Quote Originally Posted by Fisherking
It seems to me that if some of the Magazines picked it up and got it to a wider audience that they would put someone on it. But with a few exceptions of bad reviews the Mags seem to say almost everything is the best there ever was rather than saying that most games are released too early with shoddy play testing etc. When you can think of a way to make it hot for the bean counters then you have a chance to make something happen rather than just wasting time writing gripes.
An excellent idea to be sure, but it'll never, ever happen. The gaming sites and mags aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them, and they make the lion's share of their income from the gaming industry advertising. Look at big name titles like Half-life 2, Bioshock, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Hellgate, etc etc, and all the hype and advertising that's thrown in behind them. Now look at the average review score for each. The amount of money a publisher throws behind a game's hype and advertising on the sites and mags has a direct correlation to it's review score and "airtime", thus in effect buying a good score. Fallout 3 is going to get a 9.0 or above score when it's released, probably a 9.5 or above, no matter what shape it's really in or how good it is, you can quote me on this. The only thing that ever causes a big name title to sub-optimal scores (as in down to an 8.0, which is the glass floor) is some severe, and I mean severe as in crashing frequently no matter what, game-breaking bugs that are impossible to overlook. Also, reviews often tend to be "revised" several times before they are published by supervisors, often removing quite a bit of the less-than-stellar talking points and knocking the score up several times. Look at what happened to the IGN review of Super Mario Sunshine several years back.

It's still going to boil down to grassroots operations like us, and don't underestimate your ability to make a difference. As Odin said, it's really becoming a rite of passage for PC gaming these days to find the biggest unofficial sites and official patches to get a game working. Thus I have good reason to believe that more than just a few of the total amount of people who own the games read these forums and sites occasionally. Forums, word of mouth, any personal interaction, etc, are all doable and will make a difference in the long run, it's just up to us.