Friday, October 21st 2011
Battlefield 3: EA Allegedly Tried Filtering Reviewers
When a blockbuster game is about to be released, there's always a certain amount of pressure placed on reviewers to give it a good review, which is considered a hazard of the business. Reviewers can also be filtered, sometimes subtly, so that only potentially the most favourable get to review the product. However, it appears like Electronic Arts went the extra mile to filter out potential bad reviews of Battlefield 3. Some reviewers in Norway, including gamer.no and gamereactor.no were asked to complete a questionnaire before they were given access to early review copies of the game. It appears that EA planned for reviewers that didn't answer the right way to be unceremoniously dumped. However, it didn't exactly turn out as they planned.
This is the questionnaire that was emailed to reviewers:
- Did the reviewer personally review BFBC2 or Black Ops?
- What score did he give it?
- What is his past experience with Battlefield?
- Is he a fan of Battlefield?
- Is he a fan of Call of Duty?
- Has he been playing BF Franchise? BFBC2? 1943? BF2?
- Has he expressed enthusiasm or concern for BF3? What are they?
- Did he play the beta? Did he enjoy it / get frustrated with it?
- What is his present view on the game?
Seems a little iffy, doesn't it? EA quite obviously want to gauge a reviewer's preference between BF3 & CoD and use that to decide whether to give the game to them or not. However, there was a bit of a storm about this and the issue was even reported on Norway's top news site NRK. This has since forced EA to withdraw the questionnaire, explaining the reason it went out as "human error". EA Norway marketing manager Oliver Sween made the following statement:
If this practice is allowed to continue, then it threatens the integrity of independent journalism, potentially, leading to biased and untrue reviews. These would then gloss over or outright lie about things such as serious game bugs, poor graphics, poor gameplay and any number of other nasties sure to ruin the gaming experience. They would end up reading like a PR puff piece and damage the reputation of gaming review sites significantly. Of course, these dodgy reviews would make gamers very unhappy customers when they realized they'd been duped, likely resulting in the eventual reduction of future game sales as gamers lost confidence in them. But no matter, the games publishers would have that reliable old scapegoat "piracy" to fall back on and blame for their hard times (or less good ones) wouldn't they? However, it looks like the checks and balances in the system are working, so we are fine for now, for the most part. It would be naive to think that no corruption was taking place anywhere.
- Did the reviewer personally review BFBC2 or Black Ops?
- What score did he give it?
- What is his past experience with Battlefield?
- Is he a fan of Battlefield?
- Is he a fan of Call of Duty?
- Has he been playing BF Franchise? BFBC2? 1943? BF2?
- Has he expressed enthusiasm or concern for BF3? What are they?
- Did he play the beta? Did he enjoy it / get frustrated with it?
- What is his present view on the game?
Seems a little iffy, doesn't it? EA quite obviously want to gauge a reviewer's preference between BF3 & CoD and use that to decide whether to give the game to them or not. However, there was a bit of a storm about this and the issue was even reported on Norway's top news site NRK. This has since forced EA to withdraw the questionnaire, explaining the reason it went out as "human error". EA Norway marketing manager Oliver Sween made the following statement:
It is a human error that was sent out. We have made a mistake and we apologize. It is not something that should have happened earlier or [that] we intend to continue.It's a real stretch to think how this could have been anything but a deliberate attempt at reviewer manipulation. Human error is making a typo, not writing a whole piece designed to gauge a reviewer's product preferences! Given the high stakes involved aka millions of dollars, it's not really surprising that they might try it on. At least they knew to back down and save face in this instance.
If this practice is allowed to continue, then it threatens the integrity of independent journalism, potentially, leading to biased and untrue reviews. These would then gloss over or outright lie about things such as serious game bugs, poor graphics, poor gameplay and any number of other nasties sure to ruin the gaming experience. They would end up reading like a PR puff piece and damage the reputation of gaming review sites significantly. Of course, these dodgy reviews would make gamers very unhappy customers when they realized they'd been duped, likely resulting in the eventual reduction of future game sales as gamers lost confidence in them. But no matter, the games publishers would have that reliable old scapegoat "piracy" to fall back on and blame for their hard times (or less good ones) wouldn't they? However, it looks like the checks and balances in the system are working, so we are fine for now, for the most part. It would be naive to think that no corruption was taking place anywhere.
113 Comments on Battlefield 3: EA Allegedly Tried Filtering Reviewers
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
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.
thanks q
</serious>
This is supposed to be tech related news, not Fox News.
:)
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.
The actual source is 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.
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.
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.