Are reviewers afraid of fanboys?

[gavind5uk]

KylieDog said:

gavind5uk said:
For the big player developers, and reviewers like gamespot as far as i knew the devs pay the reviewers to give them high scores, i.e. developer gives a website/magazine an early scoop on the game on the terms that they wont score it less than x/10.

There was some fisaco at gamespot not long back because a guy working there refused to give kane & lynch more than 6/10, obviously some agreement had been signed before hand so the guy was fired.

 

It is never verbally said, but companies can pressure reviewers to give good scores. 

 

If they advertise on a site a lot it don't look good having a bad review sitting right next to the advert, and those adverts won't likely be renewed, if they aren't renewed the website loses money, so it is in the websites interest to give  good review and keep the ad money rolling in.

 

Likewise news and early previews of games gets people reading websites (which makes the site attractive for companies who want to advertise) so websites want to keep companies happy to keep getting those early previews.

 

Yes i should qualify that story, i believe they were advertising the game down either side panel, hence the 'dispute', but it does make business sense, when you consider the possibility that both games developers & reviewers dont give a toss about the people buying the product (99.9% of the time would be my guess), then it is easy to see how these misrepresentations can take place.