About my Nintendo "hate."

[palou]

niceguygameplayer said:

I watched a video or two about how Nintendo sends free games to video reviewers. There is a catch. They will only keep sending the games and keep you as a Nintendo partner if you give their games good reviews. So if someone thought Breath of the Wild was only a 5 out of 10, for example, they could terminate the partnership even if the reviewer was giving their honest opinions. This is how  it was explained. If true, that is corrupt guys! I don't see why anybody would just up and kill their Nintendo free games coming to give a mediocre score.

Pretty much every single game publisher gives out free game copies to reviewers, in advance. That's why you get reviews before release date.

 

You'll also notice that every single major/recognized game reviewer does review all of Nintendo's major games, in advance (meaning that they got their copies early), despite the fact that very poor reviews *do* exist. Nintendo has never speceifically threatened anyone that they would stop providing review copies. It is also completely unthinkable for any publisher to ever exclude the likes of IGN, Polygon, Gamespot, etc... in sent review copies, and these big outlets know that much.

 

What concerns the smaller, less recognized (wouldn't appear on Metacritic, for example) organizations, there is most definitely a certain implied pressure to please the hand that feeds them - but this implied pressure is equally existant for all production companies.