Is AdventureGamers.com biased?
 

I recently got some mail from visitors who complained that Adventure Gamers was biased towards LucasArts games.

Of course, I was rather surprised by this. We gave The Dig 3 stars. EMI got 4. Loom 3.5. Grim Fandango a 4.5. No one can tell me that those aren't reasonable and balanced scores.

Adventure Gamers was only one of two websites, on the whole internet, who gave Full Throttle 2 some (careful) criticism. What I've read elsewhere went mostly along the lines of "the classic graphic adventure is BACK and knowing LucasArts it's going to be awesome!!!", not even bothering to look much into the game at all.

So, I'm wondering if it's just a handful of infrequent visitors who think we're biased, or if this is a more common perception. Let me know your honest opinion. (As you know, votes are anonymous.) Also, if anyone has any hard evidence against us, I'd like to hear it.

nah. the coverage here is pretty objective and fair (the grim fandango score aside :D). you always get some fanboys, blind and oblivious to valid criticism, but its seldom that it permeates an entire site or staff, which certainly isnt the case here.

I would say the former. I've never thought of your site's reviews as biased towards anything. This site has always had an impartial and good outlook on games that I personally trust for all my adventure game knowledge needs.

The only reason why anybody might think you were overly biased for LucasArts is because (perhaps this is just my opinion) they're just that good. :D Too much good saying may look like bias, but LucasArts has given us some good stuff.

Perhaps there was a perceived bias not necessarily based on the AdventureGamers reviews of the games, but rather on the fact that the forum spent so long hosted on the LucasArts BBS? The one fact colored some people's perception of the other opinions?

Just a guess.

Well that is bullshit, clean and simple. :D

This is my guess too. Another example - I seem to remember you making no secret of the fact that you went around E3 with the Mixnmojo guys - things like this shouldn't necessarily make people suspect you of being biased, but inevitably it can happen.

I read AG for a long time before I read these forums, and I don't think you're biased. LEC made a lot fewer games than Sierra, their main "rival", but almost all those games were of an incredible quality. The truly great Sierra games were a lot more rare. The LEC games may have all gotten high scores, but they were all deserving of high scores...

Nor should we have made any secret about it. They're cool guys, and we enjoyed hanging out with them at E3.

I've got this vague notion of you guys having more LucasArts retrospectives than Sierra retrospectives, but I haven't been reading long/regularly enough to justify that, so I've been ignoring it as brain noise.

I had to say "No, but you might be giving that impression." It would be absurd to think that your reviews actually had some sort of LucasArts bias--for that to be the case, you'd have to actually screen staff applications for LEC preference, or have some sort of cultish training regimen that included pro-LucasArts brainwashing. Since Adventure Gamers is a collection of people rather than a single entity, it doesn't make sense to assume that LEC would, on the whole, be given extra weight.

On the other hand, you (Marek) seem to have more of a soft spot in your heart for LucasArts games, and I would assume this is what has indirectly and directly lead to things like hanging out with the Mojo guys, being hosted on LucasForums, etc. There's nothing wrong with this at all--you're one gamer, and every gamer has their own gaming background that has resulted in their overall gaming opinions. Since you are so instrumental in the site (for obvious reasons), I think that perhaps your perceived "bias" of LEC may by default carry itself over to the rest of the site. I don't think this manifests itself in any tangible ways, it's just sort of a "feeling" people can get. As soon as any rational person starts to actually READ your content, however, this perception should vanish. Bottom line: I wouldn't worry about it.

I wasn't saying you should have. See Remixor's post for what I meant to convey.

Well, as far as hosting an adventure game forum, there aren't very many suitors left in America. The only other I can think of is JustAdventure.

*takes a look at the hype-o-meter*

Nope! :)

I voted No. I can't think of any bias towards lucasarts games my self. I think BacardiJim may be right, perhaps they got that impression because of the forums and the fact the site was hosted by lucasfans.

That sure might be a reason... never thought about that myself though...

Well, that's just silly. A quick look at the frontpage should proove claims like that wrong.

It's possible that the person making the complaint has something against LEC.

Oh, I know. Don't get me wrong here. I've no problem at all with LF hosting AG during downtime. I thought it was very gracious of LF and the arrangement worked out well. However, I can see where that would seem a little odd to a casual reader, particuarly one who has discovered AG during its temp-forums days.

I voted no also.
I have a feeling that the temp forum being hosted on LucasForums is one major reason for why people who don't know this site or staff so well could think that you're biased towards LucasArts, but I'm sure that there were people that criticized AGers before the temp forum even existed, so the fact that you hang out with the Mojo guys is probably a big reason also, but I wouldn't worry about it too much.
When people say these kinds of things it's often a matter of jealousy, and I can very much understand how someone could be jealous of a great site like this.

I've got that feeling also. It's of course understanding when you consider that Sierra is a much older adventure game maker than LucasArts is, and LucaArts' gold period happened when I think that many of you were starting to play games regularly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just the feeling I've got.

Another fact is that, as forum readers, we also read the informal comments you post here, and those you usually write without any attempt to balance for bias (as should be expected). It's just a subconscious thing.

So this kind of poll would make more sense on the front page.