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

[YUPPIE]

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.

[Edge-]

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.

No, we didn't. The closest is when GameSpot fired Jeff Gerstman because he shit all over Kane & Lynch and Squeenix pressured them hard to axe him.

I've still yet to see any evidence this actually happens, and considering this is within my professional wheelhouse I'm gonna add in a big 'ol, "Literally, if this happens its extremely rare and isolated to the point of barely existing".

Early review embargoes exist. If a publisher is confident their game will score well, there's plenty of benefit to letting reviews drop early to try to drive more last-minute preorders/launch day sales and benefit from a news bump on embargo lift, possibly sustained momentum via allowing limited/unlimited streaming afterwards, and then launch news dropping.

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.

Which of these reviews were "delayed"? None were, and media were granted advanced access to post reviews by launch day. Publishers are under no obligation to provide media with pre-release copies to give them time to review. They can simply tell media to go buy the game themselves if they want to review it.

This is not a very great way to start a thread.

[Zenfoldor]

The conspiracy theory: Enough pro reviewers to significantly sway metacritic averages across multiple games are secretly pro nintendo(paid or free often varies by the crier) or pro-nintendo adjacent.

Status: Never being leaked or proven nor any evidence offered by anyone.

Proof: None

Logic: People who don't play Nintendo games don't think they are good, and ginned up a conspiracy theory with no evidence to make the unarguably excellent review averages make sense to them.

Facts of relevance: If you haven't played the game yourself, then it would be your own opinion that would be by definition factually ignorant. ie "All Switch games are for bad(or good)"

References: Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

ie. If you think that scoring Nintendo games highly is stupid, then calling the critic's opinions stupid is a perfectly valid opinion, BUT pro critics successfully acting with malovelance in tandem across the industry for years or decades to score Nintendo games highly makes no sense.

Supplemental information: The same theory, to a lesser degree, exists for Sony exclusives. ie "Non-interacive walking simulator's get way better reviews than they should because they are Playstation exclusives"

"Argument": "If a game on XYZ platform would have had XYZ bullet point wrong with it, then it would have scored a 4/10"

Counter Argument: Games are of course not simply a list of bullet points. Scoring a game off bullet points(positive or negative) is similar to scoring a football match after looking up the matchup on paper, instead of actually requiring the game to be played to determine the result.

Conclusion: No - The whole "Nintendo games get better reviews because they are Nintendo" is a crazy, cooky conspiracy theory ginned up to help Nintendo haters deal with fomo.

If any of these conspiracy theories were true, they would be too big to keep secret, thus, they are false.

[YUPPIE]

1) Shadows of Mordor was another example. But like you said, these are isolated examples. Still, is it really too unbelievable?

2) Compared to Resident Evil 4, with reviews a week ahead, Callisto Protocol had an embargo to only allow reviews a day after launch.

[Edge-]

1) Shadows of Mordor was another example. But like you said, these are isolated examples. Still, is it really too unbelievable?

Example of what?

2) Compared to Resident Evil 4, with reviews a week ahead, Callisto Protocol had an embargo to only allow reviews a day after launch.

No, it did not. The embargo lifted one day before it released. Publishers are under no obligation to allow media to provide media with pre-release review keys nor allow them to post reviews ahead of release.

You apparently have no idea what you're talking about, and the better course of action would be to ask questions rather than make incorrect declarative statements and vague implications.

[Biomega]

That's not generally how it works. Sure there's isolated cases of active collusion, but the real mechanism is nowhere near that direct.

It's much simpler.

Reviewers depend on publisher goodwill. If they want preview copies or exclusive access, they need to be someone publishers want to give those things to. Which means either they need to be of such standing and importance in the community that publishers feel they have to support them; or they need to maintain a track record of beneficial reviews so that publishers feel they WANT to support them.

People who are ripping new releases to shreds but aren't "big names" aren't going to get exclusivity. And if you want to make a living doing reviews, exclusivity is kind of important.

No one can force publishers to invite you to closed alpha/beta or give you preview content. And publishers want to use that kind of access and that kind of content to generate positive hype about their product. They're not interested in fair, unbiased assessments, they're interested in marketable publicity. Of course they'll make sure to maximize their chances of getting that.

[Edge-]

Reviewers depend on publisher goodwill. If they want preview copies or exclusive access, they need to be someone publishers want to give those things to. Which means either they need to be of such standing and importance in the community that publishers feel they have to support them; or they need to maintain a track record of beneficial reviews so that publishers feel they WANT to support them.

To a point, but not really. Things like previews are generally fairly kind to games, but that's about it. Media will shit on a bad game if it's bad, see Forspoken and Calisto Protocol for two examples of fairly high profile games, one with a lot of hype behind it, that were savaged in their reviews. Because while media may not want to shit on games (they're fans of games too, they're endemic media), that's their job if the game is bad.

People who are ripping new releases to shreds but aren't "big names" aren't going to get exclusivity. And if you want to make a living doing reviews, exclusivity is kind of important.

