Western Media Bias, The Evidence.

A lot of people on here are always claiming media bias when a review or article doesn't favor their opinion. Now I've never bought into any conspiracy theories but evidence is piling up and recently, perhaps due to the release of Killzone 3, there has been a slew of anti-Sony articles attempting to counter the fantastic year the PS3 has lined up. Makes me think twice when I read the mad conspiracy comments and at least have a think about how the western media could be more influenced by a big western company like Microsoft then you'd like to believe.

Anyway I'm not here to try and convince you that these mad commenters are 100% right, just to get you to think about it for yourselves and come to a logical conclusion. To this I'll be using something that doesn't crop up much in gaming media... evidence.

Here we go:

First off, an extremely in depth and well written article appears and bring EDGE's review scores into question

http://n4g.com/news/491279/...

This article uses sound logic and statistics to actually prove that EDGE consistently rates PS3 games down. I'd be the first to argue that a site might genuinely not like a game but after 5 years of proof in easy to understand graphs it's hard to defend their behavior.

Now I'm gonna look at economics and offer some evidence that, perhaps due to the economic downturn, it's never been more important for western media to try and sell home made goods, despite their quality.

To do this I'm going to compare gaming with the car industry and how the media looks at the reasons you should buy 'homemade'. This article is one example that a popular way of thinking is to disregard anything foreign in an attempt to boost the economy in your own country...

http://www.brighthub.com/mo...

...The article is not only promoting American made cars but also simultaneously slandering foreign competition. Here's where gaming is most comparable. At this very moment there are 3 anti-PS3 articles in the 'hottest' section at the top of N4G, all of which are western sites attempting to 'put-down' the foreign console.

http://n4g.com/news/698922/...
http://n4g.com/news/698524/...
http://n4g.com/news/698501/...

Not only that but this article attempts to argue that the western media take a dim look when reviewing any Japanese games...

http://n4g.com/news/488259/...

...However not all western media takes this narrow view, at least as far as the car industry is concerned. This site argues for both views.

http://www.businessweek.com...

It also promotes the evolution of American made cars rather than just putting down the competition in an attempt to get people to buy an inferior product. This kind of article is very rarely seen in gaming, it's more about going 'against the grain' to muster as many hits as possible but I'm not here to argue the quality of article, more their hidden agenda (if they have one).

I'll leave you with an article that has taken another in depth look at bias in the media and found themselves agreeing with some of the conspiracy shouters.

http://www.thegameraccess.c...

So, far from the mad rambling of fanboy comments, there is quite a lot of truth mixed in. After recent reviews of Playstation 3 exclusives (GT5, Killzone 3) I find myself also agreeing with a lot of the screams of bias and, even though some are just annoyed and lashing out, there is too much truth in the matter to disregard it entirely.

Please take the time to thoroughly read this and all the articles I have linked, sit down and think about it without the sound of console war drums ringing in your ears. When you come to your own logical conclusions you might just be surprised.

[Rage_S90]

i don't really believe all this conspiracy talk but edge.....edge is definitely biased

[Godmars290]

Not really conspiracy, more like unconscious mindset.

Just look at how KZ3 is getting dinged for story quality and game length. The last COD took heavy criticisms for its story and yet it had lots of tens which were based on it multiplayer. Meanwhile we're talking about KZ3 which is may by a western game company.

Of course on the other side was listening to Invisible Walls on GT and they were making more PC/360 connected comments than anything. Only really referenced the PS3 when talking about PS3 games, and seemed to bring up any negatives that they could.

[Ilikegames76]

That's the MS marketing money at work there. Many of the malls around Asia are displaying the 360 with Kinect while the PS3 is nowhere to be found. I was told that those displays were sponsored by MS.

[Bathyj]

Great read, and very damning, especially the Edge article. It really paints a picture even a 10 year old could understand. Its not opinion, its facts splashed on a page for all to see and all the bu bu buts in the world cant alter those facts.

Problem is, you're yelling at a brick wall. No one who still holds onto their PS3 hate like its their last dollar is going to let go of it now. Its all that keeps them warm at night. They've invested to much of their angst into it to admit they are wrong now.

Certainly everything points to PS3 being a great system, yet some still will not acknowledge this simple fact. A stance as bewildering as a man denying standing unprotected in the rain gets your clothes wet.

Secondly the Buy American sentimentality is a very real thing. We're always hearing it. And I'm not saying for one second its a bad thing at all. I'm only pointing out, when it comes to cars, sure everyone's happy to buy American, and that goes for many industries, but when it comes to consoles, people like to pretend like its not a factor at all, as if admitting it would be to admit its the ONLY reason you buy an Xbox.

