you're throwing around "negative reviews" as if thats the sum of the entire site/magazine and that other development companies aren't getting good reviews for making good games, or that game companies don't need publicity as much as the pubs need material to review. If that were true, they shoudl just close up shop anyway.Frater Perdurabo wrote: Bullshit. Unlike general journalism, gaming websites and magazines are almost entirely dependant on game developers and publishers for advertising money, free components, free games etc. If the developers and publishers pull the plug, that will be a substantial loss of revenue for them.
So pretend the review goes through and Bethesda pulls the plug on that particular magazine. EA or fuckknowswho comes along and says: "Hm, this magazine caters for gamers with independent thought who have above-average intellect. That's not my target audience and the last thing I want is a negative review. Shut 'em down."
Or even worse, instead of having these sites wither in the background with their negative reviews around, why not just bully them into not publishing the review in the first place?
I also cant see how giving one negative review of a game would scare other devs away. thats their competition.. any other dev should welcome a rival getting poor reviews as it will drive gamers to buy other games, say the ones made by them. Or better yet their rival not even being featured in the same magazine? Tell me that Sega would be upset if its 2k3 review isnt followed by a madden 11 review on the next page.
Why not tell the dev that youre not gonna do business with them if they treat you like shit over a review of their shitty game and do a write up of the whole ordeal? tell me that fans of gaming wouldnt eat that up. tell me that thats not going to sell more and that advertisers wouldnt jump on.
Im sorry, but just going along with it all just exacerbates the problem. I can't feel sorry for an inddustry that won't stand up for its self and try to set a benchmark-to challenge devs to put out better games. in general, lets face it- there are a lot of shitty games out there and sack full of sugar reviews help them get sold.