• 30Apr 08

  The scoop on the GTA IV score

  Right, so let's talk about that GTAIV score. For those who haven't seen or heard, here's the deal: there was a bug in our publishing system on Monday that caused the incorrect score for GTAIV, a 9.5, to appear for on some pages for a while. This happened hours before we posted the actual score with the review, a 10. This has all led to a lot of talk and speculation so I'm going to set things straight, short answer: it's not true. Longer answer requires me to run you through stuff which I'll be doing now.

  Our review process is like so: Once our reviewer has finished the game, he writes his review, submits it to copyedit, and then goes back over the text to look over the changes copyedit made before submitting it to production who then produce the review. Once the review is produced as a Web page on our QA servers, a link goes out to the reviews team for the peer review process. During that time the review score is not final. I'll say that again for dramatic emphasis: During that time the review score is not final.

  In the case of GTAIV, that non-final review had a score of 9.5 attached to it--a score which the peer review process is designed to fine-tune and then set in stone. As has been standard GameSpot operating procedure for years, the last step of the peer review process is a discussion about review content and score. The content discussion entails making sure that relevant gameplay features and whatnot are mentioned to ensure the review is accurate as possible--and that said score matches said review.

  As Justin noted in his blog, there were enough people in the reviews group who felt GTAIV deserved a 10 that we all holed up in a room to settle the matter....as the review was in the QA process on our staging servers with a 9.5 score attached to it. Ironically, one of the staff poked their head in the room during the at-times heated discussion and mentioned that it looked like a bug on the staging site had caused the QA score to go live for a split second. The importance of this event didn't sink in at first, since were so embroiled in our talks. Why were we so focused? Because we take matters of review score seriously. I'll reiterate what Justin said in his blog: We don't hand out 10s lightly--we've given out just four in GameSpot's entire history.

  I've hit up our tech folks to find out what the deal was. After some back and forth, they got me answers because I wanted to post about this and include some info. So here's the tech nitty gritty for those that care:

  * a 9.5 score, which as I noted above was not final, was the original score placed on the GTA4 page and became the page that was cached while testing and reviewing the site for quality assurance.

  * Due to a bug in our publishing system that has since been corrected, a cached page containing the score and review blurb, but not the review itself, appeared on the Production version of the site.

  * The length of time this was up is not precisely known but logs show that changes were made from 4:45PM PST - 8:20PM PST, with the actual review going live at 8:20PM PST.

  And there you have it. A publishing snafu + some tremendously awful timing = needless drama. I'm well aware there's a bunch of folks out there happy to add this to the conspiracy theory tapestry that has been woven about GameSpot. Adding to said conspiracy was a blog post from a moderator saying the 9.5 score was deliberately put up as a "red herring" to test reader reaction. The same moderator has since corrected himself, pointing out that in 2003, an accidental score of 0.0 was posted for one of the highest-review games of the year--Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (9.1).

  I'm disappointed that, end of the day, one of the best-written and best produced text and video reviews is being cynically written off by some. None of the naysayers know the effort that went into making sure our review of probably the biggest--and so far, the best--game of the year was as bulletproof as possible. The personal attacks on Justin are unnecessary. Apparently people don't realize that Justin's been at GameSpot for 9 years--starting with the original GameSpot UK--and has reviewed all sorts of games in that time.

  But so it goes. Bugs and assorted glitches are a fact of life on the web just as misspellings and assorted printing issues can be with print magazines. We take our reviews seriously here and we don't post them until they're ready. This is why GTAIV went up when we wanted it to with the score we wanted it to have. For those that gave us the benefit of the doubt and that didn't jump to conclusions, you have my thanks. To the others? ...

  • Posted Apr 30, 2008 4:33 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 15Jan 07

  Why do I always wind up in lines...?

