source GameSetWatch

Anyone care to explain how/why it's legal for them to set rules?

/hijack

If IGN caved in to the "limit", does that make them less trust worthy than EGM?

/boycotting IGN

I like the scoreless review but i do not think a company should impose said limits but if Konami said "Can you not give it scores but rather just a review" then i see no problem.

Scoreless reviews would be amazing. Maybe people would actually read the reviews instead of skipping to the score and going OMFG this game sucks it only got 8/10 it's not AAAAAAAAAAAA ps3 sucks. Better yet maybe people wouldn't compare different games by score alone and insult the reviewers for AN OPINION.

In short: the intellectual property (IP) used in the review is privately owned. If you want review code early -- i.e.: you want access to their privately owned IP before the rest of the market -- you may be requested to sign the equivalent of an non-disclosure agreement, limiting your ability to freely talk about their IP. However, once that IP is released freely on the market, such limitations come to an end for obvious reasons.

So, if you want a review potentially filled with spoliers, or discussing aspects of the game that the publisher does not wished to be discussed, wait until after the game has had its official release.

That's about it. Nothing especially sinister, although it does pass control to the IP owners rather than the reviewers. And given most reviewers want their reviews out early, they sometimes have to sacrfice their free speech in the short term to achieve this.

They just use blackmail, by saying review the game we want you to or you wont be getting a copy of this game or any other of are games early to review.

Asking reviewers not to reveal spoilers is perfectly fine by me, but asking them not to reveal potential shortcomings of the game is just trying to manipulate the market to your favor. It gets reviewers to be one step closer to simple marketing puppets in the hands of publishers, which is shameful in my opinion.

Im sure there could be a law suit on some freedom of speech angle.

I think its really a lol moment if they can try to restrict the 2 facts (90 minute cutscenes and 5gb install) and say its because of spoilers.

Its just makes future comments about biased 360 reviews and biased to 360 Metacritic averages all the more funny.

For me it's fine if they don't call it a review. Instead they can use preview, scoop, breaking news, etc, seasoned with all the superlatives that are perfectly fine with marketing, even with a hopeful preview of a promising title, reserving to confirm them later or not with a true, thorough review,  but should be left out of a serious review unless they are fully justified (i.e. for titles really deserving more than 94/100 even without developer/publisher pressure).

why is it legal? Because there's no law against it? What are you going to do, arrest IGN? ;)

It's just an agreement for ADVANCE review. If you don't like the term of the agreement, don't do the advance review.

I remembered IGN turned out its advance review for "Escape from Bug Island" due to the fact the game sucked. I don't remember anybody talking about that.