You know it’s never a good thing when a publisher is accused of attempting to secure a perfect review score from press outlets. Such things hardly ever turns out good for the company. So the question remains; why would any publisher even consider to attempt such a thing?
Well surprise surprise, looks like the guys over at Ubisoft just recently made such an attempt…and failed. Bild Spiele, a German magazine just recently reported that Ubisoft denied them a review copy of “Assassin’s Creed 2″ because they refused to guarantee the game a ’sehr gut’, a score roughly the equivilant to an english/american ‘A’.
“Our reviews are tough, but fair”, read the magazine’s latests web-preview of it’s current issue, “We will not give up our independent scores for the sake of a timely review. This holds true for “Assassin’s Creed 2″. The publisher asked us to guarantee the score ’sehr gut’, otherwise we would not receive a review copy, thus we will publish our review in next month’s issue. We’d be more than glad to give the game a ’sehr gut’, but only if it deserves it.
It appears that Ubisoft isn’t really as confident in Assassins Creed 2 as they’d like everyone to believe, and while this almost certaintly means that Computer Bild Spiele is going to have a real hard time getting games from the publisher in the future, I still have to give them my respect for making such a bold move. Not every press outlet is willing to shut down a publisher such as Ubisoft for making such a request. Computer Bild Spiele, we here at Kokugamer, respect you.
What do you guys think? Did the magazine do the right thing in refusing to guarantee a score, or should they have just agreed to the terms to assure future games from the publisher?
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I’ll reiterate my post from N4G on this:
“What’s even sadder is that most smaller publications and sites will immediately give a resounding “Yes!” to companies if it means future goodwill between the two. It’s a sad but understandable truth – you want to garner your fledgling group some industry contacts, and in doing so are willing to make some concessions, such as being overly generous toward a products quality, even if it doesn’t merit such praise. I try my best to be as honest and truthful as I can when I review games, but have indeed felt the pressure to succumb to “If you give them a good score, they’re more likely to continue sending you stuff.” I’m proud to say that it’s never gone down like that for me, and never will.
Props to these guys for showing some backbone.”
Well put, Dylan.
We here at Kokugamer are proud to tell our readers, that while there is undoubtedly undeniable pressure put forth by publishers, we do not succumb to something as low as agreeing to unfairly giving a game a review score it does not rightfully deserves.
So be sure to make Kokugamer your #1 site for everything in gaming.
SHHH, Ubisoft are sending me this game, SHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Well said, Manny.
Ah, well that would explain why I can’t my review copy (not really though). Anyway, the point I find most interesting about this is Ubisoft demanding reviewers to give good scores to Assassin’s Creed II or no review copy. I figured it would be a good enough game to get good scores anyway but perhaps I was wrong, I guess I’ll see in a week
How many of the websites that we go to every day DO take these bribes? It must be a common practice among Ubisoft and other publishers. Does the fact we don’t hear about this all the time mean most sites are doing it?
@Bo
It’s sad to say, but many sites will jump through hoops for publishers if it means they get thrown a bone. My mindset has always been: “If I can’t get a review copy from a publisher, I’ll head out to retail and review the game on my own terms.” That’s how things should be done, and that’s how they HAVE to be done, if those of us in the media are to retain our dignity and reputation as a respectable source of honest opinions.
I know this kind of thing happens all the time in the game industry, and it makes me happy to see someone say no.
The difference here though is that they produce an established magazine. Their whole business does not rely on one review or Ubisoft and they can take the risk.
When it’s a smaller mag or a site, the pressure is there.
So it’s good that they said no, I just don’t think they’re heroes for it.