A Bizarre Review Request
by Scott Nichols
I was recently fortunate enough to have the opportunity to review Okami HD, which is releasing today on PSN. However, the press release/cover letter/review guide that accompanied my review code from Capcom is one of the most bizarre I’ve ever encountered. As such, I wanted to share it with all of you.
Disclaimer: I am sometimes naive about these things, so hopefully this doesn’t get the PR person who sent this in trouble if I tease it a bit. I find it an amusing oddity, not something worthy of condemnation, so if there’s a chance this will get the person in trouble with their job, I will remove it. In the mean time, under the assumption that this is all in good fun, let’s begin!
Dearest Amaterasu fan,
Please find enclosed along with this covering letter and fact sheet your review code for Okami HD.
[All good so far!]
Okami HD is beautiful, so beautiful. Sadly, *weep*, this game will probably review well but not sell in reflection. This time though, on PSN, it’s only £15.99 SO THIS COULD BE ITS CHANCE. Please.
[Wait, what? You’re telling me that you expect your game to get good review scores? Sure, this is Okami, but in my experience that is pretty unorthodox to actually outright say that to a reviewer. Even more unorthodox is telling me that they don’t expect it to sell well. Again, for Okami this makes sense with its history of poor sales, but still, super weird. Not to mention that “not sell in reflection” is a pretty awkward phrase. Also weird is the “please” at the end as its own sentence. This is literally begging.]
Released 31st October [Note: this was from Capcom UK, so that’s the UK date], you retread the steps of Okami in HD, and hopefully in the process stir up some wonderful nostalgia. Okami HD is a decent reason for you to use your PlayStation Move, it makes painting all that much more joyful. Here are some things you should also know to re-jig your memory;
[Okami HD is a “decent” reason to use PlayStation Move? Whoa there, calm down. You don’t want to oversell it. Considering how well the Move support works, really well in fact, I’m surprised they aren’t pushing this harder. Other than that word choice, fairly standard PR stuff. Also, that semicolon is really bothering me.]
- This game is MEGA long. Like, you think you’ve nearly finished it but actually it has only just begun. [Quite true! Though I actually talk about this as the game’s major failing in my review.]
- It’s beautiful. 1080p HD graphics beautiful.
- It’s compatible with Move. Use the Move controller to brush away enemies with your celestial brush.
- A full suite of trophies will be available for players to challenge themselves in new ways; including a platinum trophy.
- If you don’t find this game warm and caring, you’re dead inside. [Important feature to be listed on the back of the box]
- Please keep your footage to reasonable sections.
- It’s only £15.99. [Again, UK-ness]
- It’ll make your sad face turn upside down.
I have assets if you want ‘em and can sort out some Q&As on request. Give me a shout if you need anything else.
GO AMATERASU, GO, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE LITTLE ONE. [Go go gadget caps lock.]
Best,
[Redacted PR person’s name, contact info, etc. Update: not to generalize, but based on the person’s name I wouldn’t guess that they are a native Japanese speaker.]
Ok, maybe as a whole this isn’t as weird as I thought on my first impression, but that second paragraph…wow. It’s not quite out there enough to have the Aubrey Norris charm, though I respect the effort. A review info letter just seems like a strange context to try and flex those particular PR muscles.
What do you think? Am I over-reacting to its weirdness? Under-reacting? I’d especially love to hear from some PR people with their thoughts on it.
UPDATE: My Okami HD review is live now, so why not go ahead see what I thought of it?
I really like it! The game is already well known enough to get away with this kind of thing. Perhaps it’s a British thing?
That second paragraph is one of those ones where it doesn’t seem to work as well in print as it would in person. Depending on the tone, it could come across as arch cynicism, weary-but-good-natured humour, or barely-concealed screaming frustration. No way of knowing.
And, yeah, that semicolon is just sorta sitting there. It seems like they were going to go for a semicolon-delineated list, like you find in diplomatic memoranda and whatnot, but forgot about it entirely and just dropped periods at the end of every bullet.
(Either that or somebody forgot to hit “shift”. Probably the latter.)
