The RAM Raider

Michael Pachter: Nostradamus, Or A Cunt?

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000

A Things Cunts Say Special

When Wetbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter makes a prediction, it’s reported as if it were scratched into a granite tablet by the fingertip of God. But how often do these sage-like reports from the future actually fly? To celebrate our five years of blighting the industry, let’s find out.

EA will buy Take Two

So said Pachter on Gamespot, and then went on about how it was virtually certain that EA would win its buyout bid to GameDaily.

Over two years later, EA still haven’t bought Take Two.

Score: WRONG x1

PS3 will outsell Xbox 360 by the end of 2008

So he said on VG247. As you can see from the figures for 2008 and 2009, it didn’t.

Pachter has a real hard on for predicting the PS3 will outsell the 360, so really we should multiply his “wrong” score by the number of times he’s got it wrong. We’ll be generous, though.

Score: WRONG x1

The iPhone isn’t “a viable gaming platform”

Here’s the full quote from next-gen, as it’s a winner:

“I don’t see it as a viable gaming platform, due to the cost of owning one. The iPhone costs $400 plus an AT&T wireless subscription for voice and data, I’m guessing this is $80 a month, so the addressable market doesn’t really fit the core gamer demographic. To the extent that hip, rich people are an interesting gaming audience, iPhone games will work. My guess is that this group is only interested in the most rudimentary games, and that the market will be small.”

Here’s a graphic demonstrating how iPhone gaming has eaten some of the DS’s share, and eclipsed the PSP:

Score: WRONG x1

GTA IV to sell 6 million copies in week one

And that’s how much it sold. Slightly less impressive is that every man and his dog made a similar prediction, such as the less publicity-hungry analyst Mike Hickey. But we’ll still give him a point for it.

Score: CORRECT x1

Xbox 360 & PS3 price cuts in 2008

According to Kotaku. Xbox 360 dropped, as it was widely expected to, but the extortionate PS3 price stayed exactly where it was.

Score: CORRECT x1, WRONG x1

E3 “headed for extinction”

“In our view, E3 is headed for extinction, unless the publishers and console manufacturers wake up to the fact that nobody cares about the show anymore,” he said to VG247 in 2008.

E3 2010 is coming up in a couple of months.

Score: WRONG x1

New DS by the end of 2008

So he said to MCV. The DSi was announced shortly afterwards, which almost makes up for his iPhone faux pas. Almost.

Score: CORRECT x1

Pachter’s estimated 2008 sales wrong

As reported on VG247. Technically, he’s speaking accurately. But speaking accurately about the fact that you were wrong still makes you wrong, no matter how much backpedalling you do. Especially when it’s the serious stuff that people rely on to make themselves the big money. There are loads of faield predictions like this, but they don’t exactly make for entertaining reading, so this’ll be the only one he scores for.

Score: WRONG x1

Wii HD is coming

"A Wii HD would really position Nintendo well, which is why I'm absolutely convinced there is a Wii HD coming,” he said here.

18 months later, still no sign…

Score: WRONG x1

Assassin’s Creed 2 to be set in the 1700s

And during the French Revolution too, apparently, according to what he told GiantBomb. But in the real world, it was set in the 1400s during the Italian Renaissance.

Score: WRONG x1

PS3 price cut for April 2009

According to a report on VG247. Wrong – it happened in August.

Score: WRONG x1

Assassin’s Creed 2 & Splinter Cell Conviction out before March 2010

Despite setting up the calendar equivalent of a barn door on MTV, he still managed to miss it with Splinter Cell. AC2 was within his gargantuan 14 month area of prediction, so well fucking done for that.

Score: CORRECT x1, WRONG x1

Sony PSP Go is a rip off

Here's the full quote from GameTrailers:

“$249 is too much, period. The $169 PSP-3000 is a profitable device – the disc assembly, for a UMD, costs more than 16 gigs of flash does. So this new device doesn’t cost them as much to make as the PSP-3000 and they jack the price up $80. I’m sorry to say it. I don’t want to get bad fan mail from the Sony fanboys, but… They’re ripping off the consumer.”

Amen to that. Only Sony could take a handheld that’s sorely in need of a second analogue thumbstick and re-release it with less functionality for UMD owners, added internal storage that nobody wanted or asked for, and still no second thumbstick. Thankfully, there are people in the industry with influence who have the balls to call them on stuff like this.

Score: CORRECT x1000

But… hang on, what’s this?

“I sincerely regret the choice of words in my response to Geoff Keighley’s question in last week’s Bonus Round, where I said that Sony is ‘ripping off’ the consumer by pricing the PSP Go at $249.99. I made a poor choice of words, and I do NOT think that Sony is doing anything nefarious in choosing their pricing strategy.” (Via IndustryGamers)

That’s right – the one thing that man has ever said that’s been honest and relevant was retracted within a day. So…

Score: CORRECT -1000, WRONG x1

Borderlands is being “sent to die”

Over to Gamasutra reporting Randy Pitchford from Gearbox:

“It was tough for Pitchford to hear Wedbush Morgan's prominent industry analyst Michael Pachter declare, prior to Borderlands' release, that the game had been ‘sent to die’ amid big competition from Bungie's Halo 3: ODST, Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and other major holiday titles. Pachter argued Borderlands had little chance of competing. We were sandwiched between the two biggest first-person shooter franchises ever. And the guys at BioWare, who walk on water, were releasing Dragon Age around the same time.

“But Borderlands sold around 3 million units, Gearbox continues to invest in the franchise through new downloadable content, and the title became the best-selling new property of 2009. "It was tough for me, because it's Mike’s job to analyze these things. You know what, Mike? I knew you were wrong."

Score: WRONG x1

Final Score: CORRECT x4, WRONG x12

Now, we’re no analysts, but… oh, you get the picture.

Five Years Of Anonymous Trolling

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000

If you’re anything like us, the last thing you need is a reminder about how old you’re getting, so sorry about this: The RAM Raider is five years old.

Whether you’ve followed us from day one of the blog’s launch or only discovered us after we ceased regular updates; whether you’ve enjoyed every post or you despise us but keep reading anyway; whether you follow us on the social networks or can’t be arsed because we’re not as funny as we used to be; we hope you’ll join us in our celebration of half a decade of righteous whining propped up by gratuitous mocking as we treat the twitching corpse of our once-glorious blog to a couple of extra-special anniversary updates.

