Review Symposium: Review Policy, Practice and Ethics
Towards the tail end of last year, the first part of Shawn Elliott’s Review Symposium came out and I had a great time reading the BILLION word long journalisticy ramblings of a few industry veterans. After a rather long wait, part 2 of the symposium is now out.
As with last time, I’ll be breaking down the whole thing and trying to filter out the meaningful pros from the mindless waffle. I’ve only read the first quarter or so (just like the last part, it’s very long), but it’s looking like this will be no easy task. How can some people write so much and say so little? Are they paid by the word?
Still, at least some of the voices in the symposium are worth listening too. Hopefully the signal to noise ratio will improve. Either way, expect my full reactions to Part 2 in the coming weeks.
News Tags: Review Symposium, Shawn Elliott
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I only read a bit on that lengthy blogspot, so I can’t really say much on that. It ordinarily isn’t discussed as much, but, I do think reviewers & reviews have 2 important powers within them. (Besides being bias, or walking ethical lines and all that.) First is the power of keeping games accountable. Basically, no matter all the hype, to actually play the game and see if it is as good as the public has heard. And, second, the power to actually play the crap games so that the public doesn’t have to waste their money, which, I feel in turn, actually helps the industry from a sudden death or mid-1980′s crash.
In sum, I don’t and haven’t believed much from corporate-sponsored rags & mags. They’ll always feed into their own hype. There’ll never be true public accountability unless the reviewer is there to filter out the best from the worst, IMO.