Lara’s been getting her eager fans in hotpant sighting anticipation up to today, the release date for her next tomb raiding jaunt. But fears the game hasn’t quite got journalists on her side has led Eidos to try censoring early reviews.
Guy Cocker, a games journo from Gamespot UK exposed the crafty tactic in a Twitter post on Wednesday saying: “call from Eidos–if you’re planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday.”
Eidos’ UK PR firm, Barrington Harvey even confirmed the ploy. “Thats right. We’re trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos” they told Videogaming247.
When asked why, the PR reportedly told the gaming site: “Just that we’re trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that’s handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don’t put people off buying the game, basically.”
Before games are released they’re sent to all the major games publications, with most reviews published just before, or on the date a game hits the stores. The Metacritic website creates aggregated scores, and of course, a low Metacritic rating means less people will go out and buy the game.
Eurogamer and OXM UK have already posted scores of 7.0, something which is bound to irk Eidos.
Sadly it’s not the first time review scores have caused a row. Last year Gamespot’s Jeff Gerstmann got his P45 sent to him after trashing Kane & Lynch in a review and failing to bow down to advertising pressure. it outraged the gaming community, and rightly so.
Put simply, massaging review scores to squeeze a few more first-day sales out of consumers is just plain wrong. But if anything good came from Gerstmann-gate it’s that gamers are now more review savvy.
But do game reviews actually matter anymore? Currently Tomb Raider’s metacritic score sits at 78 per cent, but with a user average score of 9.0, or 90 per cent it seems gamers are quite happy to vote with their feet.
Will you be buying the latest Tomb Raider installment? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Out now | From £39.99 | TBC | Tomb Raider | (via videogaming247)