We’ll be kicking off with a super-special edition of Things Cunts Say, starring the analyst who defies the law of averages by getting the vast majority of his guesses about the future of the games industry totally and utterly wrong.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

To the huge amount of you who still read the blog every week despite no more regular updates, and to our Twitter followers, and Facebook friends, and RSS subscribers, and even to the PR husks who keep pretending they’re lots of different anonymous posters – Merry Christmas!

We’ll probably be back for a fifth anniversary special in April. Until then, the RAM Raider salutes you.

Ubisoft Offer To Drop Assassin’s Creed 2 Embargo For “Very Good” Score

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Omar Boulon, the journo who heroically revealed the Dragon Age: Origins review corruption in Canard PC last week, has informed us that another mag has stepped up with details of another dishonest deal. This time, German mag Computer Bild Spiele has revealed that Ubisoft would only provide them with review code for Assassin’s Creed 2 if they would guarantee that they would give it a “very good” score. Computer Bild Spiele did exactly the right thing (and exactly what no British mag would do) by telling Ubisoft to fuck off whilst delaying the review and, in its place, blowing the deal wide open in an editorial.

Here’s the link if you still think we’re making this crap up for shits and giggles.

Congratulations, Boulon / CanardPC and Computer Bild Spiele. And bollocks to EA and Ubisoft (not to mention any mag that takes the deal).

EA Offer To Remove Dragon Age Embargo If 9/10 Awarded

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

For this story, you can pretty much remove “Eidos” and “Arkham Asylum” from our last few posts and replace them with “EA” and “Dragon Age: Origins”.

Reviews for Dragon Age: Origins are under embargo until 5th November. But, in what’s becoming an increasingly common deal, EA have offered to remove the embargo for anyone who’s willing to guarantee them a score of at least 90% (or 9/10, if you’re that way inclined).

We’ve learned from O Boulon, a staff writer from French PC games mag Canard PC, that his mag withheld their review on the grounds of “honesty” and “good conscience”. You can work out what that means for mags that don’t seem to have a problem taking EA up on this deal, mentioning no names…

And before we get swamped in the Dragon Age fanboys’ semen – we know it’s a decent game, and we’re not disputing whether or not it’s worth a 9. We’re disputing that these kinds of deals should happen in the first place.

EDIT: From Anonymous Knight: “As far as I know, the deal was print only. Online had a different embargo - earlier. I’ve got a mate on [removed European PC mag] who was offered it, but I don’t know about the consoles / officials. Sounds like an over eager EA rep trying to impress his bosses.”

Agreed, but it still shouldn’t happen. We asked PC Gamer editor Tim Edwards about the deal, and he refused to comment.

The Price Is Shite (Starring Gillen, Taurus, Porter & Mott)

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Well over a year ago, we were asked to write a piece on how much reviewers should take game prices into account when reviewing and scoring in light of EA taking the piss out the entire country with its pricing for the original Rock Band set. The mag it was going to appear in folded shortly before it was due to publish (they usually have the decency to go tits up after we’ve administered our kiss of death). It seems a shame to see it go to waste before we disappear again, as it had some excellent contributions from Rick Porter (Editor of gamesTM), Dave McCarthy / Taurus (ex-Editor of Edge and current Triforce slacker), and Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winner).

We also asked current Edge Chief-Editor-In-Chief-Editor-In-Chief Tony Mott for comment, and received some of the finest prose to escape his fingertips:

“I've just had a look at your web site and you don't seem to have changed your stance on Edge (you still believe it to be a piece of shit, as far as I can tell).”

Although the focus of the piece was originally concerned with stuff that nobody cares about anymore such as the Rock Band pricing, the original iPhone, Gerstmann-gate and EA being cunts, it now seems relevant again thanks to Activision openly taking the piss out of you with their pricing for Modern Warfare 2, Tony Hawk RIDE and DJ Hero. So here, without the vast majority of our own wittering commentary, is the piece presented in more of an interview style so you can enjoy it even if you hate everything we stand for.

***

Every editor has their own idea about how much price should affect the scores given to games when reviewed. I've had my fair share of arguments with editors who think prices should play no part in the review, as I couldn't disagree more. Our jobs are to tell our readers whether they should part with their hard-earned money for the privilege of playing a game. Some editors get so totally lost somewhere in the yards of intestinal tract they spend most of their adult lives inspecting that they forget this simple fact. They become utterly blind to the notion that just because they get sent everything for free, along with assorted bribes and freebies, and of course the free parties where they play with all their little chums and have a jolly good time, all of their readership will have to pay out to enjoy the same experience.

Fortunately I'm describing a minority here, as most editors and review outlets do adopt a policy in their style guides that prices should be considered when awarding a score. Fifty quid for Audiosurf? Fuck off – 2/10. Five quid for Audiosurf? Yes please – 8/10.

But hey, I'm not always right, so I asked some of the mags and review outlets what they have to say about all this.

Rick Porter (Editor, GamesTM): “How to score titles when the price-tag strays away from the norm? It's something that myself and the team have struggled with plenty over the last 18 months. When a game is more or less free, it is very easy to justify treating the price as a distinctly separate issue. Besides, if pricing were allowed to be a contributing factor to scores then any flash game or title that's made available for free should almost certainly be awarded a perfect ten. Therefore, when reviewing games, the only way is to have a policy that disregards external factors such as pricing.”

David McCarthy (Former Editor, Edge): “I remember when I was working on Edge, the reviewing policy was to simply assume that Edge readers, being the early-adopting technophiles that we all imagined them to be, would assume that price was no object, and we reviewed games accordingly. And actually, that was fairly easy for me, because, impoverished though I was, price was no object for me when I bought Samba de Amigo, or when, for example, I bought an import GameCube with the money my mum had given me one Christmas to buy a bed. I'd rather play Super Monkey Ball than sleep comfortably.”

RAM Raider: “Now that's an interesting viewpoint – if your readership are so hardcore that they've learnt Japanese so they can play Final Fantasy "the way it's meant to be played", and think nothing of crashing the Tokyo Game Show whilst keeping a copy of their Scandinavian Game Development supplement with them for the plane journey, then it would be senseless to punish the quality of gameplay through a review just because of its associated RRP. In a way, it's moving away from critiquing the pure quality of the game. Nevertheless, £180 is still taking the piss.”

