Eidos UK PR firm: We are “not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say”

We can’t tell them what to say, but we can tell them when to say it.

Sorry, “strongly suggest” when to say say it.

I rate this story 6.0 / 10

Not before Monday, you don’t!

to suggest that we can in some way “silence” reviews of the game is slightly overstating our influence.

And yet I still don’t see that GameSpot UK review… perhaps they’re just being a bit quiet as opposed to being ‘silenced’…

Blerk, you’re on fire

He didn’t really address the real issue: Why should they hold back until Monday if the score is lower than an 8? Why is it acceptable to make the public think it’s better ‘across the board’ than it actually is, just to generate sales for the product?

Still, made my Friday, anyway.

Eidos just came round and torched my office.

“Barrington Harvey is not in the position of telling
reviewers what they can and cannot say.”

Fair enough. Nice of you to explain, Mr. Byron.

“We need you to hold your review till Monday.”

Umm… errrr.. whaaaa?

Mr. Byron hasn’t even explained why, if BH don’t do this kind of shit, one of their employees is a: telling a GameSpot reviewer to play nice, and b: telling Pat that this is what they do.

This stinks of lies.

.

Didn’t Pat say the game is out today? So surely, Gamespot can just play it /really really/ quickly, then put up the review now.

morris, pardon my ignorance, but didn’t he (Simon Byron) blatantly deny that anyone had to delay their below-8 reviews by saying :

“Any site, be it Gamespot or whoever, is entirely within their rights to post whatever score they want and no-one is under any sort of obligation to delay any review.”

Unless I’m mistaken he does address the issue. Whether he or his employer is lying (because both cannot be telling the truth), though, is another story.

I’ll have another look.

My step dad is a Fed Ex delivery guy and delivers to quite a few publishers including Eidos. Anyone have any requests?

I can ask him to shit in the lobby or something.

the game really sucks, and is really sad because i am a fan of the series of games they did before this one, but Underworld really,really,really SUCKS!!!!!

It does? My experience of the game has been nothing but excellent. It’s an extremely well polished title.

Which makes this pseudo-embargo all the sadder.

the movement of Lara is really bad and the camera is the worst,i think comparing this game to Drake is not even close,drake will beat Lara like a b@#$, if u feel my drift

Embargoes are part and parcel of modern games publishing.
Accept it, deal with it. While sites like GamesRadar and Gamespot have editorial integrity, it’s often easier to respect the publishers wishes on a minor thing like delaying for a few days, and keeping a good relationship that allows them to get future access to the games and more importantly, advertising.
It’s a dirty word, but Ads sell mags and keep websites afloat. The writers don’t work for free and the games sites and mags are not a public service. They need the cooperation of companies like Eidos to keep doing what they do.
Does this compromise editorial integrity? Well, not usually, 99 times out of 100 the writers and editors are engaged in a constant struggle with publishers and ads people to keep giving the readers their honest unbiased opinions on the games with no interference.
That doesn’t mean that almost every games publisher tries to influence mags and sites in a variety of ways – from embargoes, to free stuff, to attractive PR ladies coming round trying to charm journos with their womanly wiles (not being sexist but 99% of game hacks are blokes). The big thing here is that the frigging tea boy or whoever it was at Barrington Harvey showed remarkable stupidity in openly admitting an unsavory practice that everyone in the industry knows goes on, but doesn’t mention so brazenly. Methinks he’s not long for a job…

In my experience PR folks often ask for such stuff because the order has come down from on high. When the PR bod asks you they do so in a way that leaves you knowing they think it’s dumb and don’t expect you to say yes. You say no. The PR bod has followed orders and asked. And the world turns happily.

I was recently asked not to post a review if the score was below a certain level. It was a minor title from a small publisher. I said no. But away from the ethics was a purely practical matter – my writers work freelance and are paid for features that get posted on the site. So an unposted feature meant no reward for someone’s hard work. And the idea of that offends me more than being asked to take a dive.

“We love Tomb Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that’s entirely their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem…”

OH, FUCK OFF! JUST FUCK. RIGHT. OFF.