Throughout most of my video game career, I’ve been a developer/publisher defender. I’ve mostly been on their side when it comes to their decisions for their properties. They want to require an online connection? That’s their business. They decide to crack down on pirated copies? I’m waving that Go flag at the starting line. The Mass Effect fans who had torches and pitchforks after the Mass Effect 3 ending? I supported BioWare. I’ve never, as a consumer, felt that game companies owed me a thing other than ensuring the product I purchased works. They don’t owe me the story I want, the character design I feel like I should have, or really anything else. All they owe me is a working and complete product.
I added the “complete” there, because I have mixed feelings when it comes to DLC. But that’s a discussion for a completely different day.
On the journalism/writing side of things, I even took the publishers’ side when it came to “blackballing” media outlets. Again, it’s their product. If they don’t like how a media outlet handled things in the past, whether it’s leak info or spread rumors, it’s completely within their right to withhold review copies, interviews, etc. People can scream freedom of speech and freedom of the press as much as they want, because neither of those freedoms declare withholding review copies a violation of constitutional rights. You have every right to say/write whatever you want (as long as it’s true), and the companies have every right to respond how they see fit.
I’m trying to hold on to that argument as I seethe and boil with rage against this industry I’ve defended for so long. It’s probably a good thing I’m no longer writing for an outlet, because boy howdy am I disgusted right now.
Enter the Strategy Guide Industry
Most, if not all, of you know that I’ve written about video game strategy guides for years. In fact, this year marks the 10th anniversary of StrategyGuideReviews.com. I was literally the only person out there actively reviewing strategy guides on a regular basis. Writers and publishers at both BradyGames and Prima Games took notice after some time, and I developed relationships with both companies. I even made some great friendships with people from each.
One writer in particular, one Doug Walsh, I never met in person and never chatted with. When Prima Games closed officially earlier this year, he reached out to me about some extra strategy guides he had and asked if I would support his non-guide author endeavors. I said I absolutely would, and lo and behold, I received an advanced review copy of his latest book, The Walkthrough. It’s a memoir about his time as a strategy guide writer, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Not only did it open my eyes to what went down with the Brady/Prima merger, but I also learned more about the dark underbelly of the video game companies. I am well aware that they are businesses first and foremost, and it’s their job to make as much money as possible so they can continue doing what they do. That said, after learning from the book how LITTLE info the devs/pubs gave the guide writers, I was SHOCKED to learn from another guide writer friend how much guide publishers paid each company in licensing.
It’s Their Product, but…
He explained to me that the book publishers paid the game publishers millions of dollars in licensing fees up front. So the companies were PAID to let guide writers come in and write up strategies for their products. And if that wasn’t enough, the companies also required all of the book’s royalties. The guide publisher in fact made very little money off of each book.
So yes, while I understand them’s the breaks of business, and the developer/publisher has every right to demand payment to profit off of their product, I’m just appalled at how controlling and unhelpful the companies were to the guide writers. Guide writers received little to no support about the games they were writing about. The writers were responsible for researching the stats of weapons and enemies, creating maps, finding Easter Eggs, etc. When it came to Easter Eggs, the developers often refused to allow the writers to include them in their guides, much less help them uncover all of them.
Last week, I heard from another former guide contact that some developers required the writers to occasionally include bad or outright wrong info. They didn’t want the guide writers to talk badly about a weapon or an attack or praise one so highly to the point of only using it. The game companies forced guide writers to market a game for them, when it was the guide publishers that paid the companies to allow them to write the book in the first place. Let that sink in for a minute.
If it was the companies that paid the publishers to write the guide, then yes, they absolutely have control over what goes into the book. This isn’t the case of a celebrity paying someone to write their autobiography for them. It’s the case of a writer paying a celebrity to allow an interview for a biography and then that celebrity mandating what is and isn’t allowed in the book.
How were they able to enforce it? By simply refusing to sell them a license again. Game companies held future business hostage from guide publishers in order to control a book’s content, even though the guide publisher paid them millions in licensing and royalties. It’s like me buying a cookie from a bakery and the baker telling me how I need to eat it. If I refuse, I can’t come back to that bakery ever again. Where in my case, I can go to other bakeries, it wasn’t the same for guide publishers.
It’s Extortion, Plain and Simple
It’s no wonder that the strategy guide industry went under. I thought the Internet was the killer, and it would have been eventually, but it was ultimately the video game companies. They enjoyed a little extra funding for their games and treated the guide industry like they should be thanking them every day for the privilege of paying them for menial access.
I worked in the video game media industry for fifteen years, and every outlet I have been with was accused of being bought by video game companies. I swear to you, and I will to my dying day, that I was never paid a penny from any video game company for my praise or coverage for a game. Now I know they never would pay me for that. They’d expect me to pay them for the privilege.
Leave a Reply