It's been a great run for Mega Dry Erase Board, but all good things come to an end.

Death always comes too early or too late. ~ English Saying

We came a long way together, me and the the Mega Dry Erase Board. From office to office; from house to house; from West Coast to East Coast. And this is our sad goodbye.

We’ve been together for about eight years and launched literally dozens and dozens of video games together.  Mounted in offices and homes, MDEB was as happy being a drawing pad for kids as it was pleased to be a month-by-month diagram of exclusives and stories.  Now, like Old Yeller, I gotta put it down.

The Classic RRRRROADKILL Bumper Sticker from UT04.

MDEB and I came together back in 2002 at the doomed offices of Atari Santa Monica, a colorful warehouse full of mad people working on too many games in too little time.  MDEB laid out the PR programs for games like Unreal Tournament 2004, Enter the Matrix and DRIV3R and a take-your-pick grab bag of European republished titles.  MDEB carried reminders about asset drops and cover stories while at the same time providing a sweet barrier between my cube and the next.

MDEB was the place where we listed the invitees to the epic Cabos San Lucas “Atari University” event.

MDEB listed departure and arrival times for the European jaunts for Stuntman, Superman, and Driver.

MDEB was where I wrote the server address for the UT2004 message board battles and the names of posters I would gunning for.

MDEB held colorful messages for other people in the office too, like “If I don’t turn around when you say my name, just go away” and “I hate you all, can’t you see that?”

A unerasable reminder to write the World in Conflict E3 Awards Release

MDEB moved home with me when the Atari offices closed (along with a busted executive desk chair and several copies of UT04 Editor’s Choice Edition).  It became the central figure in my new home office, and when I joined up with Maverick PR, it was what helped me organize plans and business activities.  It worked hard on World in Conflict.

It amused the kid when he hung out with me, giving him a place to draw, and it welcomed potential buyers to our home on Open House days, encouraging them with messages like “If you lived here, you would be home right now” and “Wow! What a fantastic home office this is! It should be YOURS!”

A place of honor in the Los Angeles home office, on the wall on the left (barely visible)

But alas, time has caught up to Mega Dry Erase Board.  Namely, it no longer erases.  My kid’s owl is permanent and so are the notes about World in Conflict and the diagram of our new property in Mass.  The Unreal franchise stickers are dated.  And it’s metal edge is bent horribly from the cross country move.

So today we say goodbye to the Mega Dry Erase Board and wish it well on its journey to the local landfill.  It’s the end of an era here, and with great sorrow, we say farewell.

Wicked Quick E3 2009 Recap

The short of it is: the show is definitely BACK and returning to where it needs to be to become an impactful global presence. I was relieved to see people happy and excited to be there again.

No E3 is E3 without my buddy Marcus, known officially as The Annoyed Gamer. He really is annoyed most of the time you know...

As for me going in without a title to promote – I at least had myself and Maverick PR to push!  I had an amazing time wandering the floor free for the very first time in my career checking out games and catching up with the West Coasters.

I had lots of new business meetings – and made a bunch of new connections that I’m hopeful will turn into some really fun partnerships down the road.

I really dug the press conferences but the MSFT line management at their conference was ridiculously poorly executed.  At the same time, Sony’s morning open bar was a win-win – it was great crowd-pleaser and made entering orderly and relaxing.  Take notes for next year, people!

Sony's 10am open bar spanked Microsoft's endless line and check-ins; um... who makes the EIC of GI wait in the BACK of the line at your biggest press event of the year? Answer: Microsoft

Overall, I felt that the game lineup at E3 2009 significantly underwhelmed while the hardware lineup was exciting.  Seemed like there was a lot of the same old stuff (sequels, same-old racing games, sports, blah, blah) and derivative titles that simply don’t appeal to me in any way (um, DJ Hero, I’m sorry, you don’t make any sense to me and you will never be in my house).  No game jumped out as being really cool and exciting.  At least L4D2 was there.

iRacing Emerges to the Gamer Crowd…

At MavPR we’ve been busy firing up the engines for iRacing… if you’ve missed any of that coverage, you can check it out by visiting the links off the MavPR site here, here, and here. There’s a lot more coming from this awesome Boston-area online sim racing league, so stay tuned…

iRacing is making the rounds; it's more realistic with better online features than GT5. There. I said it. Deal with it.

