I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score).

" @Kombat: No fucking shit.  I didn't write it from the perspective of the CEO of Rockstar.  I understand why they're doing it.  I'm saying - as a consumer - that the industry should not have the power to try and influence future review scores by blackmailing the media.
 
There is little difference between saying "If you give me a good review score, I will give you money" and saying "If you don't give me a good review score, I will actively prevent your business earning money".  One misleads the consumer immediately and costs the publisher some money, the other does exactly the same thing for all future products without costing them a penny. "

" I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score). "

" @Jimbo said:

" @Kombat: No fucking shit.  I didn't write it from the perspective of the CEO of Rockstar.  I understand why they're doing it.  I'm saying - as a consumer - that the industry should not have the power to try and influence future review scores by blackmailing the media.
 
There is little difference between saying "If you give me a good review score, I will give you money" and saying "If you don't give me a good review score, I will actively prevent your business earning money".  One misleads the consumer immediately and costs the publisher some money, the other does exactly the same thing for all future products without costing them a penny. "

Seriously cry more, stop acting as if Rockstar has hit squads waiting at best buy/gamestop with M16's ready to gun down Ryan/Jeff/Joystiq guys if they get a copy.  It's called an early review for a reason. "

How do Joystiq and Kotaku's reviews get factored into the metacritic, as their reviews are qualitative and not quantitative? I remember hearing someone say that the GB review scores are taken as the percentage of the of stars rating (i.e. 4/5 = 80%).  I don't really care too much, just curious. 

" @Swaboo said:

" @Jeust:  @Bionicicide: It was downloadable on the internet since last friday is what I am saying... "

Still it doesn't seem all that pirated. Weird... "

" @Jeust said:

" @Swaboo said:

" @Jeust: @Bionicicide: It was downloadable on the internet since last friday is what I am saying... "

Still it doesn't seem all that pirated. Weird... "

If you see 100 streams pop up the second a game leaks onto the internet, and exactly zero of them are the PS3 version - that game got the shit pirated out of it. The stories about the ignorant clerks and hook-ups are covers, like 9 out of 10 times. "

They don't believe in the game... that's their problem.

" The answer is so obvious that I am not even going to type it. "

" @atomic_dumpling said:

" The answer is so obvious that I am not even going to type it. "

This. The hype train doesn't stop at objective review town. "

" @bhhawks78 said:

" @Jimbo said:

" @Kombat: No fucking shit.  I didn't write it from the perspective of the CEO of Rockstar.  I understand why they're doing it.  I'm saying - as a consumer - that the industry should not have the power to try and influence future review scores by blackmailing the media.
 
There is little difference between saying "If you give me a good review score, I will give you money" and saying "If you don't give me a good review score, I will actively prevent your business earning money".  One misleads the consumer immediately and costs the publisher some money, the other does exactly the same thing for all future products without costing them a penny. "

Seriously cry more, stop acting as if Rockstar has hit squads waiting at best buy/gamestop with M16's ready to gun down Ryan/Jeff/Joystiq guys if they get a copy.  It's called an early review for a reason. "

Care to elaborate?  Because you don't seem to have a point at all as far as I can tell.  Reviewing a launch day copy is completely worthless if all of your 'more co-operative'  competitors have reviews up a week before you - I had assumed this much was obvious. "

I just noticed that two German review sites that are known to be rather critical don't have their reviews up yet either while most other sites have. Probably the same thing.

Metacritic is totally dumb, why publishers live off of it I will never understand.

I'm pretty sure Kotaku also didnt get a review copy. and Gametrailers still doesnt have a review up, so they probably didnt get one either

Huh, that's pretty strange, considering Joystiq doesn't even use review scores.

So what, first they allegedly told reviewers to give it good reviews, and now they aren't even sending out review copies to everyone? The hell is up with them.

Give some of the other sites a chance before stating that they haven't received a copy yet. I highly doubt Rockstar wouldn't send review copies to Gamespot,Kotaku and Gametrailers seeing as they are some of the biggest sites.

They probably just saw every review ryan has ever written and didnt want to risk an 80 or 60 on metacritic.

let's not forget that this CAN be a "simple" case of bad relationship between said websites and rockstar, I remember some months ago Jeff joking (or so we thought) on a bombcast about if he tried to check RDR they would kick him out... i think back during Pax or something.

Meh, this just means that I'll hold off on buying the game until I see a review from GB. 

The way I see it, rockstar is a company, and they want to sell their games. Unfortunately a lot of people look only at scores, so they want high scores; so they simply send it out to reviewers who will give them their high scores. 
Some people are just too cynical. And this controversy always comes around with major releases, this won't be the last time the GB team or Joytiq don't get a review copy.
At the end of the day, it's not going to stop me buying it, but that's because I love me some westerns. 
And Edge gave it a 9....so fair play.

