yeah i first come accross him on retroremakes many years ago, but the game just felt that is was in development hell and was never going to get released.
General / Off-Topic Frontier - Elite 2 review from February 1994
- Thread starter whiskey
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yeah i first come accross him on retroremakes many years ago, but the game just felt that is was in development hell and was never going to get released.
oh the old ST & Amiga Formats. I Used to collect those mags and the amount of times I would re-read old articles. Those really were the days, good times, good times indead
I never worked at those titles but I have always suspected that what went on where I worked was fairly universal. I ended up quitting at least partly because I didnt like lieing to paying customers...
My own fault really, At the job interview the editor asked what football team I supported (Manchester United in a very lazy could barely name a player type of way) He then asked something along the lines of if I could like Liverpool if he told me I liked liverpool... I was just out of school the company ran a liverpool magazine as well, I really didnt have a moral issue with writing positive things about another football club. So I answered yes quite happily. Without thinking about the wider ramifications.
Such as when a game came in (Akira for the CD32) that was truelly dire, the whole review team agreed that we were going to deep six the thing. The editor came in when he saw the review and told us to redo it, the game was going to get 89% minimum and have a rave review. Allegedly the publisher had a big game coming out and we wouldnt get the scoop on that if we trashed this game.
What went into print had my name attached to it recommending people buy a game that really wasnt able to be recommended at all. The side I saw of the review industry whilst there was really quite thoroughly corrupt. It should be noted that not all articles were biased in that way, many a glowing review was thoroughly earnt, but when it did happen...
I remember our editor talking quite freely about having both received and paid backhanders to either up a game review or to receive a game to review early etc...
On the positive side writing fake letters from the readers was always good for a laugh. Having a work desk stuffed full of the latest consoles, playing games before they got released, the technology of being able to play original gameboy games on a full size monitor were all powerfull plus points to my young mind.
I just couldnt hack lieing to people who were paying for my opinion even if there was a steady wage for playing video games involved.
For further insights into how things ran, ever wandered how "answers on a postcard" competition winners were picked?
Randomly out of a hat from amongst thousands of entries?
yeah right...
Some competitions had precisely zero entries and the alleged winners were family and friends of the high ups.
Competitions which actually had multiple entries, the postcard with the best "view" (beachwear or lack of beachwear) were the winners...
That's the same corruptness that has brought shame to many big publications and it is not only restricted to games industry. Regular newspapers will also wind up in conflicts of interest when one of their journalists is planning to expose some practices of a company - a company that also happens to be a major advertiser in the said newspaper.
It is far easier for those of us who write reviews for hobby mags, but the downside is that it does not pay... :/
It is far easier for those of us who write reviews for hobby mags, but the downside is that it does not pay... :/
Ive seen similar traits in regular press small and large.
My Grandfather was a politician and because of that I saw just how willing many journalists were to print what they knew was not true, even without any personal gain. Just for the sake of a story to write!
Im not talking about hit pieces against him here.
He was very friendly with the journalists. He could get in the local paper anytime he wanted. He would make up some event or another to put himself in a positive light and the journalists would come along make up a staged photograph with a false description and off it would go to press on the front page. My grandad raised his profile, kept himself in the public eye and the local press got a nice easy story to fill their pages with.
It was mostly trivial stuff, but elections were being gently influenced by the press using stories they knew were false
.Thats why I say that its the newspapers that control us. The papers tell us who to like, who to hate, who to go to war with, who to vote for and what laws should be changed, because the media influence us how THEY wish and unless you know the real truth, you will follow what they say