New Business News on the Horizon… Big News!

We’ve also been lining up some very big new business deals and some fun projects for the coming year… we’re going to have a fat announcement about that very shortly, which brings me great joy…

Maverick PR Rolls On As A Successful Small Business

The really cool thing is that I’m now into my third year working from Maverick PR.  THAT is pretty awesome – I think that’s coming up on as long as I have worked anywhere.  I’m really proud that we’re beating the odds on small businesses, “especially  in this economy.” 

We’re certainly helped by our forward-thinking structure with virtual office space and super-low overhead.  But we do things a bit differently here – we have a really intense focus on setting high expectations for ourselves, developing and utilizing very strategic thinking and planning, and delivering with superior performance and bottom line results.  Sure, I’ve bonked heads with some people along the way who I didn’t think shared that same commitment to a title’s success – but really, it was all worth it in the end. I tend to focus singularly on the success of a title and PR program, and how we can leverage buzz to further that success.  I know it irritates some people how passionate and driven I can be in those situations.

Here’s to a few more successful years of our little “micro-boutique” agency.

- PR_Flak

PS – be sure to check out the Big Huge List of games that Brandon and I have worked on – I just posted it yesterday and I think it’s hilarious.  And shocking.  Who could forget some of those HITS!?  Feedn’ Chloe? Wee!

For the first time ever, I’m heading to E3 without a specific project or company to push (besides MavPR of course).

I’m not relentlessly booking (and double-booking) appointments.  I’m not debating the merits and lameness of tchotchkes, t-shirts and booth layouts.  I’m not training demo teams and booth staff in key messages, protocols, “what not to say” and who to bring to me and who to shoo along.

So what, exactly, am I going to be doing this year?  I’m flying out at my own expense to be there… so what’s the angle?

Still working on that.

I’ll be honest – I was pretty bummed about being gameless this year. I mean, what does it say that I’m not actively promoting a title in the Thunderdome that is the LACC?  Everyone on Facebook is bitching about schedules and they’re all announcing future announcements of announcements in an endless and super-elongated tease  designed to pre-warn press that they have something important to say so it won’t be absolutely lost in the hype of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

The Thunderdome of What Is the Video Game Apocalypse

Hell, that’s usually me! Something is wrong if I’m not nagging press and executive about E3, making sure we secure lunches for PD and party passes for the entire PR team.

And let’s face it – I am one of the most annoying E3 workers in the world.  I book like an asshole – last year I filled three days of meetings (off site!) in only 2 days of booking, and that was 4 days before the show!  I’m usually the guy pitching the poor judges on awards for my game a month before the show even opens.

So ya, this year with no insane prep work required, I felt a bit left out of the annual craziness.  But, I gotta tell you, as the show gets closer, I’m feeling more and more freed by the lack of constraint.

Look at it this way – I’ve never actually SEEN E3.  My experience at E3 has been very limited in the decade or so I’ve been going.  I stay in one central booth area, I carry a packet of papers with a schedule, I watch the time and rotate meeting rooms.  Essentially I see one game – my game – and nothing else.

People always say, “Wow! You got to be at E3!  What did you see?!?!”  And the truth is… generally I don’t see anything.  I get see my friends and colleagues for 15-30 minutes before shuffling them off to their next meeting and then I see them again at night in a drunken haze, but I don’t think I’ve ever had the time to go into the Nintendo booth, for example.  I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a controller and played a game at someone else’s booth.

Despite An Impressive - And Haunting - Set of Reminders Above My Desk of E3s Past, I Really Haven't Seen Much of The Show

So as the show gets closer and closer, I find myself becoming more excited about heading in with the ability to see everything, to talk to everyone and to get a full grasp on the show and the industry.

I’m going to play the new games.  I’m going to talk to the PR people and the press in the halls without being rushed.  I’m going to go see the weird hardware.  I’m going to really appreciate what E3 has to offer.

With this newly discovered freedom, I’ve been toying with the idea of “covering” the show in some way.  I haven’t wrapped my head around exactly how I want to approach this.