Obviously thats not true, I'm not so narrow minded to thing a generation of adolescences, teenagers, and 20 and 30 something's are only buying Xbox to be patriotic, but it is a factor thats swept under the carpet, probably because Xboxes fanbase doesn't want people to know the extend this psyche extends to the gaming media which is mostly US based, and the extent to which said media can manipulate what we read, and them hopefully think and do.

Now before anyone gets all up in my face about his, have a read of this article and all the links. And read what I've said. Forget how much you love Halo and just try to take it in.

I have not once said PS3 is the better console. I haven't said Xbox is a bad console. I'm not trying to convince the hater PS3 is the best. Thats up to people to decide for themselves. I just want them to admit its good. You can let go of that hate, and still prefer your Xbox, I'm more than fine with that. But thats NOT what we're talking about here.

We're discussing the gaming media's treatment of them and if its equal or fair.

To me the first link on Edge speaks volumes and its pretty hard to dispute.

If you do, please do so with facts, not simply saying your opinion and writing FACT at the end of the sentence.

Dont abuse me for what I think, try to change my mind with an argument.

Gandhi said "If the cause is good, I always believe in fighting, but do you fight to punish your enemy or change his mind?"

[Clarence]

Well said. People who screem buy American don't know that just about every piece of technology has a foreign part or something in it. I enjoy both the PS3 and 360, but the truth is the PS3 is the better system. If the M$ had put blu-ray into the 360 how different the articles would have been. The truth is that the majority of media does not like the PS3. Any game that is exclusive to the PS3 is reviewed diffrently than the exclusives on the 360. KZ3 is a perfect example of that. It has received low scores mainly due to its storyline. Gears, MW, and COD do not have great storylines but they get great scores.

[Ilikegames76]

All consoles and handhelds are made in China. So saying buy American is kinda strange. They should be shouting buy American made product, if there's still any left made in America.

[The-Tentacle]

@BathyJ

Wow, just wow, I never thought that I'd see such understanding
on the pages of N4G. You not only fully grasped the subtle concepts but extended on them in a well thought out and mature comment. Seriously WELL SAID, I feel honored that you choose this blog to share your enlightened viewpoint on this site.

You seem to be as big a fan of the truth as myself and, as hard as it for people to swallow, you seem unafraid to share your opinions of it.

My goal with this blog was to get at least one person to have a good think about the situation in the media and, judging from your comment, I succeeded.

Cheers man.

[Bathyj]

I think alot of the biased against PS3 is simply people not being able to stand up and admit they were wrong.

Killzone 2 is a great example of this.

It was universally panned from the moment the trailer came out. Many people still believe Sony tried to pass it off as gameplay. Google "killzone e3 jet lag" if you want to know the truth. Anyway...

when the game DID arrive, it smashed expectations on the graphics that many had deemed impossible. Instead of eating a little humble pie and giving credit where it was due, they set out to discredit the game in any other way they could. The length, no co op, Rico, too grey. These things many other games get passes on, but suddenly were gamebreaking faults for Killzone.

Out of all the publications that mocked Killzone 2 pre release, how many can you think of that acknowledged they might have judged it harshly when the game dropped? Very few that I can think of when they really should have been lining up around the block.

@The-Tentacle
Thanks man, glad you liked it, I liked yours too and gave you a bubble.

And I hope other, even if I dont convince anyone at least read it and have a think about it and realise its not all about being a fanboy. I tried my hardest in writing this NOT to attack anybody because that only puts them in a defensive mood. I'm not trying to to be con Xbox, I'm being pro PS3. You dont have to hate one if you like the other.

It comes back the Gandhi reference too. He was one of the most amazing people in history to me. He thwarted an Empire yet he held no rank, title or position other than the fact he was a great thinker and that line rings true to me. To much fighting in general is about punishing your enemy for simply having a different point of view, where changing opinions is more effective.

[theunleashed64]

what is with this deep hatred towards sony? i never got that,did sony push them down in the mud & kicked them in the face?. all sony has try to do is provide for the fans & give them the best experience as possible whether its the exclusives or online service yet their efforts get shitted on by the media & xbox fanboys. "ps3 has no games" this was the first thing i heard when the ps3 first launched now it's 2011 & ps3 has a more expanded line-up but is this enough for the media? one word: no it's still not enough. the gaming journalist's ate crow but won't admit it that they were wrong, ps3 wasn't doomed & will never be doomed it's not dying & it's here to stay get over it 360 fanboys & gaming journalist's.

[Godmars290]

Honestly, never mind the Sony hate, what I don't get is the MS can do no wrong mentality. Just using the $10 increase as example, I don't think there's been one thing that MS has done that doesn't become a positive or defended shortly after its announced. Prices for HDD were never really questioned, nor was ODST from a $40 to $60 game. Just as anything PS3 gets over-examined, 360 get a free pass.

[Ingram]

First of all, sorry for not taking the time to be as cold headed and well-mannered as some of you N4G's elders are.

