| Kantor said: I don't really understand this. We get a fair few review copies, and I swear on my life that not once have I EVER been asked to inflate my review score by anyone. Hell, Naughty Bear was a review copy and I gave that a 3.3. Nobody cared. Maybe with the big sites, but I don't understand why some people would get unconditional review copies (like us) and others would get them with strings attached. I can perhaps buy that the "world exclusive" reviews are vetted to ensure that they are nice to the game, but think about it: if just one site doesn't want to play ball, it just releases a story saying that the company tried to moneyhat a review, and bam, PR disaster. Look at what happened with Duke Nukem Forever. The PR guy said they would be reconsidering review copies in future based on some of the reviews, and he was promptly fired. There is a certain amount of goodwill that you feel towards a company who has given you a free game, but that's all there is to it. |
It's rather simple, really. It's all about Metacritic (mentioned constantly by companies), because that's what these companies tend to see as the holy grail. A high score on there is considered a massive boon.
So, consider that GamrReview has...no reviews on Metacritic? Maybe a few I missed?
IGN is sitting at 11,653 reviews on Metacritic. Gamespot has 9,299. Gamespy is 4,748. Eurogamer is 4,065. These are generally the 'big boys' of game reviewing.
VGC's reviews are important to people on the site, but these bigger review places reach rather massive audiences. Thus they are ripe for manipulation by offering advertising dollars and the like, knowing that these sites depend on those advertisements to keep going and such. Thus, they seek better reviews from these bigger places to ensure positive reviews, because that way more people will see it.