I may play a bunch of games and write up some impressions or I may try and cover the show from a PR perspective, noting the interesting booths, announcements, and storylines of the show and trying to guage from colleagues and press the effectiveness of the revived spectacle.  In the end, I may end up doing both – games on this blog and PR on MavPR.com.

Any thoughts on what I should do?  Share ‘em.  I’d love to hear thoughts.

And at the very least I’ll be shamelessly promoting MavPR and our PR services to industry leaders.  Really… you should think about it too.

E3 2009 is going to be a totally new experience – I expect it will be pretty damn fun.

Historically, media coverage of video games within the “enthusiast press” has followed very straight, and very narrow, line.  It’s boundaries were limited and restrictive and went, basically, like this:

ANNOUNCE! PREVIEW! REVIEW! … OK, now what’s next…?

And this process worked efficiently for years. The media was a reflection of the timelines and needs of retailers and publishers.  A game got its hype prior to release which led to critical “pre-sells” at GameStop which in turn indicated to buyers that the title would succeed which caused them to buy more copies and fill more shelves… then the game would hit shelves and mega-sales followed.  The game disappeared from the press, and shortly thereafter it faded from shelves and found its way to the bargain bin.

This was a pleasantly symbiotic relationship between media, publisher and retailer.  You built it, placed it, sold it and forgot it.  There was literally nothing to write about once a review was completed – save a sales success announcement.  You just waited for the sequel.

The Old Way - Constantly Chasing the Next Big Thing

But the industry has changed – and dramatically so in recent years.  Retail boxed products are old school and are now joined in the marketplace by downloadable games (both free and paid) and game add-ons; chain stores and other retailers aren’t the only place to get your games anymore; and independent developers are becoming publishers, utilizing broadband to distribute their titles without giving up a piece of the action to monolithic corporate entities.

In this brave new world, games no longer simply “ship” and die and, as I see it, there are two major areas where emerging industry trends are driving a change in both media coverage plans and PR approach:

• The extension of the so-called coverage “window” through DLC, micro-transactions and other property developments, and,
• A shift in the general definition of exactly what constitutes “previews” and “reviews” due to the emergence of what I will call “new to me” titles – import games and other online products that are available, but hitting the North American market after they have released “somewhere”

Widening the Window… an Ongoing Process Driven by DLC

So first, let’s chat about extending the coverage window “post-ship.”  The relatively recent runaway success of major MMOs like World of Warcraft brought with them new and plentiful PC gamers into a persistent chain of ongoing content updates, patches and other news, establishing a hungry and sizable audience for ongoing coverage, which the VG outlets have been eager to serve.  In essence, the coverage cycle for a game like WoW never ends – there are always new patches and dungeons to be previewed, or big changes to gameplay to be discussed.

And to their credit, Blizzard has done a masterful job packaging updates and changes into easily digestible and “coverable” segments – they create tiny game releases within themselves.  They get full preview and release coverage for a patch that includes a new dungeon.  That’s a positive thing.  I mean, sure, most games don’t get that, but the understanding that it CAN happen and press’ willingness to do such a thing has been established.

Blizzard's Packaging of Patches and Content is Nothing Short of Brilliance

Of course, PC games have always garnered some element of ongoing coverage, even if it was in smaller form.  Games like Unreal and Quake helped pioneer the concept through unofficial mods and maps, community support and official developer-provided patches and content.  I worked on a lot of those coverage-extension efforts in the past — things like official map packs, events like Quakecon, community development efforts like the Make Something Unreal contest… all of these things helped break ground in the “ongoing coverage” cycle.

But the real emerging trend in extending coverage appears where it was previously impossible – on consoles.  The “living room gamer” segment’s reach into the broader audience has incredible weight and power, and the introduction of downloadable content has suddenly made the “post-ship” news and coverage cycle mainstream and important to everyone.

And in this area, there has been a significant mind shift within the media to go along with the emergence of console DLC.  Whereas post-ship news was generally ignored in the past unless it involved the sequel, GTA IV‘s DLC update received coverage as if it was a stand-alone game – full previews and reviews.  And GOW2 received the same.  Fallout 3.  the list goes on and on now.  That’s big.

