Do triple A companies intimidate or pressure journalists for good reviews?

[- Zephox -]

Oh man it's you again

First it was the whole unethical conspiracy theory that people shouldn't buy Dead space remake because EA was involved which you made a thread and got laughed out of it and now a new conspiracy theory that media are bullied for good reviews by publishers when literally some games from large companies have been slaughtered before release considering how bad they were.

Hell Suicide squad got another delay due to how "unwelcome" the leaks were and media reported on it and it comes from a developer with quite a few successful Arkham games...

Cyberpunk was slaughtered as well day before release...
Did you miss the party for CoD, Battlefield and other games as well?

[Heathy]

humm it seems like its a matter of 'good' reviews vs good reviews, if the review is good then the company is more likely to get more views which means more ad revenue so it probably pays to make good reviews that are both types of good. although it doesn't really have to be that way seeing as you have ppl like yahtzee and his zero punctuation reviews and they really aren't what you would see in a regular IGN type of review but it is the opinion and the quality of the review itself that matters more than whether the person liked the game or not. if the game is good that should be deducible from the review, it probably doesn't pay to try to pad out the quality of a game in a review if you can easily be called out on it. like IGN and their too much water.

I don't really read many reviews any more since its so much easier to do videos that actually incorporate some gameplay. I think I only really watch splattercat since he does all indy games its one way to keep up with any unique ones.

[Fencers]

That never really happened.

People that cover entertainment are not necessarily journalists- that's your first mistake in this BS.

[draynay]

So conspiracy theory threads are allowed if they have a question mark?

[YUPPIE]

You have yet to link to any evidence to support these claims.

you already did that with the Kane & Lynch incident. But you can see from the skepticism in this thread that this isn't just a wild suspicion I have, but something that is just controversial in general.

I don't have it out for Capcom, but this is considerably ahead of release on a hyped up Triple-A game.

[Skizzit]

About a decade ago or maybe half a decade ago, we had validated concerns that Triple-A game studios would pay off reviewers to shill their game even if it was shit.

But we've had a slew of Triple-A games in recent times, namely Callisto Protocol and Forspoken, that only had their reviews delayed; they opened to horrible reception.

I'm mainly suspicious because Resident Evil 4 remake reviews have been rolling in quite a bit ahead of release, and it has opened to near-universal acclaim.

What about the positive reviews of RE4 make you suspicious? That games seems like the easiest remake ever, especially after the RE2 and RE3 remakes. They would have to do far less to RE4 to update it. Also, the few reviews I have seen are around the 7-8 range, saying the game is a solid, but not ground breaking update to the original. Just really curious why that game in particular gives you pause.

But really, review embargos shouldn't matter cause you should Never. Pre-order. Videogames!

[Edge-]

you already did that with the Kane & Lynch incident.

I didn't. He wasn't paid for a good review. He was fired for a bad one. Like 12 years ago.

But you can see from the skepticism in this thread that this isn't just a wild suspicion I have, but something that is just controversial in general.

It is speculation, and I've been correcting peoples misconceptions as they post them.

I don't have it out for Capcom, but this is considerably ahead of release on a hyped up Triple-A game.

It's Resident Evil 4, one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed games around, with a massive following. Is it any surprise that Capcom's RE remakes, which have already been reviewing well pretty much across the board, sees extremely high marks in their remake of arguably the most popular entry in the series?

It's a week out from release, Capcom had code locked early and was confident it would review well. Probably paid for a few mock reviews - not actual public reviews, these are done by former media who will play early builds and write a "mock" review of the game making some assumptions about how it would be when completed, these are often used in AAA games either to potentially help guide direction changes, to determine if additional time is needed on the game, or simply to project what they anticipate review scores will ultimately be to dictate how they approach review strategy - that trended 90+ and felt sure that they'd have some fire reviews a week out from launch to give them even more positive press.

All these things are eminently explainable and, unfortunately for some folks, super dull and boring and not really sexy or scandalous or exciting in the slightest.

