We Cant Call It Journalism, Previews Are Marketing (Re: Destiny)

Preview content is not indicative of the final release. It can’t be. Previews serve as a way for publishers to show the press a short experience they've confirmed displays the best possible angle they can sell to consumers. It’s an extension of their marketing disguised as a courtesy. It means that, essentially, previews are useless. 

Years ago, when Red Faction: Armageddon intended to follow up on the success of the previous game, I attended a press day. We tried out a sandbox mode where players caused as much destruction as possible in order to rack up a massive score. We also played some of the multiplayer, a team-based horde mode where you struggled to defend against waves of enemy aliens.

This event lasted hours. We’d played about 20 minutes of the single player. The game was released and was panned for not being as open or massive as the previous entry, especially so for being a fully linear experience. This wasn’t something we could tell from our short time with it, we were having a blast shooting things with a disintegrator rifle and scoring Heck Of Points.

I think about the value that my write up had for anyone reading it. All that they could tell would have been that something designed specifically for me to have the best experience in a short amount of time was something I enjoyed.

Today, I think about that in relation to everything coming out of Bungie. Everything saying that Destiny is going to be this huge compelling experience but not a single person flown out there to see it has anything to say about how it plays, having not even seen footage of the game.

Destiny is probably going to be a notable entry in gaming canon, it’s the pairing of the most famous game developer and the most successful game publisher, but I can’t inform you of it’s quality from a place of expert knowledge having had the chance to see it. No one can, except for people working on it that are so NDA’d they might as well have pritt-sticked their mouth closed.

That’s not useful to an audience. We knew Destiny existed beforehand, literally any more information than that is hype-bait without context to back it up. We can know that they’ve thought heavily about the universe, but without the ability to say that it’s good, we only serve a publisher wanting to get word out. We don’t serve an audience wanting to know if they should spend their money.

Having to be careful with what I say given that I worked on it prior to release, I think about what we know about Aliens: Colonial Marines. I think about a trailer that, allegedly, showed 95% content that isn’t in the game and even the 5% present was is just level design and not truly a proper portrayal of events. 

I think about Jim Sterling quitting writing previews because of his belief that this is unacceptable, that journalists can’t provide a relevant appraisal of a finished product if what we’re seeing has the potential to be totally false, not at all what the consumer will experience when it’s in their hands. There’s no benefit to people at home when you’re able to say that something they’ll never play and doesn't actually exist looks great.

At that point you aren't a journalist, you’re complicit in a lie that is a detriment to your audience. You’re an arm of the marketing budget that helps sell something that people would otherwise (totally subjectively, former employers) decide isn't worth their time at all.

I think about Cara Ellison calling bullshit and just asking whatever question she feels like in an interview because it doesn't matter. Who cares that a team say they’re trying to write a plot into Crysis 3 when we know it’s just going to be used in service of reasons to shoot things with a gun or an arrow rather than an attempt to be anything more?

I’m sick of doing a job that provides marketing help for publishers more than it does the people actually playing games. There’s no way to provide preview coverage that serves the consumer more than it does the marketing team. Even if you’re to appraise the content you’re seeing, ensure that all the faults are accounted for, you still can be shown nothing resembling the experience people will have at home.

This isn't an activity we can take part in and still call it Journalism. This is allowing yourself to be a tool in hype production.