But that’s only half the story… because “post-ship” is hard to define these days – what the hell does ship even mean anymore?  Some games that have technically “shipped” somewhere have never been covered and are being “introduced” now to the NA media — where does that kind of scenario leave PR and the media?

“New to Me” Games Challenge VG Media’s Core Structure, VG PR Strategy

Emerging import MMOs, especially from Korea and other parts of Asia, are bringing proven and mega-popular free-to-play games and business models to North America.  And they are coming in large numbers. Additionally, games distributed solely through the Internet by independent developer-publishers are emerging ready to play, but uncovered.  How does – or how can – the press approach these kinds of titles?

Import MMOs and Other Games Are Coming... Will They Be Covered Here?

These games, while they are technically freely available through the Internet, are still new to us here in North America or simply, new to the press and audience.  No one knows about them.  None of the game sites have “game pages” for them.  Magazines, for the most part, have never written a word about them.  And there has never been a preview or review.  So, this coverage should be generated now, right?

But, ask yourself – how does an outlet preview or review a game that already has thousands or even, millions of users?

This is where the next challenge for the VG media and VG PR professionals lies – to define the terms and options for covering what, by current definitions, is simply uncoverable.

If a game has been available in Korea, for example, and then is brought to North America following success overseas or if a game emerges through a “controlled launch” for a target audience and then is pushed out to the broader gamer audience, shouldn’t those titles receive previews, reviews, interviews – in other words, full coverage in the enthusiast media?

The answer from the media right now, for the most part, is no.  Those games are out, so they don’t warrant opinionated coverage.  Although, some are beginning to change and see the “new to me” angle as legit.

These titles present a challenge to the structure of the VG enthusiast press.  I mean, there is the simple issue of “in what section would you even place that kind of coverage?”  The bigger question to be faced is: can you even write a preview or review of a game that is freely available for download?  Does the story have any value to the publication at that point?  I say yes to both.

For people like me, actively working on products that fall into this “new to me” category, it can be frustrating trying to open doors that have traditionally been closed.  I think we’re getting there — I have been pleasantly surprised at the openness of some outlets to talking about these kinds of games.  I hope it continues.

CLICK HERE

As I mentioned earlier, I really have gotten back into PC gaming with Valve’s brilliant Left 4 Dead.  It has completely reinvigorated my love of PC FPS and I’ve been buried in the game ever since.

Admittedly, my lonely Xbox360 lays idle now as I explore the zombie infested hallways and cityscapes.  First it was the campaign mode, with it’s awesome reliance on co-op teamwork.  Then I got up the gumption to jump into Versus and feel what it’s like to eat human face, laughing all the time… that move alone sucked me in for days.

And now Valve has released their free DLC – Survival Pack – which of course, I instantly loaded up for an update of the Lunchtime Gaming Series.  So how does it stack up? 

A curious blend of gameplay from Serious Sam, Age of Empires, and <insert your favorite co-op tactical shooter here>, the game offers the fast-paced, shoot-enormous-amounts-of-enemies-at-once mayhem of SS with the careful strategy involved in co-op military shooters and RTS games.

I love the frantic action and the sight of a line of zombies falling as round after round from the auto shotgun pour out of the carefully bunched group.  I love watching everyone turn their guns on a tank and seeing him fall before hitting anyone.  But at the same time, the strategic thought involved in solving the puzzles of the map presents important questions to answer.

Where do you place the gas tanks?  Do you need someone to take a rifle for the Smokers?  What room do you start in?  Where do you move to and when?  How and when do you replenish ammo?  What’s the best arrangement of firepower when TWO tanks come in with 3 or more smokers?  Use the pipe bombs or save them for ammo runs?

Every load-in involves rethinking your previous failure and second guessing.  Coordination and communication are vital.  And a simple game mode that amounts to “SIT STILL AND LIVE” gains incredibly detailed tactics.

It’s this deep strategy and development of unique tactics per level and per team that I found so surprising.  MY plan was to find a corner to sit in and shoot, but that’s simply not possible.  That’s not how the game is played.

