This has been going on for years. I even heard Ubisoft were giving reviewers free copies of their games in advance.

Meh.. its normal business.. I got an iPhone as gift once besides the normal Liquor, Diner, Paid City trips, free tickets for Sports ,Festival, Movies.. its just an tax reduction for those companies..

Because it affects the neutrality of the people who gets the gift and makes it lean in favor of the game/company not because the title is great but because they are giving you stuff with it.

In journalism (and many other professions) you should not accept any gift that may change your opinion about the news, if they give you a capacitive stylus that has the logo of the game (around 15 U$) is a nice gift, but in this case the "gift" costs way more than the product itself there is something shady about it and you should not receive it and Ubisoft should not offer it in the first place.

That's harmless compared to the first class flights, free boose, and loose women that were typically "gifted" to gaming journalists back in the day. Seriously. That's what they got sometimes.

Well the Aiden does use a phone to hack...Plus if getting a free phone means a reviewer will change their score to be higher, then they shouldn't even be a reviewer.

sauce?

Or is it based entirely on rumours?

That is beyond shady in my opinion. Unfortunately, it's very common practice.

The change can be unconcious, they don't necessarily add a point or half a point because they got the phone, but if you associate good memories with the game (like getting a free phone) you will feel like the game provide you with more entertainment than it did, not because of the qualities of the game but because of the extra stuff you got with it.

The bigger the gift the more difficult will be for the reviewer separate between the entertainment/fun of the game and of the present, so is common practice not to give or receive gifts that are expensive, and that is not only for journalist, it applies in almost all professional scenarios, companies to customer and viceversa

How thoughtfull! They should give us all Nexus 7 so we can give them high ratings too!

No secret sauce here...Wrong thread.