| Erik Aston said: Everyone in the world knew that Halo 3 was going to get insanely good scores including a ton of perfect scores years ago. It was basically confirmed in 2004 when the Halo 2 launch went off without a hitch. And if anyone had any doubt, it should have been erased weeks ago when Halo 3 ads started covering every major game publication from top to bottom. Videogame journalism is shady. That isn't to insult Bungie, the Halo games or most of these reviewers. Just Microsoft, who is signing these publications' checks. They obviously can't directly dictate what scores should be given, but they can and do, according to ceaseless industry rumor, restrict scores below a certain level (I'm guessing 9.5 in this case; it was 9.0 for the recent Madden launch) until after the game launches. Don't shoot the messenger. |
Most sites do not release bad scores on any game until after it ships. It is not just EA and Microsoft... Kengo: Legend of the Nine, Fatal Intertia, and Dynasty Warriors are just a few recently released games that don't have many actual reviews right now... This is because they have average or below average scores and the sites find this the best way to release bad scores without tanking sales. For the most, part you don't see the negative reviews until a week after launch. It is not a conspiracy... It is the way the industry works.
And by the way, if you put out a game and a review site gave it low scores, would you continue to advertise (send checks) to that site? Wow, they gave us a 6/10 on Halo 3, let's advertise Mass Effect on their site, hopefully it will do better...