Without the added layer of semi to truly deep strategy, the gameplay mode would be boring immediately.  As it is, this DLC is a pretty spectacular addition the game, even without the 2 additional versus maps.  This is what PC shooters should be about – pure fun and a little thought.

I’ll be playing L4D’s modes for a long time to come.  It’s really nice to see that developers still support their audiences like this.  I know it’s difficult if you’re not one of the major independents like Valve, Epic or id, but adding content to keep a game fresh only increases the longevity of your title.  It gives PR people something to talk about too.

-PR_Flak

[as always, if you play L4D on PC and you want to join in on MavPR's zombie killing sessions, you can find me on Steam as "PR_Flak"]

Over on Mavpr.com I’ve thrown on my latest installment of The Art of the Screenshot, this time taking the more hands-on approach and discussing the best ways to request screenshots, the information you should be sharing and how to make PD your partner in the process.

The suggestions within are gleaned from years of working with some of the most finicky developers in this industry — those who are most intensely concerned with how their game is being represented, what shots are being used for what purpose, and of course, the overall quality of these assets.  This includes giants like Epic, Bioware, id, Massive and the IP managers at top licensors like Universal Pictures.

Here’s a snip:

By building a specific and justified ask and knowing what you need to know, you’ve streamlined the process and produced better assets for your game.  More importantly, you’ve invited the development team to participate in the PR process, creating a partner rather than an adversary in the effort to tell the story of the game.

I hope you enjoy the read.  Leading the asset creation process with vision rather than passively waiting for someone else to create vital materials for you is critical to true success.

- PR_Flak

with apologies…

- PR_Flak

An image that should haunt gamemakers Everywhere

I loathe MetaCritic.  It’s inaccurate.  It’s unfair.  It’s arbitrary.  And it wields way too much power.  What really gets me though, is how little MC seems to care about these issues.

I admit that this is well covered territory.  Actual journalists and journalists and industry bigwigs have been here.  Developers and publishers have lamented MC’s power.  Others have questioned whether MC has any power at all.

And yet, after all this chatter, nothing has changed.  So what’s going on here?

It comes down to a simple fact — MetaCritic casts a powerful shadow but it is constituted of editorial inaccuracy, factual distortions and unchecked subjectivity.

As PR people, we’re partly to blame for the role the site plays in our industry.  We love to leverage sites like MetaCritic when it suits our needs.  How many releases have you seen where publishers crow about their success in terms of overall Metacritic scores and the number of games they have “over 80?”

For a long time, I was just naive.  I never took the time to look under the hood.  I just saw that the average score was pretty close to what I projected it would be, and I was happy that I was so damn smart.  I just assumed that everything behind the scenes was a neat and straightforward process.

But  it’s not – under the hood of MetaCritic is ugly.  It’s distorting, subjective and, sometimes, flat-out misleading.  It’s the ugly little secret that everyone in our industry — especially PR people — need to understand and should take action against.

So what’s the problem?  Let’s take a look at three key areas:

1. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!: APPLYING SCORES TO UNSCORED REVIEWS

A little tidbit from MetaCritic’s site hides just above the reviews for a game:

“If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review.” – MetaCritic.com

Now, I know quite a few reviewers who, after years of struggling with review scores and systems and complaints from publishers about an 80 versus a 79, for example, simply removed scores all together.  They believe that the TEXT of a review is the most important element, especially for a medium like video games.  Those editors don’t feel a singular number can be applied to indicate the overall quality of something as complex as a video game.

However, MC seems to have awarded themselves the power to add their own review score to someone else’s review, based on a subjective interpretation of review text.  This is probably the most glaring infraction against editorial integrity on the site.

For example, if a reviewer does not give a score but says in the review that a game is fun, with innovative mechanics, but is mildly repetitive at times and lacks replay value, how is it possible for someone other than the reviewer to assign a score?  How could anyone but the original reviewer determine whether the fun, cool elements outweigh the repetition?  Is it a 70?  An 80?

In this case, the person making the decision is not the reviewer, but MetaCritic.  And there is ZERO CHANCE that the score will be accurate.

