A Reviewer Reviews A BioShock Infinite Review

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Let's see, you can't post your review of BioShock Infinite because of an embargo date. So you post a review of someone else's review instead? And why was IGN's review live if there was an embargo? I can almost hear Xzibit saying "Yo dog, I heard you liked reviews of reviews..."

We've been playing BioShock Infinite, but we can't tell you about it just yet. In order to get our early copy, we agreed to stick to the embargo set by publisher 2K Games, which is up on Monday. But we can tell you about IGN's exclusive review of BioShock Infinite, which went live tonight. So above you can find our Official Kotaku Review* of their review.
 
That's one of the funniest things I've seen a company do in protest of a silly developer embargo. The sarcasm in that article is so good! Thanks Steve!
 
is this hosted on youtube? can anyone post a link from the source site? i cant access the kotaku site from work...
 
Playing devils advocate for a moment I think a publisher is smart to control game perception up until the moment of release. There is just too much at stake to have a launch ruined by some reviewers. Having said this if you buy it day 1 and get shafted its your fault for not waiting for overall consensus.
 
the embargo is lifted on Monday for everyone...so why the big deal?...everyone will still be able to get their reviews out before the game officially is released on Tuesday which is the most important aspect...IGN got their review 4 days early is all...people like to get worked up over silly things
 
the embargo is lifted on Monday for everyone...so why the big deal?...everyone will still be able to get their reviews out before the game officially is released on Tuesday which is the most important aspect...IGN got their review 4 days early is all...people like to get worked up over silly things

Because thees kinds of things take away users from other sites and have them going to read reviews and things on IGN instead of the normal sites tehy might read from instead.

It's a reason that printed magazines got "exclusives" (to drive people to buy them vs another, etc).
 
Which also means they cant give the game a bad score. Not saying the game is good or bad. But its not a trustworthy or legit review.

Well, yeah, but nowadays so few scores on game reviews are trustworthy...


I try to read them all ignoring deliberately the score, and specially try to find the lowest scoring ones to see what can they say about the game's low points, and last i try to watch some gameplay vids prior to buying any game... and i specially don't trust the scores of the "Big Sites" anymore :p
 
Its surprising how many people are willing to be lied to in order to be onboard with the rest of the herd instead of knowing the truth.
 
Even though this is pretty funny, I have to assume Kotaku just has their panties in a bunch since IGN got the early review deal instead of them.
 
the embargo is lifted on Monday for everyone...so why the big deal?...everyone will still be able to get their reviews out before the game officially is released on Tuesday which is the most important aspect...IGN got their review 4 days early is all...people like to get worked up over silly things

Because the "professional game reviewing industry" is a damn joke.

Do I really have to point out EGM giving ACM a 9/10, after they had re-skinned the site in an ACM theme? Have you never wondered why it's a rarity for games to get less than a 7/10?

These websites, and formerly magazines, rely on getting early copies of a game so they can have their review out on launch day. Did it never occur to you, that to get those early copies of the games, the publishers need to hand them over? Do you think publishers want all of their games getting slammed in the media? Game reviewing is plagued with paid or favor driven BS. Go read the EGM ACM review and try to tell me that wasn't either bought, or done as a favor to stay in the publisher's good graces to continue receiving "product" early for review. Sure, it's the most recent and blatant example of it, but the problem is that it continues to happen, and it's been going on for hell... decades now. Usually it's just a bit more subtle than EGM's nonsense, bumping it up a small percentage into the category of "acceptable".
 
Because the "professional game reviewing industry" is a damn joke.

Do I really have to point out EGM giving ACM a 9/10, after they had re-skinned the site in an ACM theme? Have you never wondered why it's a rarity for games to get less than a 7/10?

These websites, and formerly magazines, rely on getting early copies of a game so they can have their review out on launch day. Did it never occur to you, that to get those early copies of the games, the publishers need to hand them over? Do you think publishers want all of their games getting slammed in the media? Game reviewing is plagued with paid or favor driven BS. Go read the EGM ACM review and try to tell me that wasn't either bought, or done as a favor to stay in the publisher's good graces to continue receiving "product" early for review. Sure, it's the most recent and blatant example of it, but the problem is that it continues to happen, and it's been going on for hell... decades now. Usually it's just a bit more subtle than EGM's nonsense, bumping it up a small percentage into the category of "acceptable".

you missed my entire point...usually exclusive early reviews are a joke and paid by the publisher...my point was that the embargo will be lifted for everyone on Monday (the day before the game is released)...so you can go to the few legit review sites and see their 'real' scores and not the exclusive possibly bogus reviews before buying the game

and yes there are still a few gaming sites that give good reviews that I trust...not everyone is a shill for the publisher
 
Why does anyone take anything that IGN does without a beach sized grain of salt? Seriously. Check forums , see the overall user opinion. By simply NOT preordering and waiting for a census you can save yourself tons of money that gets wasted on awful games.

And I agree , the rating system used by the VAST majority of gaming sites is horribly flawed. People won't buy 7.0 games , people will always view that as a mediocre rating even though according to the law of averages that's actually a very respectable and assuring percentile.

There should not be a numeric rating system for games. A review should be based on a single user's experience (unless its an MMO) and it should in summation give you the kind of impression that user experienced while playing the game. If the reviewer is known for any kind of heavy basis that should factor into your own opinion on that reviewers opinion towards the games he/she reviews.

The numeric rating system is a failed one. I can't even recall how many Rottentomato reviews under 50 that I've watched regardless and enjoyed. I can recall more than a few reviews from Rottentomatoes that received a 70 or greater "Fresh" rating that I fucking hated. Its all about the content of the product you are questioning and if your viewpoints and opinions align with that of the individual reviewing that product.
 
you missed my entire point...usually exclusive early reviews are a joke and paid by the publisher...my point was that the embargo will be lifted for everyone on Monday (the day before the game is released)...so you can go to the few legit review sites and see their 'real' scores and not the exclusive possibly bogus reviews before buying the game

and yes there are still a few gaming sites that give good reviews that I trust...not everyone is a shill for the publisher
I didn't miss the point, you missed the big picture.

Game review websites rely on advertisers to get money. Ignoring that some of those advertisers are game publishers, they need traffic. If a review site can't get a game early from a publisher to have a review out on launch day, they won't get as much traffic as the other sites that do. So if they don't play nice with the publishers and don't get the early review copies, they lose traffic, which means losing ad revenue.

Why does this matter with regard to IGN getting a deal for an early review? Because even though the other websites are already beholden to the publishers so they can get the games early for launch day traffic on the site for the game review, IGN scored a deal that let them get that traffic earlier than anyone else possibly could. As such, IGN gets boosted ad revenue because they're the only page that can draw that traffic from the general public, and they got to do it first. People(not everyone, maybe not even a majority, but it's still a hell of a lot) are less likely to go read other reviews after having read one a few days in advance.

So even if review scores aren't getting fudged as favors to publishers, even if the general public's perception of a number based system results in the system being flawed since people are dumb and won't accept a 7/10 as above average, the review sites have yet another means to secure revenue purely due to the part of the game publishers.
 
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