Convergence is happening again/still/ad infinitum. Psychochild pointed me to a post on Slashdot last week about game reviews being broken; this post is based upon an editorial on Kotaku which discusses game reviews being broken primarily from the point of scoring and worth the money.

Gee, really? (Self-aggrandizement off.)

Convergence. While all of this yapping was occurring, I was noticing a few things myself:

After reviewing a game I adored and was particularly proud of the review, I sent the link to a friend. His response? (verbatim)

"i had a hard time getting into it. i dunno why. :( i kinda think being paid for reviews and being rushed on them is making gaming less enjoyable for me. i had to can the review for it since it wouldn't have been timely." What's timely? "2 weeks after release, though 1 is preferred. we have to rush with the reviews." (This site buys all of their titles retail; they receive nothing pre-launch.)

Nice.

Three PR companies were pushing particularly hard for PC previews. These were for games of medium-sized publishers and it is unlike any of the people at the companies to push like this. So I asked why?

PRRep: both IGN and GamesRadar have both said flat out they don't have the manpower to cover [said vendor's] games. this is a growing trend with PC games, by the way with titles that are not AAA or multiplatform releases. it's insanity
OpheleaLC: but there are so many of "me"
PRRep: unfortunately, no
OpheleaLC: what happened to the b-list sites? and honestly, my problem? they spend their advertising money on ign and gamesradar so that we struggle....
PRRep: a lot of the b-listers don't cover PC anymore
OpheleaLC: wow, that's insane and that explains why I have so much PC
PRRep: yep!

Nice, again. And not the first time I've heard this concern about PC titles. Not even the second or third…

GamersInfo.net makes it a point to cover children's titles - in homes with children. During the holiday season we are overwhelmed. But, something common with children's titles is you must ask for them. Why? Direct from the mouth of PR:

"Well, we don't really want a hard-core gaming site to give a good kid's game a bad review score, simply because they don't "get" the audience, KWIM? It likely won't have all the elements that hard-core gamers want, and therefore a perfectly great family game will get a bad score ;)"

=> Read more!