Note that you chide them both for bragging (“will probably review well”) and then for failing to brag enough (“a decent reason for you to use…”)
The language is a bit off, as you’ve mentioned, leading one to assume that it might not be from a native speaker, despite coming out of the Japanese company’s UK office (or at least with that return address) and being clearly intended for UK journalists.
And it’s an odd, overly-casual language strategy overall. (Maybe it’s actually a plea from one of the developers?)
But what you call ‘bragging’ sounds reasonable to me. Unless there are technical issues with the port, this remastering of an already highly-reviewed game will almost surely get high reviews again. And so they can only hope that journalists will not only give it high reviews, but go above and beyond as cheerleaders this time.
In any case, a fun and funny thing to share, but probably not quite a good thing for it to have been reposted by the Penny Arcade Reports folks.
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I’m not chiding them for bragging, and actually never said that it was bragging. I expect them to talk up their game, that’s what PR does. What I don’t expect is to be told in the cover letter for a review game that there is a score expectation. By all means say how amazing your game is (and Okami HD really is amazing, I gave it 5/5 stars in my review) and after the game is out send press releases talking about all of the high scores it received. But before the review is written, expected review scores shouldn’t be a part of the discussion.
Oops, absolutely correct. I had misread “begging” at the end of that paragraph as “bragging” when I was skimming back up to recall how you had phrased it.
That said, the writer doesn’t actually ask you to give it a good score, but rather states the pretty reasonable expectation that the port of a highly reviewed game will be a highly reviewed game.
But it’s a fine line, and definitely not unreasonable, I think, for it to make a journalist uncomfortable.
Lastly, upon re-reading now, I feel like I can say with confidence that this was written by a non-native speaker, probably Japanese, and probably evoking a sort of kawaii cartoonishness with, for example, the pleading at the end of the second paragraph.
It makes me wonder what games-industry PR sounds like internally to Japan. Any chance this actually fits an intra-Japan PR genre that we just haven’t seen leak out (precisely because it’s bound to elicit this sort of befuddled reaction)?
I agree that it is odd, to an extent worth mentioning, though perhaps more so for the upfrontness of the begging and review-score mentioning than any “underwhelming” language. Interesting stuff.
Being an English major (and raised by a librarian to boot), I am (probably the only one who is) absolutely shocked and appalled by the grammatical usage, in addition to the lack of professional tone in this letter. Is this the actual letter, in all of its unadulterated “glory”? “*weep*”? “This game is MEGA long”?
I apologize for probably coming off as so anal, but a professionally-written letter should never have these sorts of casual remarks (“You’re dead inside”!?). Typically one should always use the proper “Sir” or “Madam,” and one should never, ever make use of the second person (“You do this,” “You can have that”). I honestly don’t know how this letter crawled under an editor’s nose, but professionally-speaking, it never should have been labelled as a final draft, much less been sent out to other professional contacts (in this case, critics/reviewers: people who write for a living, and already know things like the aforementioned).
This feels a little strong to me, as far as reactions go, dayosh. This isn’t a business letter. The goal isn’t to make a businessperson appreciate your business-like demeanor since if they hire you they’ll need to work with you and trust you can communicate with other business people in a way that won’t be an embarrassment to the company.
This is a PR email blast. They’re *all* embarrassments: advertisements written up as though they were news releases so journalists can copy and paste and get things out quicker.
So here’s one that’s poorly written, almost certainly because it’s from a non-native speaker, and there are some cultural differences showing up as well.
It’s not, like, an ethical affront on all well and decent grammarians.
It’s just weird. And, hey, it stood out from the rest of today’s inbox full of “well-written” PR drivel, right?
It’s just…a bit funny.
And apologies for jumping all over you for this, dayosh. It’s just that there’s a long history of people pretending to be “shocked” and “appalled” (always this sort of ridiculous hyperbole) at non-standard language use that tends to inadvertently reflect a sort of racism or classism rotting away at the root of culture. I don’t think you’re a bad person. You just stepped into something larger than simply being annoyed by grammatical mistakes, most of which were invented in the late 19th and earlyish 20th centuries precisely to separate the cultured from the uncultured.