" @Kombat said:

" They're not being dicks about it.  This was very obviously a business decision.  They sent out review copies to the outlets that have been generally favorable to their games in the past.  It's a method of keeping initial review scores high so that people that base their purchasing decisions off that kind of thing will pick it up on day one.  Some PR guy was likely handed a list of dudes to send the game out to, and anyone not on the list that inquired was rejected. It's called making money. "

That's doesn't make sense when you consider that Giant Bomb gave Grand Theft Auto IV Game of the Year. "

" I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score). "

" @MattyFTM said:

" I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score). "

this "

" I love all the conspiracy theorists xD "

It would be nice if the GB crew could clear this up on the Bomcast tomorrow.

" @ProfessorEss said:

" @Milkman said:

" @MAN_FLANNEL said:

" Wow.  2 small video game websites didn't get a review copy of a video game.  Let's freak out some more.  "

That's not the problem. They were refused, not forgotten. "

But if they were refused because Rockstar deemed them unimportant then what's the problem? "

Considering places like "Cynamite", "GameReactor", and "Playmania", among others, were given review copies, I doubt that popularity was the issue. "

Also, not to get too far into conspiracy theories here, but some things about this don't add up. Most people here have said that Rockstar felt Giant Bomb and Joystiq would hurt the Metacritic average, which is probably a pretty safe prediction. However, if that was Rockstar's intentions here, why would they send a review copy to Edge, one of the most notoriously harsh review sites in the industry? Or Eurogamer, for that matter, who are also seen as pretty harsh? Also, I am be wrong here, but I don't think Joystiq is even featured on Metacritic. Joystiq doesn't attach scores to their reviews so unless Metacritic uses some kind of bullshit "text-to-score" conversion, I don't see how they are relevant. Everything about this seems like a personal dig against these excluded sites. Especially after you take into account that "they would have kicked me out" comment made by Jeff after he thought about checking the game out at E3 or PAX or whatever it was. Obviously, the comments were made jokingly but they must have some bearings for Jeff to make the comments in the first place. I'm probably reading too much into everything at this point but to me, it just doesn't make much sense.
 
Either way, whether it be strictly business or personal, it's a fucked up situation by Rockstar and something that just shouldn't happen.

" Also, not to get too far into conspiracy theories here, but some things about this don't add up. Most people here have said that Rockstar felt Giant Bomb and Joystiq would hurt the Metacritic average, which is probably a pretty safe prediction. However, if that was Rockstar's intentions here, why would they send a review copy to Edge, one of the most notoriously harsh review sites in the industry? Or Eurogamer, for that matter, who are also seen as pretty harsh? Also, I am be wrong here, but I don't think Joystiq is even featured on Metacritic. Joystiq doesn't attach scores to their reviews so unless Metacritic uses some kind of bullshit "text-to-score" conversion, I don't see how they are relevant. Everything about this seems like a personal dig against these excluded sites. Especially after you take into account that "they would have kicked me out" comment made by Jeff after he thought about checking the game out at E3 or PAX or whatever it was. Obviously, the comments were made jokingly but they must have some bearings for Jeff to make the comments in the first place. I'm probably reading too much into everything at this point but to me, it just doesn't make much sense.  Either way, whether it be strictly business or personal, it's a fucked up situation by Rockstar and something that just shouldn't happen. "

It's amazing to me that people hate Sony for their arrogance, but for some reason Rockstar gets a pass.  They won't even put out a damn demo.

I dont care. Im getting this game with a free 25 dollar gift card. It cant be that bad right?

" It's amazing to me that people hate Sony for their arrogance, but for some reason Rockstar gets a pass.  They won't even put out a damn demo. "

I'll be passing out the tinfoil hats at 5 o'clock, duders. Jeez.
 
More importantly, this: 
 
@MattyFTM said:

" I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score). "

Like some said, blame metacritic

I'm sure they're not happy about Eurogamer giving it an 8 then.
Obviously not a bad score, but clearly not the type of glowing review they're looking for.
 
Then again, Eurogamer are trying their hardest to be like EDGE and seem to be given out overly critical reviews of everything these days.

" I'm willing to bet it's to do with the rating systems. They want high Metacritic scores. Joystiq don't assign ratings to their review, and thus don't affect Metacritic scores, so they're not bothered about getting a review copy to them. And Giant Bomb's five star rating system doesn't lend itself to favourable Metacritic scores (e.g. a 4/5 is actually a good score on GB, but 80 on metacritic is average score). "

This is the reason. It's not an issue anyway. GiantBomb will go out and buy the game tonight. Play it over the week. Review it by next week. Score's up. Everyone's happy. "

I knew something was up when there was no mention of it, and when they announced they were doing *gasp* Split/Second. 
 
