Duke Nukem Forever PR Agency Threatens Sites Over Bad Reviews - UPDATED. We're sorry?

piscian18

piscian18

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
11,021
A PR agency has apologized for publicly threatening to blacklist videogame review sites that "went too far" with their negative reviews of Duke Nukem Forever.

Things are not going well for Duke Nukem Forever. After nearly a decade and a half "in development," the game was finally finished by Gearbox and turned loose to reviewers, who wasted no time in savaging it as a half-baked mess. Some reviewers were more or less harsh than others - our own Russ Pitts recommended that "if you are stuck on a deserted island with only this game to play, go fishing instead" - but the cumulative effect was enough to finally enough to push Jim Redner of The Redner Group, the PR agency handling the game, over the edge.

"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," he wrote on the official Redner Group Twitter feed. "It's one thing to not like a game, it's an entirely different thing to rate it a 2 & b completely mean spirited."

In other words, if you were too hard on the Duke in your review, which is by any definition an entirely subjective measure, you may not be getting any more games or coverage support from the Redner Group in the future. It's a pretty shocking admission to make publicly, and the agency quickly deleted the tweets and apologized for "acting out of pure emotion." A separate apology to numerous individual game journalists was also sent out, admitting that the outburst was a "juvenile act" and also stating that 2K Games had absolutely nothing to do with it.

"Though I didn't name names, I did say that I thought some reviews had gone too far in tone," Redner wrote. "I respect the scores, it had to deal with the tone. I was unable to properly convey that in 140 characters. But that it beside the point."

"We are all entitled to our opinions regardless of score, tone or meaning. My response was a juvenile act on my part. I know better and my emotion got the best of me. I have worked very hard on this project. I want it to succeed. I just got upset and acted out," he continued. "I believe we are all allowed to voice our opinions and that opinions by their very nature are correct. Many of you quickly pointed out my error in judgment. For that I thank you and apologize."

UPDATE: 2K Games has now commented and it's bad, if not entirely surprising, news for The Redner Group, which is no longer employed by the company.

"2K Games does not endorse the comments made by Jim Redner and we can confirm that The Redner Group no longer represents our products," 2K said in a statement. "We have always maintained a mutually-respectful working relationship with the press and do not condone his actions in any way."
Click to expand...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...ency-Threatens-Sites-Over-Bad-Reviews-UPDATED

You know the only thing that pisses me off about all this? That reviewers are still reviewing FREE games. Reviews are automatically biased based on the fact that their games are free. They don't have to pay for them. They have know idea what it's like for those of us who spend $60 on a game they recommend and it end up being garbage or a budget title they shit on that turns out to be worth every penny. Game reviews seem completely up to whimsy anymore.
 
Some reviews have gone too far, scores like 2-4 out of 10 are just clearly way off the mark, obviously PR agencies shouldn't be spouting that kind of crap no matter what, but I can see why they'd be frustrated.

Duke while not being a particularly great game is by no means a bad game, and some sites are giving scores which indicate it's bad or terrible, that's not accurate.
 
Yeah, I don't blame them for being pissed off. Some reviews were way too harsh for professional reviews, it's like the cool thing to do at the moment is bash on this game. But saying you're going to blacklist review sites is never going to help your cause.
 
What a shitty thing to happen to everyone involved, gamers, review sites, the PR company, and Gearbox.
 
While the game may not have been "the best game" it wasnt that terrible. Anytime a game is rated below a 5 I assume the game is broken. So the game should have at least gotten a 5, not a 2, or 3.

The other thing that someone said where it copies every game after 2003, this person should be punched in the face. The plans of having all that humor were in the game pre 2003. All gearbox did was get the code and polish it off so people could finally play DNF. This game was AHEAD of its time, not behind, but thats only if it was 2003! :)
 
FrEaKy said:
While the game may not have been "the best game" it wasnt that terrible. Anytime a game is rated below a 5 I assume the game is broken. So the game should have at least gotten a 5, not a 2, or 3.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I think any website that portrays itself as a gaming site should try and actually be fair and not give it such shit scores if its not deserving of it as it can potentially affect sales for the developer. Even though everyone is entitled to an opinion, if you present yourself as being an expert in your field you have a responsibility to present the facts as they appear and not be a be a whining douche just because its not what you were expecting... that's the purpose of the user reviews, lol.
 
