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Atari v. angry German website
Atari really tries everything, in order to darken our reporting: Only they ignore our inquiries in the early phase to alone into the Dark, then they cancellation advertising campaigns already booked after our preview, then bemustern them us despite inquiry not with the test version and get them also still the legal hammer now raus and do not want with a value in litigation of 50,000 euros fear to make itself. What comes next? Bang frogs in the 4P-Büro ignite? Wives of editors with footballs throw? It becomes ever more ridiculous.
I'll say. The above Babelfish translation of this editorial titled "Atari against freedom of the press" is only the beginning. German website 4Players announced all sorts of Atari malfeasance in connection with the harsh review they'd written of Alone in the Dark (Wired's Game Life blog claims there's an actual lawsuit, but they don't offer a source for that, so it's entirely possible the Germans are freaking out over a standard-issue cease-and-desist).
Working my way through the translation, it sounds like a website with a sense of entitlement instead of an early review copy. I can understand how they feel. Publishers often play favorites with their early review copies, sending them to publications with higher traffic or setting up special deals to help print magazines with their long lead times. Us little guys have to wait in line and hope you readers will cry us a river for the free games we don't get until entire days after their release.
The crux of the matter seems to be that Atari is pissed off about the negative review. That's nothing new. There are ways of being professional about this sort of thing, and they mainly involve both parties telling themselves that this, too, shall pass. But the angle Atari seems to be pushing is that 4Players must have reviewed either a preview copy or a pirated copy, or violated an embargo. If any of these is true, then 4Players has lost the moral high ground you need to write an editorial about freedom of the press. And if 4Players is indeed pulling pirated games off the internet, I hope Atari will throw at them whatever book they can heft across the German border. Stealing from the industry you write about is reprehensible.
The final shrill note in 4Player's screed is that Atari has pulled advertising from the site. Frankly, if they're going to use terms of advertising to climb on a high horse, I hope they'll be consistent and point out how much advertising they receive for games they review positively. If you're going to integrate your editorial and your advertising, it works both ways, guys.
Of course, the real news from all this, and a few similar stories about early reviews in Europe, is that Alone in the Dark apparently sucks.
By Sparky at 6:39 AM ON 06/22/08
I, for one, welcome our bang frog overlords.
By thwidra at 6:57 AM ON 06/22/08
Well, I think you got it a little bit wrong. No offense! The cief editor of 4Players wrote in his column, that they bought a copy of the game from a normal shop only days before the official release. This shop had the game already in stock. They knew the salesman and because they don't got a copy from Atari, they took this one. As I understand, this is a common practice among several german Gaming-Sites, who don't get Review-Copys from the publisher. Besides 4Players is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Gaming-Site in Germany. So they have an obligation to fullfill to their readers. And time is money, bring the game-review early on and you got higher click-rates. I think, there is nothing wrong in all this from 4Players point-of-view.
The big issue in all this is the "action for an injunction", a threat of the lawyers of Atari, who claim that 4Players reviewed an illegal copy. They want 50.000 Euro and the removement of the article. This is something which didn't happen before. They criminalize the editorial staff and they disavow, that the game is not very good. So they don't want to see a bad rating somewhere out there. This is the angel the cief editor pushes and writes something about the freedom of press. I don't think 4Players lost the moral ground, although Mr. Luibl used some harsh words in his column. I think they only want to protect their article and persist on their viewpoint to not back off because they gave the game a not-so-good-rating.
In the meantime Atari did the same thing to some norwegian (Gamereactor.no and Gamer.no) and a dutch (Gamers.nl) gaming-site, because they all gave the game bad ratings.
By thwidra at 7:02 AM ON 06/22/08
P.S.: I'm a reader from Germany and I hope I didn't made to much spelling-mistakes in my comment. :-)
By nomad at 1:56 PM ON 06/22/08
Sony is doing something similer. you can't talk how bad they are treating the north american customers with psp's. no cam,gps,crapy updates,nevered fixed other problems with the psp. they delet any complaint by there customers that write constructive complaints,lol. if something sucks about a product, then either fix the dam thing or don't market it at all. in my book that is stealing hard earned money from the people for a piece of crap in a box.
By Tom Chick at 5:21 PM ON 06/22/08
Thwidra, thanks so much for your clarification. I admit I'm working from limited information, so I appreciate your input. As you can imagine, Atari won't comment, but I'm currently trying to contact 4Players. Hopefully, they'll comment on the situation and I can write a follow-up entry.
By Weebork at 1:34 PM ON 06/23/08
I figured out long ago that the best way to try out a game is to rent it first and if it passes muster, purchase it. If it totally sucks, then I'm out 9 bucks instead of 60! It is my plan to rent this game along with the seemingly hilarious, Operation Flashpoint-esk FPS Bad Company. I've played the demo of the latter (there is no demo available for A.D. on Xbox Live, perhaps a bad sign) and I enjoyed it. If the rest of the game is as good as demo, this may be one of the few games I'll purchase.
In any event, as far as After Dark goes, and to tease Europeans a bit, perhaps the Germans don't care much for the game because you actually have to do a lot of w-o-r-k. :) But seriously, I'm more interested in the advertised versatility and complexity of Atari's new physics engine than the apparent storyline. Once I get done with it, I'll try and give my two bits on any game review Tom posts on Fidgit.
Weebork:
I figured out long ago that the best way to try out a game is to rent it first and if it passes muster, purchase it...More »