If they're not a big name the chances of them getting any exclusives are very low unless they're like, the biggest name in a niche genre or something. There are no such things as exclusive reviews, either. The last time anything like that happened was IGN having like 3-4 days where they were the only outlet that was allowed to post their Bioshock Infinite review, and media damn-near rioted after that (and rightly so). I don't believe there has been anything like this since that.

[loras]

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.

Yeah, even if it's done more "professionally" nowadays.
See all the woke shite too, money and pressure behind it all.

But all the best liars keep a grain of truth in their lies, so just read everything as if it's written by a restaurant employee review the restaurant while the owner occasionally glances over his shoulder.

[Edge-]

Yeah, even if it's done more "professionally" nowadays.
See all the woke shite too, money and pressure behind it all.

This does not exist or happen.

[loras]

This does not exist or happen.

You can keep your eyes closed if you want to, but do not expect others to follow suit.

[Edge-]

You can keep your eyes closed if you want to, but do not expect others to follow suit.

I literally work in this field so I'd say I have a pretty good "insider" understanding of it.

[ONCHEhap]

Honestly, you'd need to be on very hard copium to think that large companies with huge amounts of money aren't paying off media sources for better PR in general.

Not just in video games and not just reviewers, it's just how stuff works and has worked forever

[Edge-]

Honestly, you'd need to be on very hard copium to think that large companies with huge amounts of money aren't paying off media sources for better PR in general.

They aren't. Smaller sites don't really handle ads themselves and larger sites have silo'd off ad sales teams. Advertising/sales and editorial rarely ever interact, which is by design. There's sponsored content (usually clearly labeled) and all, but outside of that this isn't really happening. At least not within the gaming scene.

[Zyky]

I don't know, honestly it feels like it's the case though. An example I can think of immediately in Dragonflight. Blizzard, very clearly, gave streamers/youtubers/twitter personalities thousands of copies to give away while talking about how "great" the expansion is seeming on beta. Followed by the vast majority of these streamers barely touching the expansion on stream past the first month of release.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Wasn’t this what gamer gate was about or something? People complaining about reviewers being paid off but then just mass harassed some woman and nothing valid ever came to light?

I doubt if it was an actual wide spread thing it wouldn’t have been shouted from every proverbial roof top about how gamer gate was right all along.

[ONCHEhap]

Wasn’t this what gamer gate was about or something? People complaining about reviewers being paid off but then just mass harassed some woman and nothing valid ever came to light?

I doubt if it was an actual wide spread thing it wouldn’t have been shouted from every proverbial roof top about how gamer gate was right all along.

The issue with gamegate is that it was hijacked by both man-hating third wavers and woman-hating incels, meaning any actual discussion around the subject was muddied and pointless. It turned into a battleground about gender and stopped being about the unreliable nature of game reviewers too fast to generate anything useful

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The issue with gamegate is that it was hijacked by both man-hating third wavers and woman-hating incels, meaning any actual discussion around the subject was muddied and pointless. It turned into a battleground about gender and stopped being about the unreliable nature of game reviewers too fast to generate anything useful

That would make sense. As some one who more or less gave it a blind eye I recall a lot of “it’s about ethics in game journalism” but literally the only stuff I saw come out of it was harassment and crying.

There might have been a deeper point but I don’t know who would willingly dredge through that much sludge to try and find it and nothing really big ever seemed to come to light.

[YUPPIE]

You went from intimidation and pressure in the title, to paying off reviewers to shill in your actual post.

I thought they went hand-in-hand since, you know, the "intimidation" and "pressure" theoretically amount to corps not paying bribe money and cutting sponsorship deals if not giving good reviews.

Both are things major outlets (not indie, low-profile) like IGN obviously need to stay afloat/relevant.

[Zenfoldor]

That would make sense. As some one who more or less gave it a blind eye I recall a lot of “it’s about ethics in game journalism” but literally the only stuff I saw come out of it was harassment and crying.

There might have been a deeper point but I don’t know who would willingly dredge through that much sludge to try and find it and nothing really big ever seemed to come to light.

There is some merit to the downsides of media collusion used to manipulate a preferred narrative. However, media collusion isn't really a conspiracy theory, it's pretty well accepted that insiders talk to insiders, so it is 100% true, in most media, and nobody really denies it. It was controversial back when news was prestigious and exclusively for factual reporting and not novel entertainment with baked in perspectives. News nowadays is mostly facts that have be spun to fit the story the author is trying to tell, mixed with political ideology. Hard news in the gaming world as always a pipe dream. What it is now, is who can write the most controversial headline of the most innocuous event. Clickbait. Clickbait sucks right? Gaming news do click bait? Oh heck yes they do, lol, they live by it, are molded in it.

What isn't true is that a conspiracy theory as large as mainstream reviewers ALL being in the back pocket of Activision/Nintendo/Sony could be kept secret. It could not for any considerable period of time and thus can't be true. Someone would leak that if it were the case.

[Edge-]

I thought they went hand-in-hand since, you know, the "intimidation" and "pressure" theoretically amount to corps not paying bribe money and cutting sponsorship deals if not giving good reviews.

Both are things major outlets (not indie, low-profile) like IGN obviously need to stay afloat/relevant.

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.