Fox News Reviewer immediately fired for early review

[Bodhesatva]

JaggedSac said:
About MGS4, like I said, the limitations were not on the score that was placed on the game. It was merely in regards to what could be said before the game was released.

Also, that link does not say anything important. Merely that some game companies knew their games would get reviewed poorly and decided not to send EGM the games.

Also, I have yet to see a 3 week after release date embargo or a score cap.

 

 

Ah ha ha, what a terrible argument. Yes, because clearly those specific examples were Kasz' original point. Those examples were chosen randomly: it's like saying "the Mexican police will let you smuggle dope across the border for 5 dollars." Obviously that literal example may not be substantiated, but the clear intent of the statement is "The Mexican police are corrupt," which absolutely no one would argue with. Don't be obtuse.

The argument that "Konami didn't set scores. They just limited what you could write and when you could write it and if it was negative you couldn't release your review before the game came out" is silly. The point is obviously that Konami is behaving unethically. They refused to let critics release reviews before a specified date (June 12, 2008) if they criticized certain aspects of the game in their review. The specifics really aren't relavant when the overarching point is that journalistic ethics were violated, which they were.

And if I'm reading your second paragraph correctly, it's clear we aren't going to reach a consensus here. You think it's "not important" that game publishers are refusing to work with or send review copies to critics which give them poor reviews.

Let's phrase that another way: game publishers are putting financial pressure on game critics to give them good reviews. That is not a twisted or unfair way to state that -- that is exactly what they're doing. Not even obliquely, mind you, but directly: they are pulling advertising dollars and forcing the critics to buy their own copies of the games in question. If you do not consider that unethical, then this discussion is over.