I'm sure we've had this debate before, but if they're hourly, they should be getting overtime. If they're salaried, then they should get some kind of compensation. Ideally, they shouldn't be doing crunch time at all.Originally Posted by MrRyan
I'm sure we've had this debate before, but if they're hourly, they should be getting overtime. If they're salaried, then they should get some kind of compensation. Ideally, they shouldn't be doing crunch time at all.
And my boss shouldn't pass me over for promotions because Jimmy Brownnose comes in at 7:55 instead of 8:00 and stays till 5:15 instead of 5:00, but hey, companies exist to milk people for every cent that they can and pay them as little as possible. The few that don't should have low enough turnover that I'll never get a job at one, and they'll go out of business when a Southeast Asian firm starts doing the same thing they do for half the price, anyway.
Honest to God, I'm too young to be that angsty about it already. Let's pretend I agreed with you pleasantly and move along.
So in the end, what do readers really want from a review? Are they looking for gameplay details to differentiate a title from its competitors? Do they want an aggregate score so they can prioritize purchases and time spent playing? That is, how much does a review serve as PR and how much is it intended as an actual critique?
Last I checked, reviews were pretty formulaic. They talk about system requirements and difficulty curves, with a few descriptions of specific game mechanics used to highlight the best and worst bits part of the experience. In theory, a third-party review is unbiased, but more often than not the review ends up reading like an apologetic press release.
Why, they simply want you to reaffirm an opinion they already have about the game.
Naw, I get it. Reality does not equal the ideal. I just get weirded out by how accepted (and even lauded, in some cases) crunch time is in the gaming industry.
One thing I like about Tom Chick going rogue is that he's free to get rid of the pretense of having to finish every game he reviews.
Another site I like that does this is gamecritics.com which, at the end of every review, includes a breakdown of approximately how long was spent in the single and multiplayer modes as well as some issues about accessibility for people with certain disabilities. Multiple reviewers can review the same game, seemingly at their whim, so they often post reviews for months or years old games, and different writers often give divergent views. They have no pretense of their reviewers having to finish every game, but they always disclose it when they haven't. To me, this should be the baseline standard for every big game review site or magazine, and any place that claims that all their reviewers finish every game is not only misguided but also suspect in my book.
I agree with you 100% on the disclosure part. If a outlet isn't going to require that reviewers finish the games they're working on then I really believe the reviewer should at least share how much time was actually spent with the title. Going beyond that, data on how much progression was achieved in multiplayer would help as well.
I think Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Revelations are a couple good examples of how significantly the multiplayer experience can change when there's some serious progression.
Games are unique, though. What other reviews might take 50 hours to complete? Not books, movies, or theater. Even automotive reviewers don't spend 50 hours driving a car. The available pay for game reviews can't ever match the time spent. Reviewers have to do it because they enjoy it.
Sure, I agree with that. I don't think there is really any way to pay freelance reviewers with a scale based on time spent with the game. (If they're on staff, then that's another thing, right?) Everyone would want the juicy MMO review jobs if they got paid by the hour.
Oh, I agree, he is hot/cold. The title was interesting, so I decided to check out the page. I figured hey! Maybe he talked to some crazy game-peripheral designer, or some creators of these characters.
Nope, just a blog.
I don't really understand why it's different if they're on staff, except that then you can force them to work unpaid overtime. Either the value of a game review > hourly cost * hours required, or it isn't. Being on staff or not doesn't change any of those numbers.
I'm saying that if they're on staff, they should be getting paid for the number of hours they work on the clock playing the game. Is that not correct? Do even on staff writers play the games on their own time? If they do, then my sympathies go out to them.
Yeah, I guess my point is that it changes the compensation equation, but not the overall economics. If it's profitable for the staff writer, then in theory, they could pay the freelancer for time spent playing, too.
Edit: In my previous post I replied to you, but really mostly a response to this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/30/co...x-live-arcade/
I wonder how much he actually played to say that the commander is "all new" to the XBLA version when I'm fairly sure it was in even the first mission of the PC version. Not enough that I'm not incredibly skeptical about his preference of the ipad version over the PC one
When I worked at PCG, I played games all the time at home in the evenings and the weekends. Just part of the job.
Likewise. I actually very rarely get a chance to play games at the office - that's where the writing/editing happens. Playing games is almost exclusively at home, on my own time.
Not really a proper sinkening I suppose, but "''tec" seems fairly obscure? Please say OXM were this close to putting out a cover with "tortured dick" on it.
What does it mean?
WTF? Tortured 'tec? What is that? Is that supposed to be detective?
I don't think I've ever seen or heard that.
Ohh!! detective. Maybe it's that. I was wondering wtf 'tec meant.
Its the new edgy way to 'te words.
It's just a mistake in using an open quote mark instead of an apostrophe.
Still not an abbreviation I'm familiar with or ever use.
Reminds me of reading a very long news article a Worcester warehouse fire for a class in college. . . never knew that "Jake" was a slang term for firefighter till the teacher had to explain to tall the non Bostonians in the room.
Let me tell you, that Jake dude was one heroic sumbitch.
Tec, 'tec, and teck go back to about the 1880s.
That still doesn't make it commonly understood now.
I've no idea whether the word is commonly understood now (or how to gauge that easily). It's still in common use, though (I expect mainly in mystery novels). I need to check the corpus data when I'm at work.
Why get upset over encountering a new word? Alliteration is important!
I just want to read the story about rockstar hitting xbox live with their tortured dick :(
Rockstar's tortured 'tec tests top tech and tries new tricks as he treks onto Xbox Live.
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