[Tech614]

My dude is surprised about RE4 remake reviewing well? You do realize capcom haven't released an AAA game that hasn't reviewed well since what? SF5? Been a long time either way. It will be more of a surprise when a capcom game bombs review wise, which will probably be that random ass space dinosaur game.

[Big Thanks]

Ofcourse there is pressures...

Many times youtube creators are bribed and many times MMOByte has done videos showing proof they try to bribe him.
But thats not triple A companies...i suppose

But ofcourse there is pressures with triple A companies too.

for example:

1)

"Gamespot in 2007 when it ran a negative review of Eidos Interactive’s Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Gamespot staffer Jeff Gerstmann wrote a middling review of the mediocre action game and Gamespot upper management fired him for it.

Eidos Interactive had paid huge sums of money to advertise the Kane & Lynch on Gamespot and it wasn’t happy with the negative coverage. The publisher reached out to the site’s upper management and the suits caved to a publisher who had invested enough advertising dollars to exercise editorial control over the site’s reviews."

source:
https://medium.com/defiant/video-gam...n-af05335f9b57

2)

"Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo opened up about Kotaku’s combative relationship with publishers Ubisoft and Bethesda. In the article, A Price of Games Journalism, Totilo explained how the publishers blacklisted Kotaku in retaliation for the site covering leaks and tumult at the companies."

source:
https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-...ism-1743526293

[Surfd]

"Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo opened up about Kotaku’s combative relationship with publishers Ubisoft and Bethesda. In the article, A Price of Games Journalism, Totilo explained how the publishers blacklisted Kotaku in retaliation for the site covering leaks and tumult at the companies."

source:
https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-...ism-1743526293

Not exactly sure how the Kotaku thing counts, as that entire article comes across more like the Kotaku guys whining about the fact that they tried to do an end run around the companies in question by reporting on leaks and rumors without consulting the companies first and are being pissy that they got their hands slapped and were given the cold shoulder for it.

That doesn't seem to me like an example of undue "pressure" or "intimidation", but simply Bethesda / Ubisoft exercising their right to tell Kotaku to piss off because they are displeased with them for going public with confidential information or airing their dirty laundry like some kind of tabloid rag.

[Fencers]

The game also has a demo. You can play it and see for yourself.

[Big Thanks]

Not exactly sure how the Kotaku thing counts, as that entire article comes across more like the Kotaku guys whining about the fact that they tried to do an end run around the companies in question by reporting on leaks and rumors without consulting the companies first and are being pissy that they got their hands slapped and were given the cold shoulder for it.

That doesn't seem to me like an example of undue "pressure" or "intimidation", but simply Bethesda / Ubisoft exercising their right to tell Kotaku to piss off because they are displeased with them for going public with confidential information or airing their dirty laundry like some kind of tabloid rag.

But isnt MMO-C to Blizzard very similar to Kataku in this case?
It has covered leaks like the Wrath of the lich King fiasco pre Blizzcon...and "tumults" at the company too.

[Surfd]

But isnt MMO-C to Blizzard very similar to Kataku in this case?
It has covered leaks like the Wrath of the lich King fiasco pre Blizzcon...and "tumults" at the company too.

No offence to MMO-C, but they aren't even in the same ballpark as an entity like Kotaku or IGN or the like when it comes to "games journalism" on the scale where publishers and game companies would worry about what they might be talking about.

It's like the difference between the local gossip circle discussing a juicy rumour vs the local branch of the national news doing the same thing.

[Edge-]

But isnt MMO-C to Blizzard very similar to Kataku in this case?

Kotaku is a news outlet. MMO-C is a fansite. It's not remotely the same thing overall. That's not to say the folks that write the news here aren't cool (I don't know them, but I assume they're rad folks that do good work), but what they do and what at least some of Kotaku's writers do is not the same thing.

[Joggers]

Again, this does not happen. IGN runs advertisements for revenue and has other sponsored opportunities etc.

You have yet to link to any evidence to support these claims. IGN continues to be relevant because they're the largest gaming-focused site in the world.