Conspiracy? I do think so.Just microsoft? nah, multiple publishers and shareholders are to blame too.
They tried hard to sink the PS brand as a whole, to this day I hear in my country "PS3 has no games" can you believe it?, whoever they are, they aimed for the head, repeated repeated until the message was spread and clear, settled in the heads of the populace for years to come.

"Wait & See when the 360 starts using the HD DVD for games" told me a dimwit the other day.He was, to this day, 2011, unaware of the format wars winner, the WB deal, etc.
He was of course unaware too that they weren't comparable because HD-DVD was NOT for games.Marketing, the low kind.

Why? because press in small countries just mimicks the angloparlant source.And the source has been repeating too many times, for too long that PS3 is a failure but didn't really put that salt in 360's multiple wounds when credit to reality was due. Result? uninformed people living forever in 2006.

That magnificent human energy put in cockslapping PS3 buyers and brainwashing(on the full extent of the term)the press, could've been used for something creative like making games.Then again this is to be expected, some people seem to pretend this is only a business, ignoring the obvious philosophical and social implications of gaming.Why invest in R+D when you can hire Greenberg or Molyneaux and let them talk?

[clrlite]

Well said! You and everyone else have already touched on a number of things I would have mentioned, so I will keep my comment brief.

I noticed nobody mentioned anything about Wii hate. Here in the US I think the bias among journalists and consumers has less to do with patriotism and more to do with marketing and manipulation of public opinion. It is company "directly competing" with YOU KNOW who that is the focus of a lot of the hate. But, alas, their efforts were not entirely fruitful because Sony is still doing well world wide.
But as Bathy(I believe) put it, there may be a smidgen of patriotism involved as well, whether conscious or subconscious that drives some of these trends, but it is probably not the dominant cause.

[hot111]

lol at conspiracy theory,so many tin foil hat people here

you know,maybe those PS3 games are not as good as some tin foil hat people think they are
Thinking like this can get you nowhere except to some mental institution.

[RadientFlux]

The only bias I see in video game reviews is the bias of opinion. People seem to scream bias when a reviewer doesn't have the same opinion of a game as they do.

[hot111]

The problem here is that some people are emotionally linked to certain platform,so if someone says something "bad" about games on that platform,he is branded as biased,hostile person.
Bias exists,no doubt,but just like in real life.Lots of my friends don't like things i like,do I hate them?...No,you just except that people people have different opinions and respect them for that.
Some major conspiracy is even statistically highly improbable.
The thing is that no matter how much you like some reviewer,he is still bound to write something that you personally don't agree with,sooner or later...if he has his own opinion of course

[wquach]

I too wanted to write about this, but the article explained everything I wanted to say and more. The fact of the matter is, all of these PS3 exclusives, with more recently Gran Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Killzone 3 are being examined under a microscope and dinged points left and right where other games (including multi-plats) would get a free pass on.

That's the bias a lot of PS3 owners are trying to get across, not this inherent "I hate the PS3 so much blah blah blah" type of stuff. It's the double standard that's present across review scores.

To give a more recent example, even more-so than CoD: Black Ops, playing Dead Space 2 and reading the reviews, it seemed like a lot of reviewers, if not most, didn't dock the game for having essentially the same type of gameplay as the first, etc. Don't get me wrong, I think the game deserves the review scores it has, but I see LittleBigPlanet 2 and Killzone 3 getting docked immensely for being the "same old gameplay."

There is also the preferences/focus reviewers seem to scrutinize over concerning PS3 games vs. others. A huge part of LBP2 is it's creation mode, yet many reviewers barely touched it to make an accurate assessment, instead focusing on only the single player component. Same goes with Killzone 3. Dead Space 2's multiplayer component, which is a bit weak in my opinion, is not at all at any detriment to its scores, and is considered a nice extra to most. Same applies with CoD: Black Ops and reviewers' focus on its multiplayer and negligence of its campaign. It's picking and choosing parts of games to commend on, while docking points arbitrarily.

I think at this point a lot of it is unconscious as well. A PS3 exclusive comes along and reviewers view it like it has to be a revolution in its respective genre to be worthy of being considered an exclusive. Get a new CoD game on the other hand, and they just go gaga with this mindset of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I also feel like most multiplat reviews are played with the 360 version, like this inherent belief in playing the better console version, or just a preference to play multiplats on 360, or that the game is more of a great addition to the 360 library in an exclusiveish way.

But whatevs. From the trailers I've seen of Infamous 2 and the gameplay footage of Uncharted 3, I realize more and more why I consider myself to be such a PS3 fan - the games/exclusives being pumped out this year are simply ASTOUNDING not only in quantity but obvious quality.

Why the Western media doesn't focus on this, the fact that already LBP2 and Killzone 3 (about to be)/have been released, with Infamous 2, Resistance 3, and Uncharted 3 on the way this year doesn't speak volumes of the insane lineup/year the PS3 will have is my question.