Porter: “When something is horrendously overpriced, the conscience begins to nag a little harder. When you're advising a largely young audience to part with hundreds rather than tens of pounds, you feel obliged to take things such as value for money into consideration. Fortunately, being one of the more mature videogame magazines on the market, I choose to assume that anyone reading gamesTM knows the worth of £180, is aware of the risks involved in spending it on a videogame and are, ultimately, sure that they can afford to spend the amount without too much consequence.”

RR: “So it seems that both Edge and gamesTM are familiar enough with their readership to know what the majority of them want – reviews of the games, rather than their price tags. But this brings us around to the question of whether particular audiences are that demarcated from Mr Average Gamer. If someone outside of the demographic picked up a copy of either mag hoping to see whether the game is worth mortgaging their house for, would it be reasonable for them to expect the reviewer to have considered the price?”

Kieron Gillen (RR Award-winning journo): “There's some very well meaning people, including several of my friends, who believe that the price shouldn't influence a review. I think they're about as wrong as you can get. A review in a consumer magazine is primarily a consumer guide, and the mark a shorthand for 'Should I get this or not?'. If a game is drastically overpriced – that is, giving an amount of entertainment beneath what a consumer would expect – I think it should affect the mark. It's part of the consumer protection part of the gig, and punishing developers who try to gouge consumers. You deal with everything in the body copy, allowing people to make up their own mind. But you can't give a 10/10 for a game that's ludicrously overpriced, because then people will think you mean 'It's worth it'. And you *don't* think it's worth it.”

RR: “Three reviewers, three different perspectives. On one extreme, we've got Gillen who thinks reviewers should take pricing into consideration. On the other, we've got McCarthy who thinks the dead opposite. Somewhere in between the two, albeit closer to McCarthy's camp, Porter thinks pricing should only minimally influence the reviewer when it's extraordinarily high. Are you following all this?”

Porter: “Could there be confusion? Almost definitely. When we gave Wii Play a fairly low score, there was a cry from many forums claiming that we were wrong to score a game that essentially cost five pounds in such a harsh way. It was agreed that it wasn't a great title, but all were willing to pay the asking price due to the Remote they received in the package. A shrewd piece of marketing by Nintendo who were obviously aware that all who purchased a Wii also owned Wii Sports – a title that near demanded a second Remote to be fully enjoyed. In the case of Rock Band, we awarded a high score. The game is excellent. Would we have come under fire from the same people who didn't agree with the Wii Play score had we marked it down to a four simply because of its high price? Definitely.”

RR: “So what about import reviews – can mags really be blamed for reviewing foreign code for the sake of an early review?”

Gillen: “Imports isn't really relevant to what I mainly do – a lot of mags re-review when it gets a UK release, like the lovely NGamer. What may be relevant is when I get sent a boxed copy of a game which is available much cheaper online, like many casual games. In that case, yeah, it affects the mark – as I'm reviewing the package I was sent and I'll actively point people in the direction of where they should get it from in the text.”

RR: “There's a lot of sense in that argument. To describe the job of the reviewer as being to review the game purely on its merits to the exclusion of all else would be misleading semantics. The real reason reviewers exist is to allow the reader to vicariously experience the game through them so they know if it's something they need to buy. In this sense, wouldn't ignoring the price be effectively ignoring the fact that in the real world, people have to pay for stuff?”

McCarthy: “I don't have a massive amount of sympathy for people complaining about the price of Rock Band. If you don't like the price, don't buy the game. Or move somewhere better than Britain. I mean, it's not just games, is it? As for the general point: if reviewers want to review a game based on its price, that's up to them, as long as they make it clear that's what they're doing. I'm basically in favour of reviewers reviewing a game however they want, as long as they make clear the basis upon which they form their judgements.”

Porter: “Wherever there is room for confusion and complaint, you can be sure that some will be confused and complain about it. I doubt there's any real solution to the problem. All that can be asked is that each magazine team is aware of the readership it has and points out issues where they see fit.”

RR: “The most important point underpinning McCarthy and Porter's argument is that there has to be clarity when it comes to the magazine, or the reviewer, getting the approach they're taking in the review across to the reader. But in an age where people will log on to MetaCritic to view a list of scores, or will happily just flick through to the last paragraph of a mag's review in WHSmith, what are the readers expecting?”

Gillen: “I suppose it's a natural conclusion of 'Some People Just Read The Mark'. If that's all they read, you need to actually carry the message, 'Not Worth It', in there. People who read the review will make up their own mind. And – frankly – publishers should be punished for trying it on.”

RR: “As compelling as the well considered and largely well-meaning viewpoints of fine journalists such as McCarthy and Porter are, particularly the attitude of reviewing the “game” rather than the “product”, it's hard not to ultimately agree with Gillen on this one. At the end of the day, we're not just here to tell the readers what's worth investing their time, and nothing more, in. Some other reviewers really do need reminding occasionally that their readers, those people they write for (remember them… anyone?), don't generally get sent stuff for free.

Gillen: “I suppose the central point is, 'I think that games journalists should remember when they spent thirty quid on a game and felt ripped off'. It's a good general rule.”

OPM Dodges Arkham Asylum Embargo With A 9

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Still playing “spot the corruption”? There’s still time, as the general embargo hasn’t lifted yet. Ding!

Ding!

Ding ding ding!

Scans of the entire thing here.

By the way, if cunts keep posting numerous anonymous comments as if they’re from several different people, we’re going to start publishing IP addresses. Especially the ones associated with Eidos.

Why Publishers Love Exclusive “Reviews”

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:00:00 +0000

This ad is running on the back of issue 86 of GamesTM, out next week. It went to print before the issue of GamesMaster we featured last week was sent out to its readership, meaning that Eidos was privy to the score and text of GM’s “exclusive” before it was published. This, by the way, is very common, as it allows publishers to place borderline hysterical quotes like “Batman is a masterpiece” onto their advertising whilst simultaneously plugging the magazine the quote is plucked from.

For the record, the latest issue of GamesTM doesn’t feature Arkham Asylum on the cover, nor a review, as they didn’t arrange to be excused from the general embargo.

Arkham Asylum: We Have A Winner

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Have you been playing “spot the corruption”?

Excitingly, the embargo hasn’t lifted yet. Ding!

Ding!

Ding ding ding!

“With regards an article posted on RamRaider alleging that Eidos has fixed review scores for Batman: Arkham Asylum, we want to state that no discussions have been held about review scores with any magazines. In short there is simply not one shred of truth in this article, except for the title of the game.”

Jon Brooke, Eidos UK marketing manager

Scans of the full review here, if you can somehow heroically endure it.

