Topic: Calaris Exposé

At first I wasn't sure if I should post this here or not, but since Nintendo Life re-tweeted it, hopefully it'll be alright if I drew attention to this here.

I wanted to let you guys know about a situation I was faced with when dealing with Calaris a short while ago. (They developed Warmen Tactics & Space Trek.) Read on to find out what happened... http://bit.ly/h8QjAq

Wow, very interesting.

As I said on Twitter, just plain messed up. Makes for quite the read, though.

Awww...I read that as Cialis expose. I was hoping to laugh at some people having problems with Ol' Cobra Commander.

you would not believe how common it is for devs to put shills out to trash a middling-to-poor review and talk up the game everywhere they can. it's kinda hilarious, really.

A bit, yeah. It's a shame it's so common, but even still it took me by surprise when I found myself in that predicament. I imagine things like that have even happened here before.

Wow, what a mental case. I think I'll stick to reading reviews rather than writing them.

Ahaha, what a failure. I saw this earlier when NL tweeted it.

But for twenty notes, I'd happily give them a fair review. "This game is a god-awful waste of your time, money and precious megabytes on the Wiiware service." See, that's fair. Not good, but fair.

Once I got a WiiWare game I thought was bad. The developer sent it to me for free (as a refund), but at least I don't name the developer or the game and say it's bad since I got it for free! I only scream out in public when I paid for a broken game... like it is the case with Lead the Meerkats.

Come on. If you get something free (and even get extra money on top of that) then the only fair thing would be giving it a good score.
Review it under disguise with another nickname or something if the game is really terrible. If the game is broken you're right of course. No-one should be allowed to sell a broken product.

If you want to give it an unbiased review you should pay the full price for it.

I'm not really sure how to respond to that. :S

If publishers want to give a game for review, fine. We appreciate it. But you cannot let that effect your review one bit. Not even a little. A reviewer's responsibility is ultimately to the readers and they can't trust you if they know you're giving out special favors to developers who toss in free games and swag. I've got all the games I could ever play already, so while getting the games a wee bit early is a nice perk, the fact that some games are free doesn't mean sh*t to me in the long run. I call 'em like I see 'em. And if someone outright tried to bribe me, I'd tell them where they could stick it.

@SKTTR: some companies provide review copies of games for free. not all, but some. why should them essentially giving out a review copy mean that you should turn around and give their game a better score than a game from a dev who was unwilling or unable to provide a review copy (or reimbursement for one)? that's not fair to anyone.

that said, he brings up a good point -- you do have the option to deny a payment, don't you? or you at least had access to their paypal e-mail address to refund them the extra money. why did you keep it in the first place? and why continue to keep the extra after they filed a dispute? keeping what it took to pay for the game is one thing, but keeping the entire amount... i think that's what bothers me the most about this ordeal. :/

After he sent the money, the note attached to it said the full amount was to purchase a Nintendo Points Card. So that's what I ended up doing.

... so you let a developer essentially buy the next game and a half you review for you as well as their own? that's no bueno, man; you gave him a hold on you :/

Thanks for expressing your point of view. You're right, and I wish I had known that back then. What's done is done and in some ways, I wish things had gone differently, but I've learned a lot from this experience

Oh, and I should add that I couldn't return the "extra money" because I didn't have enough (and still don't). That information is personal, but given what you're saying/asking, it is worth mentioning. When the complaint was filed, I actually did contemplate giving him the "extra" back, but I couldn't. Plus, he was basically asking for a "full refund".

it's dirty money, man -- should never have accepted more than you needed in the first place. lesson learned, i suppose.

You bet.

Sage words.

Er, yeah. Rule #1 of reviewing anything is not to accept money from the people who created the product you are reviewing. If they want to send you a copy of the game itself, or whatever, that's fine. That's fair, and that's how the industry works. But money--whether it's in order to buy the game or not--is never, ever going to lead to a happy outcome.

I'm kind of surprised you took the money at all. It certainly doesn't paint the developer in a positive light either, but that's almost beside the point, imho. If the game was great and you gave it a perfect score, even if that's what you felt, that wouldn't have made it any more right to accept the money.

Obviously what any individual reviewer does is his/her business, but you posted this here presumably so people could read it and discuss it, so...there's my two cents. (Not meant as a bribe.)

So in your eyes, it's not the same as sending the game?

Yeah, I have no problem with you expressing how you see the situation. I see where you're coming from and I appreciate your input just the same.