piscian18 said:
A PR agency has apologized for publicly threatening to blacklist videogame review sites that "went too far" with their negative reviews of Duke Nukem Forever.



http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...ency-Threatens-Sites-Over-Bad-Reviews-UPDATED

You know the only thing that pisses me off about all this? That reviewers are still reviewing FREE games. Reviews are automatically biased based on the fact that their games are free. They don't have to pay for them. They have know idea what it's like for those of us who spend $60 on a game they recommend and it end up being garbage or a budget title they shit on that turns out to be worth every penny. Game reviews seem completely up to whimsy anymore.
Click to expand...

QFT.. So basically what have we all learned here? Nothing. Cause anyone with a functional brain here knows not to trust any "professional" reviews.
 
It's pretty evident that publishers want more and more dominance over review outlets to the point where they are now little more than advertising agencies (watch this video review of Halo: Reach by Gamespot shill Chris Watters and just try to convince yourself it doesn't play out like a late-night TV shopping commercial...the only thing missing is the "but wait there's STILL MORE!"). This was always going to happen the minute they started accepting money for advertising space from publishers so really they have themselves to blame as much as anybody. It's why nobody has the balls to trash COD each time it comes around since even smaller players like Eidos manage to have the editor of Gamespot sacked for giving one of its games a 6/10. Imagine what a company like Activision or EA could do.

As ludicrous as it sounds, Yahtzee's reviews are probably the most trustworthy "professional" reviews around now, since he unapologetically trashes everything.
 
Plague_Injected said:
It's pretty evident that publishers want more and more dominance over review outlets to the point where they are now little more than advertising agencies (watch this video review of Halo: Reach by Gamespot shill Chris Watters and just try to convince yourself it doesn't play out like a late-night TV shopping commercial...the only thing missing is the "but wait there's STILL MORE!"). This was always going to happen the minute they started accepting money for advertising space from publishers so really they have themselves to blame as much as anybody. It's why nobody has the balls to trash COD each time it comes around since even smaller players like Eidos manage to have the editor of Gamespot sacked for giving one of its games a 6/10. Imagine what a company like Activision or EA could do.

As ludicrous as it sounds, Yahtzee's reviews are probably the most trustworthy "professional" reviews around now, since he unapologetically trashes everything.
Click to expand...

There's 2 sides to the coin though. There's reviewers being paid off/threatened by publishers, but also reviewers being unprofessional and giving absurdly high or low scores and trashing every tiny meaningless portion of a game.

Obviously I dont want reviewers being paid off, but they also need to remain somewhat accountable for what they write. Any dumb arse can buy a game and write a review about it, but if you're, a) getting paid for writing it, b) getting pre-release and free review copies of a game, you should be held accountable for an unprofessional preview/review. Like the douchebag who wrote this "preview"...

http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/25/how-many-ways-can-thqs-space-marine-game-rip-off-gears-of-war/
 
I think the biggest problem with DNF when it comes to reviews is not the gameplay, mechanics, mouse acceleration, 2-gun limit, or graphics. DNF is so over the top with T&A that the reviewers don't want to admit to liking it because they feel like they are admitting to being perverts.
 
I've played games far worse than DNF. Most of those games I'm referring to were given generally positive to mediocre reviews.

The vitriolic tone of a lot of the reviews was totally uncalled for, in my humble opinion. I'm pretty sure we all knew it would never live up to the expectations, so those expectations should have been tempered before the reviews were performed.

That said, the PR idiot went far too far as well so I guess it's just an example where there was enough blame to go around for darned near everyone involved...
 
They should make a movie out of this... Duke Nukem, starring the Rock... it'll be so bad, people will forget about this game, or maybe appreciate that it's much better then the movie? :)

ok, no that wouldn't work... but a movie about the development of DNF might be more interesting
 
I wonder how many jobs this guy tanked in his own company due to "loosing control".
 
Blacklisting is common. What's different here is that someone got caught saying it.
 