Games Media Awards 2009

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0000

We were going to do this on Twitter, but fuck it.

With your help, we got all of our favourites shortlisted for the GMAs last year. Sadly, the least deserving nominees then went about utilising the mags they and their mates write for to beg for votes, so the likes of Blyth didn’t win. The categories have been tweaked again this year, but they’re still relying on a cock-eyed system whereby PRs and old boys’ networks are, hnghh, “trusted” to pick winners.

So instead of asking for you to support the cream, and to spare ourselves the embarrassment of suggesting you vote for us so the shills can say “you must be fucking joking”, we’ve prepared a cut-and-paste email pointing out to the judges precisely who in the industry media can fuck off. If you don’t want to use email, pledge your support anonymously in the comments box and we’ll send it all off to the lovely Dave Roberts at GMA@intentmedia.co.uk so he can pass them along to the fuckwitted judges.

“Hullo Dave!

Here is a list of people who can fuck off when it comes to the GMAs:

Edge, Edge, any Official mag, Edge, PC Gamer, The Guardian and any other newspaper, any mainstream magazine, Edge, and RockPaperShotgun, as any commercial blog that wastes its readers’ time with 10,000 words on magnetic games compendiums and multi-part features about themselves (no, really) can double-fuck off. And Edge.

I also demand that you instate a category of ‘Best Cold Dead Blog & Associated Twitter Feed That Fucks Off The Industry With The Uncomfortable Truth.’

Thanks. Bye.”

If you want to support the deserving a little more directly, here’s who we’ve properly nominated:

Games Magazine: GamesTM & Retro Gamer

Games Website: The Unreliable Eurogamer

Specialist Games Writer (Print): Jon Blyth

Specialist Games Writer (Online): The Unreliable Eurogamer’s Tom Bramwell

Games Blog: VG247.com

Games Broadcast or Podcast: R1’s Johnny Minkley & Byron’s One Life Left

Rising Star: NGamer’s Alan Ismail (hehehe)

Games Media Legend: Stuart Campbell

ONM’s Rushed Wii Sports Resort Review

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:30:00 +0000

This has probably been the worst attempt at closing down a blog in the history of everything, ever. Seeing as we’ve already broken silence (erm, twice), we’re going to offload a few posts that we were saving up for a one-off later in the year. And then we’ll fuck off again. Probably.

“Just thought I'd bring the Official Nintendo Magazine’s review of Wii Sports Resort to your attention (flagged up by the GRcade forums). The review is atrociously bad on practically every single level. I’d wager the word “well” & variations of “works really well” have never appeared together so often ever before. Bear in mind this is one review...

When describing the Frisbee... “The controls work really well”

Wakeboarding... “The controls work well”

Table Tennis... “Actually works really well”

Power Cruising... “Actually works really well”

Table Tennis again... “In fact it actually works really well”

Archery... “But I have to admit this one worked really, really well”

Cycling... “Works well”

Archery for a second time... “Works very well”

Couple in typos ("you have get to the front of the course over the whole competition") & their review must have been cobbled together in record time. Shameful.

Anonymous Knight”

Eurogamer Editor Tom Bramwell On Embargos

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:00:00 +0000

By now we've all read RAM Raider's post about Batman reviews. I wrote Rammy an email on Friday night in which I raised a few points about it, and, as with all good Friday night emails, I regretted it immediately when I woke up on Saturday morning, because I was horribly inarticulate and bonkers throughout. So I wrote another email asking if I could write a clearer reply making a point that I think is often overlooked or goes without discussion, and then maybe he could publish that. If you're reading this, rather than a post entitled "Eurogamer editor sends mad email then panics", then Rammy is a gentleman. (Although, actually, that's still quite a good title.)

I believe we would all be much better off without review embargoes. One day, I hope to live in a world where developers finish making games, and their publishers immediately ship them off to as many critics as possible, encouraging us to write them up whenever we like, and allowing us to tell you whether we love them or hate them well before you find yourself staring at them in the shops. You would have plenty of time to make your mind up, developers and publishers would have lots of feedback to consider, and the quality of reviews would dictate the success or otherwise of the magazines and websites that published them, so there would be no sense in rushing to be "first!" (People would still do that for a while, but they'd get over it.)

That's the dream, so what's the reality?

With websites, the most common approach taken by game publishers is to provide review copies a week or two before release and specify a date and time that the review can go live. This is usually just before the US release date, which is a few days before the European one. Some publishers only specify embargoes on big releases, and allow other reviews to go up as soon as the publication likes after receiving the game. Elsewhere, there are a couple who I'd happily single out for praise. Sony frequently provides review code a month or more in advance of release on major games, and although it does set embargoes, these are usually well ahead of the release date, as with Killzone 2 and inFamous this year. One company, meanwhile, often provides games a month or more ahead of release and seldom sets any embargo at all. Stand up Nintendo, and take a bow.

However, it's not all like that. In the bad old days, websites struggled to get hold of review copies until the day of release, and sometimes had to wait until after that. Or - more frequently with magazines than websites, as far as I know - review copies were only provided if a publication agreed to a high score in advance, which is the sort of thing Rammy is highlighting. This behaviour is much less prominent than it used to be, but it does still happen. One of the biggest publishers in the world, for instance, makes it very difficult to review its games in the UK before the US release date, and sometimes even the UK one, even when said games are actually very good.

In this case, I'd like to separate the two aspects of Rammy's report and try and demonstrate why there is hope amongst the apparent bleakness. Whether or not the events described are true is immaterial - this sort of thing does happen, and the two key parts are: 1) A game provided for review in time for magazines to publish their thoughts ahead of release. 2) An offer to allow people to publish earlier if they really like the game. The part about the 9/10 proposal is something I've written about before, and as I said then, I think that in theory it is acceptable providing the publication behaves honestly. It's then up to its readers to decide whether it acted honourably or not.

In this instance, I think it's worth focusing on the first part: the idea of a publisher providing review copies in sufficient time for all manner of magazines and websites to publish their verdicts before the game is available to buy. This is becoming more common, and I believe that's progress. Similarly, I think Sony and Nintendo and the other examples I provided originally are signs of progress.