2. REVIEWING REVIEWERS: “SHE’S SMARTER THAN HIM BECAUSE HER SITE IS BIGGER”

Another lesser known aspect of MetaCritic’s scoring system is the “weighting” of a review’s importance.  Simply put, some reviews count more than others.  And how does MetaCritic make this distinction?  It is simply up to them to decide.  From their site:

“Why a weighted average? When selecting our source publications, we noticed that some critics consistently write better (more detailed, more insightful, more articulate) reviews than others. In addition, some critics and/or publications typically have more prestige and weight in the industry than others.” – MetaCritic.com

So, the better you write (in the eyes of MC, that is) or if you have a bigger, more popular site, or if people generally think you’re prestigious (according to MC staff again) then your score will count more when computing the average.  Lucky you.

Of course, I can probably name off the top of my head 3 reviewers from smaller web sites that write better than reviewers at the big guys.  Does their skill in writing overcome the major site’s numbers and create a balance?  I don’t know and neither do you.  And that’s the problem.

It shouldn’t matter.  One reviewer’s opinion is not more valuable than another simply because they happen to write for a “major” web site.  This is essentially saying mob rules, and independent thought is not important or valuable for criticisms.

3. OBEY:  RETRO-FITTING SCORES

Metacritic forces all scoring systems – no matter their intent — into a MetaCritic-defined “0 – 100″ system.

For instance, MC chooses to ignore the generally accepted North American academic scoring A-F system, in which an “A” represents a 95 and a B represents an 85, and so on.  When a web site that scores games A-F awards a game a “B-” (which we would think equals an 80), Metacritic retrofits that score to THEIR private scoring device, assigning that “B-” a numerical value of “67.”

A C+ receives a 58, a full 20 points under what is intended by the reviewer!  This is an outrageous distortion of editorial integrity.

This is what site manager Marc Doyle has said on the subject in an interview with The Guardian:

One of the more controversial aspects of what I do is the conversion of the A – F scale to Metacritic’s 1 – 100 scoring system. For example, when I convert a “B-” score to 67 on Metacritic, many users/fanboys/publishers/developers chime in to argue that a “B-” should be converted to the low 80s because that’s how American schools tend to interpret a “B-”.

As such, I feel that ANY scale simply needs to converted directly with its lowest possible grade equating to 0, and the highest to 100.

Most importantly, every score is converted exactly the same way on my site, so all games are subject to the same treatment. This consistency is key.

I understand the priority on maintaining “consistency,” and that IS important.  But the MC’s twisted drive for consistency only works in a vacuum, where the overall score is only compared AGAINST OTHER GAMES.  It is consistent though – consistently unfair for everyone.

Essentially the argument presented by MC is that since every game gets screwed , it all evens out.  But game scores aren’t compared against one another by publishers.  If a 67 (that should be an 80) pulls your average score down to a 7.4 instead of a 7.5, do you think your publisher gives a crap that another game’s average fell from 7.9 to 7.7?  NO.  Your score is a 7.4. Period.

Why should any game have to suffer through an unfair review conversion? Why can’t the “consistent” model be that all A-F review scores are just converted in the same way?  Wouldn’t that not only be fair to both the game and reviewing site’s intent, but also more accurate and representative of the title’s quality?

The sample answer, of course, is to pick a score for each letter grade and just stick to it.  DUH!  A=95. B=85. C+=78.  Done and done. To NOT do that is pure laziness.  It’s criminal apathy.

Even more frustrating — there is simply nothing you can do about.  I’ve personally worked with an Editor in Chief of a site that grades on an A-F scale who wrote a note to MC clearly stating: “Please be aware that a B- on our site should be properly scored as an 80.”   You know what happened?  Nothing.

The allegiance to the MC 0-100 “system” trumps allegiance to editorial integrity.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if all sites scores on the 100 point scale?  Sure.  And then all sites could look the same too and think the same.  Why not just have one site do a review?

So MetaCritic sucks… Why should Gamers care?  Why should PR care?  Why should anyone care?

Plainly put, the industry is getting screwed.  Game Revolution has already done a fascinating piece on this issue.  But I couldn’t disagree more with this finding of theirs:

We talked to several PR people, designers, and brand managers during our research for this piece, and by and large they use these sites the right way: as macro resources rather than accurate converters. – Game Revolution

These averages matter A LOT and and if they are willingly  inaccurate and artificially lower than they should be, they become deceitful and dangerous.