That sucks, and I understand why Giantbomb isn't publishing anything about it.

" I'm sure they're not happy about Eurogamer giving it an 8 then. Obviously not a bad score, but clearly not the type of glowing review they're looking for.  Then again, Eurogamer are trying their hardest to be like EDGE and seem to be given out overly critical reviews of everything these days. "

Not that it's all about the score mind! ^^
 
I doubt anyone in this thread is indecisive enough about RDR to need the GiantBomb review. If you are dependent on that opinion, then you're probably not interested in the game enough to need it day one, and can wait the extra seven days or so for GB to give the game coverage here.
 
The other alternative is to hit up IGN, Eurogamer, or whatever and read their review.

My guess is it's a combination of things, the most important is they want to try and maintain the highest possible review average for the day of release. Lots of companies bonuses are based on things like this, and they know how much sales are effected by early review scores. If they can have an early review average of around 95%, that's only going to be good for them.
 
Obviously, there's some kind of bad blood between some people at Rockstar and Jeff, and that could be a part of why Giant Bomb got snubbed, but more likely it has to do with a good game getting either a 100 or an 80.
 
As for the odd "low" score (ie, Eurogamers 80), that reminds me of when my friends and I would cheat on tests in 9th grade. We'd intentionally answer a few questions wrong to throw the scent off the trail. Not saying that's what happened, but it wouldn't be a conspiracy to assume that they have highly paid PR people who's job it is to do what they can to manage review scores. If they can do that in a way that has the appearance of being totally legit, while also guarding themselves from sites that could possibly hurt their day 1 reviews scores, they'd be stupid not to do it. They obviously can't stop a site like Giant Bomb or Joystiq from buying a copy on Tuesday and giving it whatever score or review they want, but if they can control the scores on release date, they're going to do it as much as possible.
 
Also, to the person who suggested that Giant Bomb and Joystiq are small? Joystiq is the second most popular video game news blog behind Kotaku and Giant Bomb has some of the industry's most respected writers working for it. And both sites have extreamly popular videogame podcats that are routinesly in the top 10 on iTunes (with the Bombcast often at #1). These are both sites that hold a tremendous amount of sway with the enthusiast gamer, whereas for the "average" gamer, Metacritic is likely all they'll ever check and when they're marketing their game as "GTAIV in the Wild West" and "From the company that brought your GTAIV", that's who they're marketing towards.

I don't really buy the '5 stars isn't kind to metacritic' theory tbh (that's not to say that Rockstar doesn't).  The "4/5 = 80%" point is about as accurate as the 5 star scale ever gets when directly compared to a percentage scale.  3* realistically being around 70% anywhere else and 5* typically being low 90s.  3 converts too low, 5 converts too high, 4 is about right.  So unless you are expecting 3s or lower, then a 5 star scale converts in your favour.  You are far more likely to receive a 100% MC score out of a 5 star system that you are from a site marking directly in percentages.  To maximize your chances of ending up with a 95+% Metacritic score overall, you ought to be stacking as many 5* review sites as possible, imo.  If you have no confidence in your game, then yes you should avoid them, because 2s and 3s are really punishing when converted.
 
But obviously, handpicking your reviewers trumps any other method.

what's jeff's beef with rockstar?

This is why I don't really care about reviews when deciding what to play. Sites like IGN will review any decent game above an 8.5 if it's good for business, so scores don't mean shit there anymore. I agree with Giant Bomb on reviews (especially Brad, his opinions and tastes are frighteningly similar), but unfortunately they usually can't pump reviews out before the release date and they can't review most games because of the small number of staff.  
 
I don't need a review to know that I'll enjoy Red Dead Redemption. From what I've seen of the gameplay (official videos and streams) I highly doubt it will disappoint. But I also don't think it will be a 10/10 masterpiece either. 

" I knew something was up when there was no mention of it, and when they announced they were doing *gasp* Split/Second.  That sucks, and I understand why Giantbomb isn't publishing anything about it. "

" This is why I don't really care about reviews when deciding what to play. Sites like IGN will review any decent game above an 8.5 if it's good for business, so scores don't mean shit there anymore. I agree with Giant Bomb on reviews (especially Brad, his opinions and tastes are frighteningly similar), but unfortunately they usually can't pump reviews out before the release date and they can't review most games because of the small number of staff.   I don't need a review to know that I'll enjoy Red Dead Redemption. From what I've seen of the gameplay (official videos and streams) I highly doubt it will disappoint. But I also don't think it will be a 10/10 masterpiece either.  "