Re: [GD-Design] Dealing with the media

[Javier A. <ja...@py...>]

Brian,

You are absolutely right; dealing with the media in general (not just
reviewers) is a serious problem, and you have to take it very seriously.
Just yesterday, a national TV channel came to the office to film some
minute-long blurb about "Praetorians". They were not exactly professional...
one of the questions they asked our FMV team was "Which movie did you base
this off?" The natural answer was "Inspired by many, not one in particular",
but such answer didn't fit their "editorial approach", which they felt was
clearer to the audience if they could give something more concrete.

Obviously, we didn't want Praetorians to appear on TV as some kind of
unnofficial version of Gladiator. We had an argument with them, and among
the stuff mentioned was the idea that we preferred to forego such an
appearance on TV if we felt that the portray of the game was not accurate.
They couldn't understand that simple concept (after all, everyone wants to
be on TV, right?), and so kept arguing the point, accusing us of intrusion
and so on...

We have had journalists come over to one of our presentations, and tell us
that they didn't like RTS games anyway (I guess they _do_ like spending a
couple days in Rome or wherever, though).

We have had work-in-progress articles complain about lack of balance despite
the fact that we told them "game code is pretty much complete, we're now
starting the balancing and QA process which will take several months." They
were just angry they had lost while playing the preview code.

This kind of thing happens all the time, and you have to be ready for it.
There is a fine line between being strict and being offensive, and most
media types are offended by anything that does not go according to their
wishes. In the end, you really appreciate having PR specialists take care of
all this, nurturing the relationship with the media, but you must keep them
on their toes and remind them that they are on YOUR side.

That said, I wouldn't care much about "idiots with FrontPage". Yes they may
be annoying, but the truth is, they tend to attract idiots.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone of how important it is to have a
good digital signature system for your preview versions (oh and make it
batchable, so signing 80+ code builds is a no-brainer!). If you can keep the
signature tool out of the hands of your publisher, you may have the
opportunity of knowing exactly which versions have been sent, when and to
whom.

  Javier Arevalo
  Pyro Studios

Brian Hook wrote:
>> Can you recall which reviewers gave the lazy reviews?
>
> There's no way you can really cull the bad reviewers out.  There are
> many reasons for this:
>
> - the biases of individual reviewers often change
>
> - if they find out they've been blacklisted, they'll often publicly
> accuse the developer or publisher of knowing that they'll give an
> "honest" review and thus this is obviously favoritism
>
> - often review copies are handed out by publishers without the
> knowledge or consent of the developer
>
> - review copies are often given to a magazine or a publisher or a Web
> site, without knowing ahead of time which individual reviewer will
> receive a copy
>
> The fact of the matter is that the popularity of the Web has allowed
> any idiot that knows FrontPage to throw up a Web site and have an
> opinion that someone will listen to.  Such is life, you just have to
> hope that there are more level-headed, intelligent reviewers out
> there than dishonest, lazy and disinterested ones.