  So here I am. It's close to 10pm Monday night and I'm in a line at the Fry's in Sunnyvale- they're doing a midnight launch for Burning Crusade. Mac and I came down to shoot some interviews with the Blizzard folks who came on down to attend the sale and the signing. We both kinda laughed at the deja vu of us in the middle of a mob of people lining up for something games related in insane cold. There's a radio station here amping people up (well the front of the line anyway, by the time I got done with my business I wound up in the part of the line that wound around the building- boo!). Past few months were so busy I fricking forgot to preorder a CE so here I am. Woo. The interviews went well, Shane (Dabiri, producer) remembered us from the last time we interviewed him at Walk of Game so that was cool. We did our standard interview then went through the line with Shane and Justin Thivrat, art director. we talked to folks, some of which have been here since 10pm last night. Shane and Justin got a kick out of what people had to say. I gotta say, this is easily the most eclectic line I've been in yet not to mention the biggest line I think I've ever been in for software. There's probably about a thousand people in line here, with more showing up as I type. This is pretty insane when you consider it's freezing temperatures out tonight (man I knew I should worn like 2 more pairs of thermal undies...). Lord only knows how slammed the servers are going to be tonight and the rest of this week. Anyhoo, that's what I got for now. I'll update in a bit with pics and some more musings when I thaw out my hands- did i mention the "freezing temperatures" thing? 
  • Posted Jan 15, 2007 10:54 pm PT
  • Category: Writing
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• 18Nov 06

  East Coast Madness

  So I meant to update sooner but we've kind of been on crazy train since hitting town. It hasn't let up but, although I should be doing something smart like taking a nap or something before our coverage of tonight's Wii-splosion in Times Square, I figured I'd write out some stuff to fill folks in on what's been going on. Here's a quick run through:

  Wednesday

  Ryan Mac, Myself and the boys all flew out to New York (via New Jersey). We got in evening time and once we checked into our hotel made our way to the Sony Style store in Sony Plaza. The line for PS3's was pretty hefty so we did some taping and then headed back to the rooms to pass out.

  Thursday

  D-day for us. The crew took to the streets of NY and hit a few places to do some taping at various lines. We hit the Circuit City and Best Buy lines to see how folks were doing there. I gotta say, in a non pandering "HELLO CLEVELAND" kind of way, that I do love New York and its peeps. It's a great city with good people. Anyhoo, back to our day:

  Later that afternoon we headed on over to the Sony Store to set up our live broadcast. It was crazy to get everything together in time. The way things worked out we couldn't get in until a little after 4 to set all our stuff up which didn't give us much wiggle room in case something was busted or didn't go like we planned. Fortunately it all worked out well. Have to say it's pretty insane to think that this whole live thing was a crazy notion Mac and I tossed around a few months ago when we started brainstorming launch ideas. At the time I remember we were both like "This'll probably never happen..." and yet there we were setting up. If you saw the broadcast you got a taste for how crazy things were. Anytime we do something like this we try to prepare for anything that could go awry but there's always stuff you can't plan for that happens. Like when Charlie Murphy did his shout out or when a glass door was closed and severed our power line in a Fantavision like display of sparks forcing us to go all "MacGyver" to get back up and running. Mac's amazing that way. Once that was done it was tear down time and a crawl to the hotel to sleep.

  Friday:

  So we slept most of the day since we weren't back to the rooms and sorted until about 3 am (ouch). Once everyone was conscious we split up with one team heading out to check out Wii lines and the other going to set up our tech for Saturday night. Way later in the day I met up with folks at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center and poked around, squeezed in some Christmas shopping since I haven't even started. Once that was sorted we headed back to the hotel for some sleep since we expected Saturday was going to be insane.

  Saturday (today):

  We were up and out this morning and started making our rounds. We hit up Toys R Us in Times Square, which is gonna be ground zero tonight, to do some early filming and check things out. There's a new Wii section on the second floor that was put in especially for the launch. The lower level's gotten a bunch of extra monitors in that are running Wii trailers or have playable games on them. Zelda is actually running on a 70 inch monitor which is sweet. Once we were done there, we headed back to the Nintendo store to check on our homies from the day before. The line at the store was much longer so we shot interviews with a whole bunch of people for tonight's show. Once that was done we headed on back to the hotel which brings me to right now:

  The plan now is to go interview Reggie before it gets too crazy, gotta head out in 10 minutes. Once that's done we'll come back, rest up, prep the gear and head over. The festivities kick off a few hours after that and then it's on. Whew. Hope folks are digging the coverage. Come back and check out the stream in a few hours. For the New Yorkers out here, come say hi if you see us at the event. You might wind up on camera!

  • Posted Nov 18, 2006 1:02 pm PT
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