One has to remember that a game publisher's ideal scenario is completely the opposite of ours. Theirs is that only positive reviews appear before release, and preferably right around release, so that people's attention is drawn to the launch of something apparently loved by critics. While some do still attempt to stage that situation, plenty are now on the road to siding with us. There are loads of reasons for this, but one of the most prominent is that the internet remembers, and people don't like being fooled. It's actually better, a few Mr Publishers now believe, to live with the fact that a mediocre game is going to get low scores, because one day they will have a really good game to sell, and people will be more likely to believe the good things they're hearing about it.

Let's not paint too rosy a picture: we're still a long way from the dream scenario of tons of early reviews and every publisher taking the bad with the good, and it's important that commentators like Rammy continue to talk about review embargoes and let the people publishing games know that, in the long run, it will be best to do away with them completely. But the point I wanted to make, which I've hopefully stumbled into somewhere in the knots of text above, is that we *are* getting there, slowly but surely, and I believe that, in attacking the practices of PR and marketing people, we must make sure that we define our criticism specifically so as not to discourage that progress.

Tom Bramwell

Editor, Eurogamer

Eidos Seek 90% Score & Cover For Arkham Asylum In Exchange For Early Review

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: We Have A Winner

Unlike our no-longer-regularly-updated blog, corruption in the games industry has so far failed to go into hibernation. In the week that Eidos has breathed its last, they’ve decided to go out with a bang by brazenly attempting to artificially hype up their forthcoming Arkham Asylum release.

Several mags have their review code already, but have to sit on their reviews until a hateful embargo expires at the end of the month. But Eidos, ever the helpful fellows that they are, have been offering a way around this embargo. If you dedicate the cover of your mag to Arkham Asylum and guarantee a score of at least 90%, Eidos will allow you to run the review early.

We know that one editor has already valiantly told Eidos to fuck off, but we can’t tell you which to protect our Anonymous Dark Knight. We also asked the usually chatty UK Officially Corrupt Xbox 360 Magazine editor Jon Hicks about it, who tellingly clammed up tighter than a nun’s cunt at the mere mention.

But what of the others? Well, there’s an exciting way to find out in the form of a game that you can play at home over the next month called “Spot The Corrupt Arkham Asylum Review”. You see, Arkham Asylum is a decentish release that’s not quite up to par when it comes to variety and depth. This means even the most charitable outlets should settle at no more than the 80s in their verdicts, but don’t be surprised if you see a few 7s from the pseuds.

This means that if you see a mag turn up within the next few weeks (ding!) that features Arkham Asylum on its cover (ding!) and gives it at least 90% (ding ding ding!), you have a winner.

Exciting…

UPDATE: We Have A Winner

Darkfall: The Truth

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:00:00 +0000

You may or may not have heard about the minor scandal that’s befallen Eurogamer over their Darkfall Online review. Having our noses firmly rammed into the crotch of corruption, we were asked to look into it, and now we have done. We’ve got slightly more to say than 140 characters will accommodate, so we’re using the blog as a TwitteRR overflow box. You may be surprised at our conclusions.

The Facts

Ex-PC Zone lad Ed Zitron wrote a review of indy developed MMORPG Darkfall Online for Eurogamer, which went live on Tuesday. He gave it 2/10, which upset the game’s fanboys. The real shit started to fly when a guy called Tasos from Aventurine, the company that developed the game, claimed that the server logs showed that the review account Zitron had access to was only accessed for two hours (which he later changed to three).

EG’s editor, Tom Bramwell, posted an editorial on EG which claimed that Zitron had played it for at least nine hours. He also offered to have the game re-reviewed by Gillen.

Full Disclosure

Obviously we don’t operate in a vacuum so, in the interests of full disclosure (a dirty concept in this industry), here’s the extent of our relationships with those involved.

We like Zitron, and we like his writing to the extent that we helped him get nominated for a GMA. But keep in mind that this didn’t stop us from exclusively breaking the PC Zone story (which GI.biz and RPS misattributed later).

We also like Bramwell, and have a cordial relationship with him as RR, but we’ve both criticised and supported the unreliable EG in the past.

Finally, we’ve got no prior relationship with Aventurine. If you want to derive bias from any of that, then go for it.

The Truth

After speaking to several well placed and extremely reliable Anonymous Knights, we can confirm that the nine hour figure given in Bramwell’s editorial was a conservative estimate. We’ve got no way of checking if Bramwell’s doubts about the accuracy of the server logs are true, as Aventurine don’t want us to see them. We trust our Anonymous Knights more than some logs which aren’t open to examination, so we believe that Zitron played the game for at least nine hours.

As for whether Zitron fucked up the review, EG have offered a re-review by an “independent” journo. Gillen technically isn’t independent in that sense, as he’s freelanced for EG for years. However, he’s, shall we say, “confident enough in his own abilities” to consider his opinion of a game as being more important than anything else in known existence. Whether or not you agree with Gillen’s reviews, you can guarantee that it would be based purely on his opinion of the game. Aventurine claim they agree with this, but are refusing a re-review by falling back on the slightly baffling excuse that other people will think he’s a shill unless he does it for someone else (he’s told us he won’t).

We’re not in a position to comment personally on Zitron’s accuracy in the review, as we’ve got no intention of playing Darkfall without getting well paid for it. The consensus on Aventurine’s forums shows a split between those who agree (which includes established forumites, judging by their profiles) and those who don’t. Several other Anonymous Knights tell us that Darkfall Online is shit boring, and a few others said they couldn’t bring themselves to play for long without needing to answer the call that something more pressing needs attending to.

Now here’s the point for everyone who’s claimed that nine hours isn’t long enough to get the measure of review code: A game can give you the most exhilarating, exciting, rewarding experience possible short of inducing a hand to thrust out of your monitor ready to rub your cock, but if it does so after making you sit through nine dull, broken hours, then guess what? That still makes it a shit game.

That’s elementary games reviewing.

Elementary common sense would dictate that, generally, if a reviewer doesn’t like a game that you like, it might be taking things just a little too far when you start making threats to break their arms and publishing their phone number on a forum. It might also make you look like a raging, sagging, fish-flecked, loose-lipped cunt if you run the official forum, but allow contact details to stay up for over eight hours despite being told about them.

You know what? Zitron was probably too harsh on the game, and definitely got carried away with giving it a good old fashioned Campbellisation. But when a fellow reviewer gets rounded on by an official forum with threats and the publication of his contact details inviting abusive emails and MySpace messages, which he’s received, and Aventurine sit around for hours whilst this goes on, it leaves a nasty taste in our mouths.

The moral of the story? We should go back to the good old days when mags routinely included a second opinion as part of the everyday reviews process. It worked.

