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[BuddhaRockstar]

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gj5lm/iam_the_editorinchief_of_pc_gamer_ama/

For the unfamiliar, "Ask Me Anything" is a popular sub-forum on Reddit.com in which celebrities, people of interest, and Jeopardy champions take questions from reddit members. Due to reddit's upvote/downvote system, the most popular (and controversial) questions make it to the top and are more likely to be answered.

Today Logan Decker, Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer took part in his own AMA, and I felt his answers were interesting enough to warrant a thread.

Some selected questions/answers-

How do you feel about the (seemingly) growing opinion that positive reviews in the industry are bought and paid for by the big studios?

While it's certainly not inspiring to hear, I think this kind of skepticism is good. When, for example, my president says "we're going to war because we want to help defend the defenseless" my first thought isn't YAY! It's, hm, that's odd... why didn't we defend all those other people who need our help?" Vocal skepticism is an indicator of a healthy and intelligent community.

I'll start by saying that I personally think that if this ever happens, it's extremely rare. Future US (my company) maintains a strict separation between sales and edit; that is, the sales team doesn't tell me who's advertising and who isn't (we don't know until a couple days before we ship the magazine), and when an ambitious new salesperson crosses the line with an improper suggestion, it's put down very quickly and unambiguously. I think this is the same with every other large media company and reputable website: no one wants to jeopardize their good name and their brand.

I do think that many folks will end up believing what they're inclined to believe, but let me throw this out there: the past decade in print journalism have been a bloodbath, as everybody knows, with hundreds if not thousands of employees being let go (and it hasn't been easy for websites, either). So it seems likely that if "payola" were rife in our industry, we'd know about it -- disgruntled employees would be blowing the whistle left and right. But, at the very worst we hear of an editor allegedly being fired for being too critical or some such. Certainly nothing to warrant going to DEFCON 2.

Edit: Managing Editor Chris Comiskey just informed me that no one goes to "DEFCON 2" anymore; it's been replaced by "Terror Alert." How about that.

Rating numbers are as inaccurate as the temperature knob on my shower.

Let me answer this in a roundabout, seemingly off-topic way. You know how every now and then someone will post on FB "Show your support for child abuse victims by changing your avatar to Foghorn Leghorn" or some such? A few people do it. But by 11am, people start grumbling about how stupid it is. By 1pm, some guy gets really upset and blasts everybody for what dumbshits they are and says that he's going to donate money to a center that treats victims of abuse just to spite the dumbasses. By 3pm, lots of people are doing this. By the end of the business day, suddenly centers that treat victims of child abuse find themselves with generous donations from around the world.

Think about it: the people who were most pissed off about a supposedly do-nothing, worthless social media circle jerk actually validated the gesture by donating money!

I know that scores aren't the end-all, be-all of reviews. You know that. But I notice on message boards when people get upset about a particular review score, everybody starts talking about scores, and then they start talking about scores that other games got, and they start listing their history of grievances with scores, etc. Very few on these forums will actually talk about what matters: the review itself!

So, just like on Facebook, this harshing on scores actually ends up validating them. It's what people talk about. But scores are trivial to me compared to the review itself. I know this is not true for publishers, developers, and PR; I understand the significance of scores to them and their business. But I don't work for publishers, developers, or PR. I work for our readers, and they do appreciate scores as an glanceable indicator of a game's success (or lack thereof) before plunging into the review itself.

Scoring is imperfect and imprecise. Everybody knows and acknowledges that. And I understand why some magazines and websites have tried to do away with them: these gestures have the very best intentions and motivations behind them. But our readers do want them, and we are not unaware of their potential impact on a game's reception, so we try to apply them as fairly as possible.

No score ever makes it to the page before a minimum -- minimum -- of three editors, including myself, have read the review and signed off on it (more if it's a shared US/UK review). I may regard them as trivial as a gamer, but not as an editor.

What is your opinion on DRM and how do you feel the industry should progress to have a good user experience while limiting piracy?

I loathe it, of course. But I acknowledge that publishers and developers have every right to protect their property and investments any way they see fit, and I have every right to reject their methods.

Gah, that sounds so adversarial, and I don't feel that way. Let me start over. It won't surprise anybody to find out that I get all my games free. But if I didn't, I wouldn't have, for instance, bought Assassin's Creed 2 with the always-on internet connection requirement it had at the time. That's because my connection at home sucks, and I live in internet hell (San Francisco) where choices of provider are few and if you try to make a phone call on an iPhone the ground literally cracks open and putrid fumes rise out amid the laughter of demons.

The point is, we all have different ideas of what kind of deal that we're willing to accept. I would be more than happy, for example, to buy a game through Steam even though once in a while I may lose my internet connection but not be able to launch a game in offline mode for some reason, because Steam offers me so many other conveniences (like being able to d/l the game through our fat pipe here at work and take the folder home and copy it to my HD and play it there too).

It's not a satisfying response, but it's the only one I have: please don't support companies that use DRM that you find objectionable. Given time and pressure, they will listen. Valve did, and look at that company today. Sitting fucking pretty, know what I mean? Why isn't everybody trying to duplicate their success? Maybe because they see easier game (npi) on the console side; who knows?