Stone Cold said:
Blacklisting is common. What's different here is that someone got caught saying it.
Click to expand...

You nailed it as this is what it is about. If the Redner group was going to be smart about this, they should have never released that statement yesterday. Blacklisting happens just about everywhere as HardOCP appears to not have relations with eVGA and of course we all know about our favorite tabloid guy Charlie Demerijen.
 
based upon no level exploration and 2 weapon limit compared to the original duke that already puts it at a 6/10 for me
 
complete.jpg
 
Duke Nukem Forever is a poor game, by any time standards.

I'm sorry but you can't polish this turd, no matter how hard you try.

While the reviewers are harsh, they are responding to all the PR surrounding the game final release.....and the PR guys are frustrated because what they knew is biting them in the ass.
They tried to spin this bad game into some kind of epic event, as did EVGA and nvidia and their other partners; and it's just plain bad.

I bought the game from Amazon, I should have known better after the demo was released, but since I had pre-ordered it and Amazon allowed me access to the demo, I felt they took a chance and so should I.

Maybe the final version was going to be better............fail, Duke.......epic fail.

4/10 isn't far off..........I say 6/10 only because the graphics aren't as bad as they could be.
 
One problem I have with many of the reviews is they keep referring to the game's humor, which completely is the point of those games, if you liked the Duke Nukem humor of old, there's no reason why you wouldn't like it today (unless of course, you've turned into an old curmundgeon, but that's your own personal flaw and fault, not the game's fault).

I hate it when reviewers try to spout about morality and taste and expecting their readers to agree with them like dittoheads. Like hello, those of us who were around when Duke Nukem was still a side scroller understand this series better than anybody else.

It's all nothing more than the reviewers trying to be politically correct instead of being real about Duke Nukem Forever staying true to Duke's legacy.

I could live with it if they said that DNF was a shitty game without mentioning the humor, OR if they said it was a shitty game, but said that they would leave it up to the end user to decide whether the humor in the game works for them or not, instead of trying to force their viewpoint on us.
 
based upon the current state of the game I would say for a Duke Nukem follow up this came blows chunks. It's not about the graphics, it's about the game play mechanics and they are bad in this release......

Even Manhatten Project was true to it's side scroller roots of the original duke nukem games......
 
Youn said:
They should make a movie out of this... Duke Nukem, starring the Rock... it'll be so bad, people will forget about this game, or maybe appreciate that it's much better then the movie? :)

ok, no that wouldn't work... but a movie about the development of DNF might be more interesting
Click to expand...

I will beat you in the face TWICE with every tool I keep in the back of my truck if that happens..
 
I really don't see why people think this game is bad...it's just an updated version of Duke 3D. Duke 3D was just as split in reviews...however some people here were just coming out of Kindergarten when 3D came out.
 
mustang_steve said:
I really don't see why people think this game is bad...it's just an updated version of Duke 3D. Duke 3D was just as split in reviews...however some people here were just coming out of Kindergarten when 3D came out.
Click to expand...

Fuck, thanks for making me feel old now at nearly 31
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
based upon the current state of the game I would say for a Duke Nukem follow up this came blows chunks. It's not about the graphics, it's about the game play mechanics and they are bad in this release......

Even Manhatten Project was true to it's side scroller roots of the original duke nukem games......
Click to expand...


You are correct.....the graphics are pretty bad.....but not awful.....pretty much true to the era of the engine's version.

The game play is just bland......very straight line.....very much trigger oriented......go here, shoot this......wait for cut scene or dialogue to stop.....BOOM.....something opens or happens and off you go. Rinse. Repeat.

The game chooses the weapons and the targets.
The game tells you where to go and when you can go there.
No diversion, no alternate paths,no real weapon choice and all you get is two at a time.

Bland. Boring. Out of date. Too bad, I was hoping for more. I bought it and feel robbed, but that's just my own fault, should have waited for the reviews.:eek:
 
I am still having fun with this game. Something happened in the game that was freakin awesome. Never happened to me in any other game and I am glad it was Duke Nukem doing it. (nothing to do with T or A lol) I still feel this game is a solid 7.5/10 It is very very entertaining.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top