Also, Aventurine really need to learn the right way to complain about stuff without coming across as demented cockbats.

Missing Us?

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:30:00 +0000

http://twitter.com/RAMRaiderBlog

This Is The End

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve overshot our self-imposed deadline as usual, but who’s counting? After three years, eight months, five impotent legal threats, one prediction by Gillen that we’d be found out, no advertising, and a slight overuse of the word “cunt”, we’re done.

Everything we’ve posted will remain here, and we’ll put up an index so you can jump straight to the “good” stuff if you need an antidote to NGJ or Edge in our absence. We’ll probably keep a few sections updated, so keep checking Things Cunts Say and the pioneering Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism.

As for us – well, let’s drop the collective terminology for a moment. As for me, I’ll still be on email and Facebook, and I’ll still respond to anything you send me. If you’ve got something juicy, send it anyway and I might post it as part of a one-off when I start missing the blog in six months from now. Or something. Also, apologies if you’ve ever sent anything in the past and I’ve not got back to you. I'm too disorganised to keep abreast of a blog like this.

There’s not much else to say, other than to address certain people who think they can bully their writers into confessing to writing this blog. You can’t, so stop it.

(Not every mag I've worked for is in the image above, and one's a red herring.)

Remain ever vigilant for corruption, incompetence, PR ineptitude, and cunty writing – it’ll never go away, but at least you know what to look out for, and you’ll always have the comments thread to moan about it all.

Finally, I really can’t thank you enough for the humbling/flattering comments so many of you have given me on the blog, through Facebook, via email, and through your own websites. When I’ve been straining against seventy walls of shit coming down on me after some of the riskier posts, it was always great to see that the whinging vocal minority aren’t as right as they think they are.

Dearest Anonymous Knights – I’m RAM Raider. Until our paths meet again, I bid you all farewell.

EDIT: OK, so posting this before breaking the biggest gaming scandal of the year wasn't the best timing, but to clarify - this blog is no longer regularly updated, but will continue to host to one-offs as and when needed. Enjoy.

Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism: Fallout 3

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Strap your arms to your sides before you read this, or you may gouge your eyes from your skull before the paragraph’s out:

“It’s hard to pin down the problem, but there is a reason why, however intelligent we may be, we mostly read Henning Mankell ahead of Tolstoy and watch Woody Allen instead of Bergman. There comes a point in the evolution of any art form – and releases like this make any quibbling over games’ claims to such status laughable – when the supposed masters of it leave the mass audience behind. It’s probably inevitable, by no means a bad thing and mostly explainable in terms of mostly finite consumer qualities. In other words, the amount of effort, time or brains that you can bring to the table will play a large part in determining how deeply you can appreciate an artwork’s quality. If you’re not convinced by the thesis, have a look at Ulysses.”

The Daily Mail’s James O’Brien’s Fallout 3 review… sorry, thesis.

RR New Year’s Honours List

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This was going to be part two of a feature that would have started with the Christmas Cunts List, but a crashing attack of conscience stopped us from taking pot-shots when it’s the season of supposed goodwill. Instead, here’s who we like and respect:

Kieron Gillen

We want to finish this blog leaving one thing absolutely clear: we’ve got so much respect for Gillen, it’s almost embarrassing. God knows he talks shit from time to time, and we’ll happily join in with the communal piss onto his face over that NGJ Manifesto bollocks, but none of that really meaningfully damages the fact that he seriously knows what he’s talking about. Pretentions aside, there’s one of the best understandings of games journalism out of anyone in the industry ticking away inside his bespectacled head. We also think it’s telling that out of everyone we know in the business, only the arrogant narcissists seem to dislike him. Interesting, that.

Tom Bramwell

One of the most level-headed guys in games journalism and, ironically for the editor of the Unreliable EuroGamer, a consistently good writer. He most impressed us this year by stepping up and taking responsibility for EG’s Braid review, which puts to shame every other editor of the journos and mags we’ve criticised. It lies in stark contrast to the Bath Elitorati, who just cry like bitches whenever we level a shot at someone in their perpetual circle jerk.

Jon Log Blyth

If justice was something that actually existed, Blyth would be swamped with work offers on the basis of him being the best games journalist this country has. But there is no thing as justice, so the absence of his cock in the arses of the establishment means he gets nowhere near the recognition he deserves.

Anonymous Knights

The lifeblood not only of this blog, but the industry itself. We salute every last one of you.

You

Some people read because they find the blog funny, others because they love having pissy fits with people they don’t know. Either way, thanks for giving us a higher monthly readership than Edge.

The Inexplicable Madness

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Seven games journos from the Unreliable EuroGamer talk sense about Little Big Planet:

Dan Whitehead: I’m honestly quite surprised to find LBP at the top of the heap. Few games made me grind my teeth more in 2008. It looks lovely and is bursting with charm and clever ideas, and has Stephen Fry’s rich mahogany narration, but...it’s just not very good at being a platform game. Is that just me? The floaty ambience, unpredictable environments and crude checkpoint system all made it a bit of a chore to get through, as far as I’m concerned. Platforming requires precision, and that’s something that LittleBigPlanet just doesn’t have. It’s as woolly as its star.

Simon Parkin: That the responsibility for the game’s greatness rests on us and not on the developer is unusual, and for that reason the endless plaudits make me uneasy.

Tom Bramwell: I almost feel guilty that it wasn’t on my list at all, but it leaves me completely cold: the platforming is overburdened with self-conscious presentation its imprecise controls and frustrating checkpoints fail to justify, and the editor was too slow and complicated for my pathetic brain to bother with.

Kristan Reed: Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to seems to agree that LBP makes for a fairly boring single-player experience, but becomes absolutely mesmerising in co-op with the right player. The online lag is ruinous most of the time, and the added inertia on the jump mechanic makes it needlessly fiddly when the going gets tough.

Kieron Gillen: I can’t help but wonder - if a game’s based around user-generated content, and the fact you’re on a console means that you can’t actually let gamers generate their content without half of it being deleted because it infringes some copyright or another... isn’t that just a fundamentally flawed concept?

John Walker: All I’ve read about this is that the platforming is rubbish, and you have to make your own if you want to play a decent level.

Rob Fahey: I’m surprised that this is number one… It’s not my personal favourite game of 2008.

Perfection. Except, they’re all talking about why Little Big Planet is the Unreliable EuroGamer’s number 1 game of the year.

Excuse us while our heads explode.