[Firstkn1ghT]

Yes the entire gaming world is biased against the ps3. LOL! This article is pathetic. Why put so much time into writing this? Why do you care so much what other people think? Do you like the games you mentioned? Than don't worry what strangers think.

[Firstkn1ghT]

If anything I see the sony owners give to much slack to the ps3 exclusives. GT5 is a prime example of a game that deserves 8's and not a 10.

Metacritic once had a handful of gaming sites that consisted of main stream websites like Ign or Gamepro. Now you have hundreds of no name sites and fanboy sites that use Metacritic. Playstation Lifestyle gave a perfect score to GT5 while most gave it an 8. Now tell me... Why ignore the fact that the majority of the car selection was ported over from the ps2??? Why ignore that the 1000+ car selection that was once touted is really only 200 ps3 worthy with 800 crap cars? Why ignore the fact that crash physics is a joke? Why ignore that the physics in general is a joke? Why ignore that GT5 has pop in with some maps and graphical inconsistencies? The game got exactly what it deserved and that is a mid 8. Still a good score but not "perfection" as most of you prayed for.

Honestly, stop the whining and excuses. Ps3 exclusives are not the second coming of Christ.

[EskiJoe]

Ok I'll take the trollbait... you got me.

First of all I see your point. Good thought process, but if you read the link about the Edge review score analysis, you will see that it mentions all those 'no-name' sites...

I don't know how well you know statistical analysis, but I'll tell you this: One of the purpose of statistics is to describe a population by its characteristics. Maybe already too complicated, but I'll assume you understand so far.... So according to the article (about Edge), MetaCritic does weigh the individual scores and tries to filter out the so-called 'outliers'.

What does this mean?

In short: no-name sites don't have as much influence on the MetaScore and outliers in both ends of the scale (0 and 100) shouldn't influence the metascore as much as well.

Well if you read the other links it gives an idea about how the games on PS3 are (mis)-treated by certain websites. And I think the author wanted to show that, these outburst of "bias" by PS3 fanboys might have some grain of truth to them.

My personal view: I don't necessarily think that every website is against the PS3, but it seems obvious that particularly Edge reviewers do not like to play on a PS3 console. That's the conclusion I can draw for myself.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that I myself, don't read kotaku. After the incident with them being cut-off from Sony (kotakus own fault) and their stupid retaliation... which I suspect they never really got over.

[Firstkn1ghT]

Disregard my last 2 posts. I just realized the writer of this is just another 1 bubble sony fanboy with a history of bashing the 360 and "xbots".

It's just a waste of time trying to have a decent debate with a fanboy.

Continue with your excuses and illusions.

[theunleashed64]

hyporcrite much? digged in your comment history & found *cough* double standards *cough*. shall we begin? oh these are post's from your comment history

"and tomb raider was the inspiration for uncharted.#19.2 14d ago by firstkn1ght"

"call of duty has always been a highly rated franchise
including both modernwarfare's & black ops. much better quality than the killzone franchise. most of the hatred towards "crap ops" started when microsoft signed an exclusive deal with dlc maps. than reached a boiling point with all the cheating on the psn. the game itself is gold....at least on the 360 it is. #3.3.2 10d ago by firstkn1ght"

note: conspiracy theories? wow! so the reason why gamers or at least some hate call of duty black ops because they couldn't get any map packs because the 360 only could get them? so they don't hate it because it's same repetive shooter they played like their previous interations because they were ps3 fans who were jealous of microsoft getting exclusive dlc maps? yeah that makes really a lot of sense/s

"lol! knew this was a gamingbolt article when i saw the title. fanboy journalism FTL.#38 20d ago by firstkn1ght"

note: this comment of yours was from the infamous 2 article "is infamous 2's graphics revolutionary for the series?" now why would you call the article's author a fanboy just because he compliment the graphics of the game? 360 fanboy rage perhaps? also i thought to you there wasn't no such thing as fanboy journalism?

"eat your heart out sony. your killzone 2 is a sales bust :)#206 2d ago by firstkn1ght"

ah! this one takes the cake, don't it just make you feel good to find out you're not what you seem to be?
in this case i'll give you a hint: you're not a gamer.

[BlackTar187]

First Knight got Class A burned and there are plenty other examples in his comment history.

First knight lol at being owned to the highest degree .

[Nicaragua]

How about I disregard your first two posts because your an utter bell-end ?

[MarioWarfare]

I don't believe in all the BS conspiracy theories that fanboys come up with, God of war 3 came out last year and has a 92 in metacritic and heavy rain has a 88 and that's pretty much what they deserve and not because the western sites are biased and gave them low scores. The western press is reviewing games for the western audience and a lot of people don't like Japanese games.

[BlackTar187]

Wrong spot