I spent years on the publisher side and I can tell you firsthand that quite a bit is determined by aggregate numbers.  This includes, in some cases:

• PR and Marketing employee bonuses and performance reviews (never in my case, for the sake of full disclosure)
• A developers’ end-game company performance bonus
• The future “greenlight” status of a video game franchise and developer contract
• A developers’ ability to sign their next project.
  • I’ve sat in many greenlight meetings where the developer was being evaluated — at least partially — by looking at their previous performances on MC.

But don’t take my word for it, check it out:

MICROSOFT: “Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said in an interview that Microsoft will enact a new policy of delisting underperforming titles on its Xbox Live Arcade downloadable gaming platform. Whitten explained that candidates for delisting are those XBLA games which have been out for six months, scored less than 65% on Metacritic, and have a conversion rate of less than 6%.”

WBIE: “[Jason] Hall’s strategy now is to turn to game review Web sites — such as GameRankings.com, Metacritic.com, and GameStats.com — that aggregate scores given to games by critics at game sites and magazines. Games based on Warner Bros. licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating, or incur an increase in royalty rates.“

ELECTRONIC ARTS: “John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, uses Metacritic as one of the most important measures of the performance of his company and is unhappy when they go down, telling Wall Street analysts ‘Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal.‘”

So what’s the result of all this shenanigans?

If a system of aggregating scores is artificially lowering overall averages — say from a 78 to a 76 — that translates into a negative impact across many facets of the industry.  Does this mean a small developer misses a deal?  Does this mean a borderline franchise doesn’t get a second incarnation?

It’s possible.  It’s happening now, in fact.  So fewer new IPs survive.  Fewer independent developers survive.  The industry suffers.

The hard truth on the media side is that the time will come when there is no benefit to sending review copies to anyone who scores on a letter, star, thumb or anything other than a factor of 10.  Smaller sites like GamingNexus and GameRevolution would get no review copies.  Game fans would get their scores from a smaller pool of opinions who wield ever-more power.

And don’t blame the PR person. A PR person’s primary responsibility is to do what is best for the game.  Not for the editorial process.  Not for your small site.  The game is the end goal; we are the game’s friend before we are the press’ friend.

What PR person do you know who wants to work hard to do what they can to position a game to crack 80 only to have it brought down by an inaccurate interpretation of what a B- is? It’s completely ridiculous.  It wouldn’t be smart PR to advise running reviews with these sites unless you were abundantly confident in receiving an “A.”

The new mantra that’s coming will be “don’t send that site a copy early, we’ll get fucked on Metacritic.”

Actually –to be honest — for aware PR people, it’s already HERE.

What Can We Do?

I don’t know.  Nobody has done anything that has changed anything yet.

All I can say is that you can contact the site and express your displeasure with some of their policies, politely try to express your frustration that a score isn’t accurately reflected on the site.  Tell them you worked for 18 months on a game that got a B- and MC’s 67 ruined your chance at a sequel.  Tell them.  Go ahead.

Click here. http://www.metacritic.com/about/contact.shtml

I’ll give you a B- if you do.

- PR_Flak

Over on MavPR.com I’ve added the second installment of my ongoing screen shots series: “THE ART OF THE SCREENSHOT.”

In this entry I talk about injecting attitude  and stirring emotions with the screen shots you select.  While it’s important that an image looks great, of course, it’s even more important to find an image that is expressive of your key messaging and makes the viewer of that image feel what is cool about the game.

Here are a couple snips – head on over to www.mavpr.com to read the whole post:

Many of us get so caught up in finding screens that look cool, or have crazy violence… or cool action… or neat water reflections… that we forget to take into account the attitude that is being presented and how that attitude meshes with the key messaging of a game.

Our job as PR and Marketers is to create an emotional connection with our target audience; artwork is a critical device to do that, rather than a tool for explaining mundane details.

We need to give our audience a reason to to believe; emote an attitude that appeals; connect emotionally; and offer a small taste of the fun rather than an explanation of the activity.

I hope you enjoy the read.  Time to get started on Part III…

- PR_Flak