Interviewees: Doing the Scum's Job

Came across this gem from IGN's Ivan Sulic while looking through my referral links. Ivan's words in bold:



Do Work For Me



To whom it may concern,

My name is Kyle Orland. I'm doing some research for a feature article on my weblog, The Video Game Ombudsman (http://vgombud.blogspot.com). The feature will focus on video game reviewers' answer to a seemingly simple, but actually quite complex, question:



How long do you have to play a game before you're ready to review it?



Feel free to answer the question however you want,and make your response as long or as short as you want (of course, longer would be better for me). In your answer, try to consider the following related questions:



* Does the amount of time needed change for different genres? * How do you handle games that don't have an official end? (Tetris, The Sims) * How do you handle massively multiplayer online games? * Do you need to see everything in a game before reviewing it? * How do you know if you've seen everything in a game? * Is there a minimum amount of time needed to fully understand a game? A maximum? * Does the amount of time spent with a game affect it's rating? * Does a game's rating affect the amount of time you spend playing it for review (i.e. you play better games longer before writing the review)?



Thanks in advance for your answer.



-- Kyle



Wait a second, you want me to write your blog for you and I won't get paid for it? Sure! I'll get right on that after a meteor hits me in the face and expels all common sense from my body. Thing is, I've never even done my own blog, Kyle. Why would I willingly contribute to yours?



I will give you some advice though, if you think you're going to get a load of honest answers from this industry, you're sorely mistaken. I've worked with a lot of scrubs at different companies, and while they all speak high and mighty, it turns out they scam their own businesses out of freelance money just so that they can bust out fewer 250 word fluff pieces they call articles. Our industry is filled with scum and scrubs and dorks and the occasionally decent person. Don't bother polling a bunch of ogres unless you want to hear a bunch of inane grunts that drown out the one or two bits of genuine truth you're likely to receive.



-- Ivan



A little bit of background. This exchange appeared in IGN's Oct. 8, 2004, PS2 mailbag. The original mail I sent was obviously part of a canvassing of game reviewers for a feature I was planning on standards for game reviews. I contacted quite a few people, some who I had talked to before and some who I hadn't. I got very few responses, so I put the project on the backburner. Ivan didn't see fit to respond to my inquiry directly through e-mail, but obviously did decide to post this response on his web site (something none of the other targets did. I think).



The first part of Ivan's response, in my view, is a little silly. I didn't ask him to write my blog for me... I asked him to respond to an interview question. It's a courtesy that journalists ask of people all the time. Many are happy to oblige. Others imply the experience or replying would be similar to being hit by a meteor. Different strokes, I guess.



The second part of the reply is a little bit more interesting. This is a guy who's an writer at IGN PS2 -- definitely someone who's deep on the inside of this video game journalism behemoth -- pretty much saying that the entire industry sucks. I don't exactly follow his argument about freelance skimming (are they paying the freelancers with drug money or something?) but the accusation that the industry is full of "scum and scrubs and dorks and the occasionally decent person" is pretty damning from someone so invested in that very industry. Maybe Ivan and I have more in common than I previously thought.