And for ads to be profitable, you need site traffic. How do you get site traffic? By being the early bird for reviews.

How do you get sponsors? Not by shitting on the company's games

Edge is being a colossal disingenuous retard as per usual, which seeing as he claims to be "in the industry", isnt all that surprising, is it now.
"People dont get forced to write good reviews"
"proceeds to prove that they do"
"UHMMMM THAT ONE DOESNT COUNT BECAUSE HE DIDNT GET FORCED TO WRITE A GOOD ONE, THEY JUST FIRED HIM INSTEAD"
semantics. He got fired because he refused to shill slop.

[Tech614]

And for ads to be profitable, you need site traffic. How do you get site traffic? By being the early bird for reviews.

How do you get sponsors? Not by shitting on the company's games

Edge is being a colossal disingenuous retard as per usual, which seeing as he claims to be "in the industry", isnt all that surprising, is it now.
"People dont get forced to write good reviews"
"proceeds to prove that they do"
"UHMMMM THAT ONE DOESNT COUNT BECAUSE HE DIDNT GET FORCED TO WRITE A GOOD ONE, THEY JUST FIRED HIM INSTEAD"
semantics. He got fired because he refused to shill slop.

So explain all the games from huge AAA publishers that get bad reviews then.

It's so easy to destroy this weak argument with a single line. If you're trying to act like every game from a large company reviews well you are beyond full of shit, but not surprising for a drive by alt account post.

No way IGN would give forspoken a bad review for fear of square pulling final fantasy coverage from them right?!? Oh wait...

[YUPPIE]

So explain all the games from huge AAA publishers that get bad reviews then.

Like Callisto Protocol? Striking Distance Studio is a new studio under the wing of a shady Korean corporation (Krafton). Advertising and game development totaled to 160 million US dollars. The answer here is they wouldn't have money to bribe anyone even if they wanted to.

Capcom, by comparison, is a billion dollar multi-media company.

[Tech614]

Like Callisto Protocol? Striking Distance Studio is a new studio under the wing of a shady Korean corporation (Krafton). Advertising and game development totaled to 160 million US dollars. The answer here is they wouldn't have money to bribe anyone even if they wanted to.

Capcom, by comparison, is a billion dollar multi-media company.

Remember when billion dollar multi-media company valued well over Capcom in Sega bought reviews for Sonic Forces?

https://opencritic.com/game/4793/sonic-forces

Guess they forgot to write the checks.

If you want games recently released though we can talk about Gotham Knights and Forspoken. You probably don't want your narrative destroyed that hard though.

[Big Thanks]

The youtuber MMOByte always makes one of this videos once in a while...i made a compilation for you guys.
They keep trying to bribe him (>_<)

edit: yes, he is very clickbaity

[Edge-]

Just watching the first video...

Like, he realized that email is a scam...right? That they're absolutely not going to pay him anything? That the offer is absolutely ludicrous and no company in their right mind would ever offer that kind of deal for a single video from a fairly small (350K is on the smaller end) YouTuber? The crowdfunding scene is sketchy as fuck, yeah. But like, he has to realize that email is a scam...right?

It makes for a really compelling video about a problem that doesn't exist but reinforces some peoples biases and all. But that's genuinely not a problem. I know that dude, he is clickbaity as fuck and he should know this is kind a dishonest video to put out that that just misinforms people. Does some shady shit happen? Absolutely. But none of the bigger sites or content creators generally fuck around with any of it, because a lot is scammy as fuck (like the email he's taking very seriously) and it's also not worth the credibility loss/risk. If you take money to promote something as a content creator and don't label your videos you could have the FCC breathing down your neck. That shit already blew up years back and compliance has dramatically improved, especially for bigger channels. It's really not worth risking deals that are tens of thousands of dollars by not putting #Ad #Sponsored in the title.

Again, this is in my professional wheelhouse. Shit man, my company gets some of those scam offers and we just have a fuckin website with a news feed for our shit.