The RAM Raider Special Award For Cuntitude Above & Beyond The Usual Standard Of Cuntiness Expected On A Day To Day Basis Amongst Games Industry Cunts

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The last of the RR Awards is a special category designed to recognise the delightful attitudes of those in the industry during the last three and a bit years the blog’s been running. In a half-arsed attempt at building tension, we’ll start off with the runners up:

“Derek Smart. Derek Smart. Derek Smart.”
Anonymous Knight, via comments

Nothing like a blast from the past.

“Ubisoft. Lying, cheating and arrogant SCUM.”
Anonymous Knight, via comments

Remember a few years back, when Ubi turned themselves around from being long-running devs of mildly disappointing games to franchise starters such as Sands Of Time? And now they’re EA reincarnate.

“All these entries and no nominations for Bruce Everiss yet? Uncanny. Obvious cunt of the year for being part of a management team in the 1980s who blew a zillion pounds on sports cars and adverts for fuck all while the company they were supposed to be running went to the wall, then 20 years later trying to blame it on schoolkids with £19.99 twin tape deck stereos from Dixons despite actually admitting it years earlier, then going out of his way to destroy, delete or intimidate anyone who pointed out what a stupid fuckoid he was being.”
Anonymous Knight, via comments

Read about why he’s such a cunt on Campbell’s forum, or see our previous post on him. He really has no grasp of how much of a twat he is.

“There are literally a million people eligible for this award, but it’s gotta be Mark Cale. Everyone who knows him hates him. It’s impossible to like a cunt of this magnitude. And to top off his cuntitude, he’s always trying to fuck over developers by not paying them. He very nearly went bust last year but slimed his way out of it at the last moment. And all his games are shit. Ferrari Challenge? Please. Dog shit, regardless of how many press releases you issue bigging it up. A cuntish, dreadful man.”
Anonymous Knight, via email

So all this must mean the winner is…

“EA. Nobody has managed to get away with as much forceful shit on the industry as they have.”
Anonymous Knight, via email

Exciting 4th Birthday Gimmick

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:00:00 +0000

EDIT: Originally posted on 5th April 2009; moved to make way for the contents page.

A resurrection? A u-turn? A phoenix from the ashes? Nope – just a quick post to mark our fourth birthday. Yup, it really has been four years since a slightly worrying persona was gestated in the womb of a breakdown after constant rodding from the semi-flaccid gut-sticks of the industry, only to rip its way out taking a bit of flap on the way, and landing squarely on a hastily set up Blogger page covered in its own embryonic fluids.

As is tradition, we’ve got a birthday gimmick for you to indulge in. But first, a quick update.

We promised to put up the collected works of Ridiculous Statements Masquerading As Games Journalism in an easy-to-update format when we packed up updating the blog back in January, but never got around to it. That’ll be up within the next few days, along with the contents page we also promised before wandering away to crack off onto a pile of old mags from the glory days.

Also, although the blog’s no longer being updated, we’re still active on e-mail and Facebook.

If you want to keep closer tabs on us, just nip down to our local parole office and ask for the sexual offenders’ monitoring unit. Failing that, you can become one of our beautiful Twitter followers.

We started the Twitter account as a locked experiment, but opened it up when we were “discovered” by our very first follower, Dan Griliopoulos, who’s since left in disgust.

If you’ve not been following our updates, you’ll have missed highlights such as us asking N’Gai Fucking Croal if he intends to apologise to the innocent Capcom developers he defamed by accusing them of using racist imagery to serve his own cause of self-publicity. His considered response was “Sensitive thugs, y’all all need hugs” (sic), whilst one of his gang suggested we were being racist without a hint of irony. Just to remind you: this is the man whose every word is hung from by the self-appointed cream of the industry.

For more “fun” like that, and to gasp in horror at just how willing our fellow journalists are to openly wank each other off to the point that we’re all drowning in seminal fluid and the blood that’s gushing from their cracked foreskins, hook up now or subscribe using RSS.

And now, our birthday gimmick. After fielding a surprising number of suggestions from our beloved TwitteRR Knights, we’ve decided to ignore them all by doing this: The RAM Raider Apologia Gimmick. The idea is simple – if you think we owe you an apology, tell us, and you’ll get one.

Whether you think we’ve overstepped the mark with you, been overly rude to you or about you, or simply passed comment about your inane writing, contact us through any of the usual ways or via the comments box and you’ll get an apology.

A couple of things to note: you have to be asking for an apology for yourself. This will no doubt come as an enormous disappointment to the Bath Elitorati who had at this point already got halfway through their pompous, righteous emails about how we should immediately address the fact that we’ve included one of their buddies on the Ridiculous Statements or Cunt Of The Year or what the fuck ever lists, and that we should apologise immediately so they can bask in their own self-adoration and assure their mates that their writing is actually fantastic and deserving of worldwide approval rather than being middling-at-best. Which it is.

Also, this is a one-time deal. If you’re getting currency out of telling anyone that’ll listen (or has to listen because they’ve got the misfortune of being seated next to you in the office or the pub) how “out of order” we’ve been to you, then it’s time to put up or shut the fuck up. Let this opportunity slide, and you’ve officially got nothing to complain about.

And maybe after we’ve done some apologising, just maybe, it’ll rub off on certain other cunts who have made outrageous accusations that they can’t back up. Probably not, though.

Finally, thanks for all the messages asking for the blog to be brought back, but we really don’t have any plans to do so in the near future. Keep being nice though, and we might consider doing a one off late in the year.

Until then, look out for the collected Ridiculous Statements post, contents post, and The RAM Raider Apologia Gimmick. Goodbye, lovelies.

RR Most Ridiculous Statement Masquerading As Games Journalism 2008: IGN Australia

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Our personal favourite award threw up some gems, but fuck knows, there’s plenty out there to choose from. The winner has dropped straight from the encrusted slit of a game that’s proven to be an efficient shit magnet in its effectiveness at drawing together the assorted things cunts say – none other than the RR Most Overrated Pile Of Shite 2008 winner, Little Shit Planet. Here’s IGN Australia’s take on it:

‘On the surface, LittleBigPlanet is all about jumping and stickers and rainbows and ponies and having a good time with friends. But if you delve deeper and look past the infectiously approachable presentation, there’s something far more curious at play. LittleBigPlanet is actually all about the fundamentals of cause and effect relationships, man in his environment and how we relate to the world around us.’

“No, it isn’t. It’s a game about sackboys.”