Another thought: pay no attention to the piracy figures you hear cited by developers. Again, I understand their frustrations. But a pirated copy does not necessarily represent a lost sale. This is common sense.

A big media firm did a survey in 2009, I think (I can find the reference if anybody wants to see it), that showed that more people read a single physical copy of PC Gamer than any other magazine in the United States. More than Time. More than Reader's Digest. More than anybody. The figure was over 26 readers per copy, I think. But I don't feel entitled to the cover price for everybody who peeked at our magazine at the doctor's office or in prison. (Yes, I know there is a difference between scarce goods and digital goods; but it's the principle I'm talking about.) I feel validated by the interest in our work and when I go into meetings with my publishers, things we talk about include: how do we serve these people who are obviously reading our magazine but might not be inclined to pay for it? Maybe he wants our news through a website or social media instead? Maybe she doesn't want a magazine but will be a vibrant, active member of our Steam group?

Our business model is our problem, not anybody else's. Crime and piracy can hurt us, but again, these are our problems. I will do everything I can to make sure that what we do doesn't alienate our fans.

That said, please indulge me here: Publishers, developers -- I get it. I know how bad piracy is; I understand how devastating it is to see your work pirated. I get it. It's not a trivial problem. On the other hand, platforms like Steam and Impulse are helping. I believe the good will you promote when, for instance, you release games without DRM is rewarded, even if it's difficult to quantify. Cold comfort, maybe, but there it is.

I often feel that the reviewers allow the public perception of the game to influence them more than is reasonable.

For instance, both Oblivion and Civilization V suffered crippling bugs, poor system design, and launched in a state where they the game simply would not run on a not insignificant portion of user machines. Yet both were awarded A+ scores (95 and 93, respectively). Your magazine is not alone; nearly all reviews made at launch date follow the trend. Most user reviews also fell in line with this perception. A few months later, most people had changed their tune: the negative reception was growing.

Why do you feel these games earned such high scores at launch, when their problems were arguably the most visible?

You make a good point about the possibility that "public perception" (which I'm assuming includes hype, coverage from other sources, etc.) may influence review scores. And, to my embarrassment, I could easily reel off a list of evidence that seem to support your claim.

When we review a game, we make every effort to duplicate the experience of the typical gamer. We insist on receiving the code in our offices so that we can try it on several different systems and under a range of quality settings. We avoid garish review events whenever possible.

We don't always win our battles, however. Publishers are extremely reluctant to release code, for example, for most triple-A games, so we have to decide whether or not we want to play the game at the publisher's office or wait until release day. When we do review a game at a publisher's office, we will play it on a publisher-provided system, but we bring our own systems and try out the game on those as well.

It is not, as you observed, a perfect system. And there is always the chance -- and this infuriates us -- that a last-minute technical alteration (such as a DRM wrapper) may wreak havoc with a game after we've reviewed the code. But it happens.

One way we combat hype-spray is by having multiple editors (including myself) vet each review. Every judgment needs to be backed up in the text with concrete examples. Every criticism must be tenable. Every editor must agree that the score must track with the text.

But still, not a perfect system. So here's my recommendation (which I may pay for with my life): whenever you can avoid it, don't buy games at launch.

You can, and if you do, I applaud you. But I wouldn't. I don't have a lot of money, and I tend to have a low tolerance for aggravation. Before I worked at Future US, I rarely ever bought a game in the first three months of its launch (and this was back before 0-day patches). If you wait a few months, you get a better, more stable product, often with more content, and often much, much cheaper! That's just the nature of PC gaming with its diversified hardware -- and it works in your favor!

Having said that, I now recall some great advice I received from Gordon Mah Ung back when I worked at Maximum PC: If you think your life may be in danger, start your car with the door open. If it's rigged to explode, you'll be horribly maimed, but far more likely to survive than if the door had been closed.

Do you feel that PC gaming is dead, and if so, how do you plan on bringing it back?

I sort of understand where people are coming from when they ask "Is PC gaming dead?" what with the full-frontal advertising assault on console exclusive and so many games going cross-platform (and the PC version is often a mess). But this isn't how I see things at all. Just the opposite. It's the consoles that are dead, in my opinion -- well, more like at death's door. Console systems require literally hundreds of millions of dollars every year in life support: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo plunge vast quantities of assets and resources into securing exclusives and setting up licensing deals and encouraging development on their platforms.

But nobody does this on the PC (Microsoft may claim it does, but, heh). Because no one needs to. The PC is ubiquitous and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. If you've got a PC -- any PC these days, thanks to streaming services like OnLive -- you can be a PC gamer. It's that simple. The PC doesn't need millions in promotions or exclusive deals to stay alive. You couldn't kill it if you tried (and some would say Microsoft has).

But pull the plug on console investment, and the platform withers to a small group of enthusiasts in ten minutes.

But this isn't an important distinction to me. I like consoles. I like the games on the consoles and the innovation and competition they promote. But I don't see PC gaming and console gaming as existing on the same plane at all.

The way I see it, console gaming is an entertainment platform. But PC gaming is a creativity platform. That's not to say you have to experience games in a creative way on the PC, but creativity and modding and discovery are fundamental to PC gaming -- right at the very heart of it.

Again, the full interview can be found here. (his username is arocklegend).

If you'd like to get a question in it appears he's still answering new ones... any thoughts?