and bite them in the ass sooner or later.

 

[Recus]

It’s also sad, as rather than enhance a game’s reception, it can lead to doubts that the game is good enough to earn great scores on its own merits.

 

[MilkyWay]

Qubit

 

[WarhammerTX]

You know the game will pass or fail on its own everyone has their own quirks of what they like and don't like. We are fixing to find out how good it is or isnt.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

Hey Qubit, personally I've been enjoying your news articles. Keep up the good work.

 

[Damn_Smooth]

Hey Qubit, personally I've been enjoying your news articles. Keep up the good work.

I agree.

 

[TIGR]

^^ +2

 

[MatTheCat]

^^^ +3

 

[Frick]

Hey Qubit, personally I've been enjoying your news articles. Keep up the good work.

Meh, the problem is it's not news as such. Pretty much everything he's posted as news should've been an editorial instead. He brings far to much of his own opinions for it to be called news.

 

[digibucc]

Meh, the problem is it's not news as such. Pretty much everything he's posted as news should've been an editorial instead. He brings far to much of his own opinions for it to be called news.

but we're all able to separate that, right? i mean, i recognize why objectivity is important, but it's not like q's a war reporter - throwing a little spice on a corporate strategy scam is not something i think he needs to be called out on so many times over.

thanks q

 

[Frick]

but we're all able to separate that, right? i mean, i recognize why objectivity is important, but it's not like q's a war reporter - throwing a little spice on a corporate strategy scam is not something i think he needs to be called out on so many times over.

thanks q

I will call it out until he stop. Seriously. "THIS JUST IN: I do not like it!" has nothing to do with news. I would be ok with it if he put a little comment in the end of the articles, but as it is now the entire posts are made like that.

</serious>
This is supposed to be tech related news, not Fox News.

 

[digibucc]

This is supposed to be tech related news, not Fox News.

big leap there, imo. feel free to make any correlations you wish but qubit seems far from rupert murdoch and bill o'reilly in my mind. i'll keep reading with no second thought, and every once in awhile remember those crazy kids like frick who just got so upset over nothing.

 

[Frick]

big leap there, imo. feel free to make any correlations you wish but qubit seems far from rupert murdoch and bill o'reilly in my mind. i'll keep reading with no second thought, and every once in awhile remember those crazy kids like frick who just got so upset over nothing.

I edited it a bit, I was not entirely serious with the Fox News thing.

 

[TIGR]

Frick, with respect, whether you're right or not there's a separate thread for complaints. Let's stay on topic here.

You can never really know someone else's intentions, even if their actions look this damning. I always wonder about the integrity of reviewers (games, hardware, etc.) and this story actually sets my mind more at ease because the fact that it quickly became public gives me more reason to think other shady business might be exposed.

 

[pantherx12]

Yo Qubit, the listed sources are just other you know, tech sites and junk like that.

The actual source is http://www.nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.7838789.


I agree for such a serious allegation though you should have some better sources, for example one of the sources should be from the people who made the allegation for example : ]

Perhaps a screen capture of this supposed email as well.

 

[Easy Rhino]

EA not only singled out these journalist but requested personal information. this is not normal. EA would not apologize if they felt they did no wrong doing.

Websites get single out all the time. It is called screening who you want to do your reviews. Next, people will want all corporations to always FREELY give away copies of their product to EVERY SINGLE SITE AND COMPANY on earth without asking for information beforehand. seriously, there is nothing wrong with this.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

good question .. probably answer the q with answers backed by fact, not opinion. for me a company is good because it does a good job, not because it has a pretty logo or anything.

somewhat related, if they tell me "you can't take it apart", i won't do the review.

oh and if it breaks it's your fault because your engineering sucks for that case I will provide extensive documentation, photos and suggestions

Well what you do is in a completely different context. You review hardware, GPUs in particular. For you, either the product performs well or it doesn't. There is really no opinion as much as its just factual testing of the product in different scenarios.

When you are review a game, it is software designed to provide you entertainment. While the software portion can be pure facts and testing, the ultimate goal is entertainment, so the review will have to provide a subjective opinion. The question a reviewer of a game must answer is, "Do I personally think this game is worth playing?" There is were what you do Wiz and what game reviewers diverge.

I am not saying they were right to send this survey, but it has been done before and will be done again. The true question is what would EA/DICE do if someone did send back a survey that said they hated Battlefields in the past, are an avid CoD:MW player, and don't think BF3 will get this to switch. If EA goes, "Ok, here is the game anyway." then more power to them. If they then refuse to send them a game, problem.

I personal would not send anyone a game if it was clear they were going to give the game a bias review one way or the other. Use the survey to ensure the reviewers are at least trying to be as object as possible and attempt to limit their subjective review to personal context.

 

[digibucc]

I personal would not send anyone a game if it was clear they were going to give the game a bias review one way or the other. Use the survey to ensure the reviewers are at least trying to be as object as possible and attempt to limit their subjective review to personal context.

Websites get single out all the time. It is called screening who you want to do your reviews. Next, people will want all corporations to always FREELY give away copies of their product to EVERY SINGLE SITE AND COMPANY on earth without asking for information beforehand. seriously, there is nothing wrong with this.

+10 internetz each

 

[TIGR]

LaughingMan, unfortunately even "facts" and "numbers" can be presented in ways that skew reality. A reviewer can color his conclusions and set up the testbed in ways that may favor one product over another. Competence and integrity can have a real impact on a review. Especially when readers don't always understand the product or technology and skip to conclusions and the reviewer's "overall rating".

 

[TheLaughingMan]

LaughingMan, unfortunately even "facts" and "numbers" can be presented in ways that skew reality. A reviewer can color his conclusions and set up the testbed in ways that may favor one product over another. Competence and integrity can have a real impact on a review. Especially when readers don't always understand the product or technology and skip to conclusions and the reviewer's "overall rating".

That is true and one of the reasons we have different sites that have different performance figures. This can also be attributed to random chance as testing software is not exact and often not repeatable. And individual chips may perform differently once you go beyond specs.

This is also why they don't really screen reviewers for hardware. If you are shady it will come out and they will just take you off the ship list. Until then, you got the time and traffic figures, most companies will gladly send you some review samples.

Switch gears to games and I honestly don't know. I have seen these surveys before. I know sites online that admitted to replying to these such as Giant Bomb and Angry Joe.

 

[Easy Rhino]

I never filled out a questionnaire for my reviews. No company has ever asked me if I like their or the competition's products.

that's because you are w1zzard and this is techpowerup. you are like one of the founding father of tech reviews and the creator of the greatest OCing tool of our time. you are not some lame kid with bad wordpress skills complaining he can't have a free copy of a game to review for his crappy site.