Again, sorry for coming off a bit strong, myself. It’s totally worth being aware of “proper” usage, because the flip side of what I’m saying is, as you know, you’re likely to not be taken very well if you can’t write a “decent” sentence.
No, no. Understood. I suppose I wasn’t aware this was an “email blast” as you had put it, and was instead under the impression it was a personally-emailed form letter. I suppose if it’s just a random blurb or advertisement that was being “shot out” randomly, that probably makes it less “poo-poo” worthy (I hesitate to say “better”).
And no, for the record, I didn’t mean to “come down on” anyone in particular (and I realize you weren’t trying to do so either, in response). This article just made me realize that I don’t think I could do game reviewing as a profession, as receiving letter after letter like this would probably cause a brain aneurysm. >_<;
It crosses my mind that there’s one more practice suggested by the PR email which, if the case, is likely more disturbing than any of the weird/funny language s/he used.
That the message (to journalists, with download code attached for review) opens with “Dearest Amaterasu fan” suggests they’re only sending these review copies out to writers who have already given the original a high score, who have already professed their appreciation for the game and will likely do so again.
I gather that sort of practice happens all the time, denying review copies to reviewers who, say, poorly reviewed a previous entry in a series (or maybe even a totally separate previous game from the same publisher). While possibly common, this is probably the practice most worthy of scorn here.
(And apologies for monopolizing this comment section for a bit. I’m not really sure what’s inspired me to do so, and anonymously to boot. Hope I haven’t fallen into the regular anonymity –> jerkiness trap!)
I can see how that might look bad, but I can confirm in this instance that it isn’t the case. I never reviewed either version of Okami before, and neither has the website that assigned me to review the HD remake.
This kind of wording happens a lot in press releases (“Dear Sega fan,” “Dear Persona faithful,” etc.) and is more just PR taking a tone assuming that everyone is a fan of their product. In my experience PR people rarely withhold review copies of games, and instead try to push them on any writer they can to ensure there’s more coverage. Maybe if its a disaster of a game they would, but I can only speak to my own experience and thankfully I haven’t been assigned many of those.
I should also note that I never had direct contact with the PR person. My editor assigned me to review the game, and forwarded the PR email with a review code, game fact sheet, and this letter attached. If anything fishy happened behind the scenes (which I very strongly doubt) the message was never passed on to the person who would actually write the review. Now that the review is posted, I can also confirm that it is virtually unaltered (there are some small grammar/paragraph structure edits) from the review draft and score that I submitted to my editor.
Ah, great. Thanks for clearing that up. I didn’t mean to stir up trouble (and especially didn’t mean to suggest you or your editors might be doing anything unethical). But I can see how what I wrote might sound that way, especially in light of recent controversies.
In any case, this has been interesting to think about, and more so than I had first assumed. Thanks for the article!
I am almost certain this was written by either Brett Elston or Chris Antista. Both of them currently work for Capcom’s PR department, and both were key member’s of Gamesradar.com, which has historically had a massive boner for Okami. For example, one of their annual “Platinum Chalice” awards is the “The Okami Award (for game doomed to die a beautiful death).”
Anyways, if I’m right, then the review request was written by someone who genuinely loves the game and was disappointed by its sales, and isn’t just trying to sell you on it.
At risk of revealing who did write it through process of elimination (I have no idea how big the Capcom UK PR team is), I’m sorry to say that your certainty is misplaced. At least, if either of them wrote it they let another person on the PR team attach their name to it.
Even so, I never said I doubted the person’s sincerity. Just that I think their word choices and some of the details they chose to disclose were odd compared to what publishers normally send out along with review code. I have a feeling that EVERYONE at Capcom loves Okami and was disappointed by its sales. It just strikes me as odd that a PR person would suggest ahead of time that the re-release will follow the same sales pattern again. It was bizarrely candid.
Okami really is a tragedy. It’s one of the best games on the PS2, possibly of all time, and it never sold well. Worse, it probably marked the beginning of the current-day shit incarnation of Capcom, with them destroying Clover and beginning their abominable DLC practices afterwards.
This looks like it was written by a desperate fan of Okami, not a PR person. Maybe the regular person was on vacation and they quickly asked around to get someone to write the notes?
True !