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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Not every site obviously and it's not exactly about money, more about having an ongoing relationship. I don't think this is about accusing reviewers of accepting money in exchange for a positive review. I don't think that's how it works.You can post 20 more of these isolated cases of publishers trying to be shady, it doesn't really prove that there's some large scale bribe system in place to buy high scores.
For publishers, a reviewer from a known site is basically another form of marketing, another form of exposure for their games. Therefore some of them are getting things for free, getting invited to important events, and getting other favors and as a result, it influences the writer and is therefore noticeable in more positive reviews, where the reviewer is shutting one eye or two, or ignoring certain things. It's definitely not always the case but it happens and there is a track record of publishers having very strict regulations of what is allowed to say or not and them trying to blacklist you if you say something not in favor of the game. So, in the end, this whole thing is less about the game as it is about keeping good contacts because if you give the game a negative review the publishers most likely won’t do business with you again and sites like IGN want this type of relationship. Usually, it is not only the review but also tons of advertisements all over the site. All of this influences the reviewer's perception of the game.
A nice read on the subject: https://web.archive.org/web/2006011...do/blogEntry?bId=6228583&publicUserId=5379799
Yeah, I know, the article is old and a lot has changed obviously... but has it though? I feel more like it drifted towards a different crowd with companies having a bigger focus on influencers than reviewers to market their product. Reviewers are losing relevance by the day.
I guess all those 62 sites that gave Battlefront 2 low scores are black listed now, since then they've been getting all the new EA games early through black magic!
Either way, those "other games" are just blurring the lines. Not every critic review has the same value. Sounds weird, but what it means is that out of those 62 reviews not everyone has the same worth for EA. Kane & Lynch has a score of 65/100 by the way. The Gamespot writer still got fired for his review though. Meaning, no matter if the game has aggregate scores of 65, 68, or 81, it still happens.
Also, it should be mentioned that EA realized that their games will sell even if they don't review well, especially if has so much prestige as Star Wars.
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