Video Games

Game publishers and developers may be getting the wrong message from the whole GameSpot-Eidos review fiasco.

Plenty of scorn has been heaped on Eidos for allegedly pressuring GameSpot to fire a reviewer who gave one of Eidos' games a low score. And you may have thought that said scorn would have encouraged game companies to renew their respect for the ethical boundary between advertising and editorial coverage. But recent evidence suggests that isn't happening.

Take, for example, the open letter published this week by Dan Hsu, editor of the venerable magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly.

In the letter, Mr. Hsu says that three publishers (Midway, Ubisoft and Sony's sports division) have basically blackballed the magazine from any pre-release coverage of their games.

Apparently EGM's previews and actual reviews of those companies' games were a little too hot to handle.

"Less-than-totally-positive previews don't sit well with those who are used to those press-release rehashes," Mr. Hsu writes. "Combine that with our candid reviews, and you can imagine the consequences that we have to face constantly.

"For the time being, you'll get little, late, or no coverage of the following products: anything Mortal Kombat (they didn't like our reviews), anything from Sony's sports department (ditto), and now, anything from Ubisoft (it seems our coverage of Assassin's Creed was the last straw)."

Lame.

Lamer still, Midway, Ubisoft and Sony have yet to make any public comment on the affair.

As Bill Harris at the blog Dubious Quality (http://dubious quality.blogspot.com) points out, those companies might feel they have legitimate complaints about the way their products have been covered by EGM. Did the reporters consistently fail to write about critical information or erroneously describe portions of the games?

Hey, it's possible.

But yanking editorial access while withdrawing into a cone of silence reeks of peevishness rather than righteous indignation.

My own speculation – and that's all it is – is that this sort of punishment by game makers happens all the time, but the offending magazine or Web site quickly apologizes, smoothes things over with some smarmy previews, and readers are never the wiser.

But Mr. Hsu named names here, which is very rare, and I doubt Sony, Ubisoft and Midway were expecting to see their bluff called.

I wonder who blinks first.

While I'd like to believe the game companies will see the error of their ways and repent, another bit of recent history makes me pessimistic.

Also this week, Eidos announced that Kane & Lynch, the game that led to so much scandal at GameSpot, has sold more than a million copies.

That's official blockbuster status and almost guarantees a sequel.

Do game publishers look at those sales results and conclude that kicking sand in the face of the 98-pound gaming press is pretty much consequence-free?

What do you think?

Victor Godinez covers technology for The Dallas Morning News. Read more of his video game coverage at punchbutton.beloblog.com.