by Kyle Orland on Thursday, November 01, 2007
It's been a busy month or so since I last did one of these, so let's get right into it.
The Halloween release of a modified, M-rated version of Manhunt 2 has set the mainstream media ablaze with reports highlighting the potential dangers of the new "most violent game ever." CBS posted reports on the Nightly News and The Early Show and the ABC Nightly News had a shorter piece (though correspondent Jake Tapper seems to wish he had more time). On the print side, an AP report on the controversy got wide distribution across the country, as AP reports are often wont to do.
All three reports seemed to stem from the same press release from parents advisory group CommonSense media. The group could be considered part of the game media itself, as it offers family-focused game reviews from the likes of freelancer Marc Saltzman and GamerDad Andrew Bub, among others. Oddly enough, a similar condemnation from California assemblyman Leland Yee didn't get nearly as much traction in the press. I guess it's harder to get attention when you're not actively trying to pass a law or get elected.
Anyway, I'd usually say a story like this doesn't have much staying power and will probably fade away with the news cycle, but then I heard rumors of unlockable AO-rated content in the PSP version of the game. Forget the "Hot Coffee" controversy... Hot Pliers anyone? [Note: the Manhunt 2 PSP hack has since been confirmed by Take-Two - Ed.]
Britain's first ever Game Media Awards (previously discussed here) have come and gone and with all the impact of a feather landing on a fluffy pillow. The presentation of the British-focused awards barely rated a mention on GamesIndustry.biz, whose sister site EuroGamer ran away with their fair share of trophies. Perhaps the magazine-specific awards going to three "official" Future magazines lessened the credibility of the awards, which were voted on by public relations representative from various big-name game companies.
Those who were at the show and/or up for awards did some bellyaching on their blogs. John Walker called for a pre-emptive boycott on sheer principle while the anonymous RAM Raider took his usual amusingly sardonic look at the whole proceedings. But the best analysis probably goes to Kieron Gillen, who accepted his award with good grace even after saying in this very column that the award was one "you wouldn't want to win.... because it's basically shorthand for 'Lapdog of the year award.'" In the end, Gillen realized that PR folks are "just people" and that "telling them to piss right off would be just rude." True enough.
Seems GamesRadar is a little pissed at IGN for what they see as rampant idea stealing. In an incredibly snarky "news story," they point out similarities between two GR-published "best of" lists and two similar lists that appeared weeks later on IGN.
They technically have a point, I guess, but really, everyone and their mother has run countless "top X" countdown lists at some point in their career. Is GamesRadar really claiming they have some sort of exclusive ownership of this concept? What's more, there's pretty convincing circumstantial evidence that GamesRadar has similarly stolen a more original story idea from 1UP in the past.
News outlets get inspiration for stories from other outlets all the time -- observe the overlap between the stories in the morning's New York Times and the pieces on the nightly network newscasts. As long as the reporting and writing are original, there's no point in crying about your brilliant idea being co-opted once it's out there. In short: Get over it.
Large swaths of the online game media got a bit of a black eye when a 1UP report about the renewed possibility of a Halo movie got picked up by Joystiq, Kotaku and CVG among others. Turns out the original report was based on a year-old Variety story that has since been completely discredited by new information. Kudos to ShackNews for noticing the error and pointing out the ridiculousness of the whole proceedings.
The debate over how to properly distill a game into a single number (previously discussed here has flared up again in a number of spots. A GameSetWatch column has an impressively in-depth look at what goes into a score; Dan Hsu's most recent EGM editorial (sadly not available online) discusses how two very different games can both deserve a "perfect" 10 for different reasons; Kotaku wonders why we review games like we do MP3 players; and Canada.com, of all places, takes a somewhat jaded look at the whole idea of giving scores in the first place. Interesting reading all around.
Kudos to G4 for picking up some actual game-related programming in the form of Major League Gaming coverage starting Nov. 16. This kind of thing is a much better fit for the supposedly game/tech-centric network than reruns of shows like Heroes and Lost. Now the big question ... can you succeed where others have failed and actually get people to watch?
Kudos to Kotaku for an interesting angle on their Solider of Fortune: Payback coverage. Brian Crecente actually talked to the publisher of the magazine that inspired the game and found out he doesn't actually play video games, partly because he's afraid he'd get addicted. The best part is the guy mistakenly calling Crecente, "Cervantes." Y'know, now that you mention it, he does kind of look like a Cervantes.
And finally, kudos to Black Dog Media, who's decided to publish Britain's first ever Girls' Guide to Gaming to take advantage of the success of the Wii and Nintendo DS among the fairer sex. Even bigger kudos for making the cover extremely bright pink because, as we all know, girls love things that are cute and pink and hate everything else. Maybe if Edge had bright pink covers it would attract more female readers. Hmmm...
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Got something you'd like to see on Media Coverage? Send it to kyle.orland@gmail.com.
Kyle Orland is a full time video game freelancer based out of Laurel, MD and the co-author of The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. He has written for a variety of outlets, as detailed on his workblog. He just wasn't made for these times.
Media Coverage is an opinion column. The opinions expressed in this column are solely the opinions of the columnist and are not necessarily the opinions of GameDaily.com.
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