Dan de la peche, via Facebook

The notable nominations list sees another nod to IGN, this time featuring shit-speak about GTA4:

“IGN’s GTAIV review includes such eyebrow-raising lines as:”

‘Helicopters are also very tough to control in this fashion – it’s as if Rockstar thought they were making a game about dragons.’

“What?”

‘Go to location, kill people to get to target, chase target, kill target -- it never feels repetitive.’

“Not at all! Even if it is simply the same formula repeated from its predecessors.”

Melaisis, via website

And finally, it’s only right and proper that our favourite award should include a mention of our favourite magazine:

‘Gaming magazine and website, Edge, announced at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival that it has awarded its fourth Award for Innovation to Bungie’s popular Halo 3.

‘Halo 3, just as Halo 2 did before it, presents a roadmap for the way online will be integrated into videogames in the coming year,’ said Alex Wiltshire, Deputy Editor of Edge.’

“What a pile of fucking horseshit.”

Anonymous Knight, via email

The Future Publishing Christmas Party

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Every year, the glorious fatherland of Future Publishing throws a Christmas party for all of its minions. Because they care.

2007’s Christmas party was much like any other: jam-packed full of cunts. A cheap selection box of cunts; a hairy, stinking pit of gash, if you will. After all, no cunts clutter up the toilets quite like the targets-driven cunts in marketing.

But you do what everyone does in parties: find the people you like and stick to them like shit, thankful you're not draped alone over a flotsam plank, drowning in the free wine.

To be honest, we might as well spout off about estate agents for all the predictable shit about advertisers and marketers we could bring up. But what really fucked our pipes of pissiness was that year’s replacement for “the lottery”. In previous years, they simply sold the tickets to the Bath offices (home of the Bath Elitorati) who’d got there first.

This year, because they’d forgotten to sell any lottery tickets, or perhaps because they thought that a company called “Future” shouldn't be seen openly using cloakroom tickets, they played a game called “Heads Or Tails”. This game, ideal for parties where you have a manageable number of people – who aren't massive, lying cunts – involves all players putting their hands on their head or their arse. The compere flips a coin, and anyone who has their hands on the inappropriate part of their body sits down.

The first round involved whittling the crowd down to a manageable number. It’s also the round where you’re least likely to get caught cheating – your lying, greedy hands can be moved quickly to correspond with the coin toss, and you’re surrounded by your friends. Your friends might be quietly disgusted by your barefaced grasping, but they won’t grass you up. And hey – they’re sat down, the fucking losers.

We stopped playing after the second flip to look around. Two main groups of people emerged – people looking around to their friends, saying “what the fuck are we being asked to do, couldn’t they buy some cloakroom tickets out of the money they’ve saved by sacking everyone,” and people earnestly copying the calls of the coin quickly enough to convince everyone around them that they were “just thinking about it”.

It’s worth mentioning at this stage that only a third of the attendees had a chair, making it impossible for them to sit down.

The finalists were invited onto the stage. At this point, the eyes of the audience are on you, so you can’t cheat. Or... so you’d think. A certain magazine editor swapped his hands immediately after the call, before being escorted from the stage in the next round. But most brazen, most sickening, and most victorious was the harpie shit in the backless dress who spent two rounds with one hand on her arse, and one on her head. Genius, in a sleazy little way. But standing there in front of everyone? That took cuntlips of steel, and she fucking had them.

So, that’s where we’re left – back at the beginning. Realising we’re all part of a company that doesn’t understand parlour games, let alone video games. A company that doesn’t just reward lies, cheating and shitting on your colleagues, but makes that preference (or, most charitably, their utter indifference) explicit, by openly rewarding the biggest, most shameless fucking thief in the company. Also, the lack of chairs was a lovely metaphor for a company that tells you to do something, but makes it impossible to do so honestly.

It made us puke. Well, something made us puke that night.

RR PR Cunt Of The Year 2008: Aruna Sinha

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

[Slightly Limp Disclaimer: Now that this blog has become bafflingly popular, it’s worth reiterating what our regulars know already – this award is based purely on how PR husks do their jobs, not on what they’re like personally. If they’re offended by this stuff, they’re in the wrong job (which they should be doing better, regardless). If you’re offended by this, you shouldn’t be reading. And you should also fuck off.]

So many to choose from. So much so that it takes a special degree of cuntiness to be singled out by the games journos they’re supposed to help as being particularly worthy of scorn. Leading up the pack is Aruna Sinha from Activision:

“No matter how much notice is given, how many agreements are made and how many deadlines are extended, Aruna will never fail to fail to deliver and generally be a huge pain in the arse. [“Experience something unpleasant” - Ed].”
Anonymous Knight, via email

Included in the notable nominations list is THQ’s Greg Jones:

“Greg Jones. Doesn't help, doesn't care.”
Anonymous Knight, via email

“Given the choice, I’d rather he was either honest enough to tell me he’s too inept to provide me with assets, or would just tell me to fuck off instead of stringing me along with his empty promises until I’m forced to kill what I’m working on on deadline day. Apathetic cunt.”
Anonymous Knight, via Facebook

And finally, Shaun White (not that Shaun White) from the pit of cunts itself, EA:

“What an ignorant shit he is. I hope he [“experiences something unpleasant” - Ed] in a fire.”
Anonymous Knight, via comments

RR PR Hero 2008: Jonnie Bryant

noreply@blogger.com (RAM Raider) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Considering the generally low standard of PR scum, all one would have to do to win this award is be mildly tolerable. Yet a handful of husks have managed to defy their positions more than you might expect by actually being half-decent human beings that, gasp, do their jobs.

Taking the crown is Jonnie Bryant from Vivendi:

“A man who answers his phone, gets you stuff quickly, and makes sure that things run smoothly no matter what. And he works for Vivendi, what the fuck is that about.”
Anonymous Knight, via email

Notable nominations include Vicky Arundel from Introversion, and Rich Eddy from Codemasters:

“Codemasters’ Rich Eddy. A long-serving industry gent who never fails to be friendly and, believe it or not, helpful.”
Anonymous Knight, via email

Taking nothing away from Rich, don’t let his company’s nomination fool you – the PR scum at Codemasters are some of the most unhelpful, surly fucking shits you’ll ever have the misfortune to deal with. More than once they’ve fucked us over when it comes to assets for previews. But hey, it’s not like they’re paid to make sure their games are covered in major specialist mags or anything.