Hail to the King for he seeks Redemption

So the King is back, or so they say as Gear Box finally finished and released Duke Nukem Forever for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the PC, but a lot of controversy has come about not only the games mature and immature content but also the responses from the PR firm in regards to the reviews it has recieved since the release.

Earlier this week Jim Redner founder of the Redner Group and former PR firm for 2K Games decided that after all the negative or “venomous” reviews that the game has recieved he decided to tweet the following:

“Too many went too far with their reviews…we r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

2K games quickly removed the tweet and terminated their relationship with the PR firm. The statement angered many indy reviewers and major publications simply for the fact that people stated their opinions on the game and Redner did not agree with their actions, but a lot of the reviews came from people who are not games journalist and did not get a review copy from 2K or Redner’s firm, they went ahead and purchased the game on their own in order to do the review. And since this tweet heard around the gaming world a lot of “reviewers” have been making claims that some companies do block you from reviews list and that some firms have asked that they change their reviews to a more positive or neutral point if they would like to continue to recieve review units from them.

With all this happening and I myself just starting to really get involved with the video game industry and technology reviews I can see why some people may question the integrity of larger reviewers or in some of the better know indy reviewers, since a lot of us may depend on a review copy in order to get a review out on time for the readers to get a chance to hear what we have to say about it. Personally I have not had very many review units come to me let alone come before the game outs to general audience, and many may say that I have given positive reviews for games that may not deserve it like “Naughty Bear”.

Now I have reviewed quite a few games in the short ammount of time that we have been running the site and I will never give a game a positive review in order to keep getting review copies of future titles, I did give “Naughty Bear” a more positive review than other poeple but I actually enjoyed my time with the game and I know plenty of friends who still borrow the game from time to time because they enjoy just as much, and also when “Naughty Bear Gold Edition” was released which includes all the DLC I was not as kind with the DLC content since I found to be of lower quality to the original game content.

When it comes down to it a lot of reviewers have to keep in mind what the PR firms and Publishers hold, which is the keys and resources that they need in order to continue the majoruty of games that released within the E3 cycles. Personally I have good relantionships with a lot of PR firms and Publishers that release games and hardware but I make no promises that I will give a positive review if I am sent a review copy, in fact companies like SankeByte have always asked that we give them honest feedback in order to know where they can improve on their product.

So I guess all I am getting at is that an opinion or review is simply that, if some company or developer cannot handle the statements made then sadly maybe they should not be in the industry to begin with, that is not to say that I justify some of the comments made from the reviewers that were pointed out; calling a game “an abortion of gaming” and also making claims that it should have stayed delayed Forever does not make for an educated review or an educated opnion. So until next time keep in mind that most reviewers are not bought and we are certainly never going to be bought for any ammount for a positive review of any product.

Disciplined1

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