Eidos just wants people to buy the next Tomb Raider game. Is that so wrong?
It's the Tomb Raider lady, but in real life!!!!With what is now officially an annual tradition, Eidos has found itself caught in the middle of another ridiculous, review-related controversy. The title this time around is Tomb Raider: Underworld, and the tactic apparently being employed over in the UK is nothing new.
GameSpot's Guy Cocker managed to set this one off with a Twitter update that hit like a trash can crashing through the window of Sal's Pizzeria... provided that the trash can in question took two days to be seen or heard by anyone wanting to report on something controversial-sounding:
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.
After people finally saw this two-day old message this morning, things started moving quickly. The UK-based site videogaming247 put in some calls Barrington Harvey, the public relations firm responsible for handling Eidos' affairs in the UK. What they got in response was a surprising blast of honesty--not something people are used to seeing from PR firms, to be sure.
Said a Barrington Harvey rep on the phone this afternoon: “That’s right. We’re trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos.”
When asked why, the spokesperson said: “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.”
If I were some sort of message massager, I'd find the guy that said all that and boot him into the street. Then again, he's not exactly saying anything that shocking... some publishers, for whatever reason, still seem to think that PR people are able to have some sort of actual impact on review scores. Personally, I think that's just so there's one more person to blame when review scores come in lower than expectations. Obviously, the game couldn't be at fault, right?
(While we're on the topic, MTV Knows Best's Stephen Totilo wrote a solid series of articles about game reviewing that covers similar cases, like the good ol' Red Steel "give this a 9 and you can run it early" message. You might want to give that series a read if you're interested in this sort of thing.)
For its part, the PR firm for Eidos' UK efforts issued a longer statement essentially contradicting the previous statement. Here's a bit from what VG247 received:
Barrington Harvey is not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say. We love Tomb Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that’s entirely their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem.
Our original NDA stated that in order to receive an advance copy of the game, reviewers agreed not to post reviews ahead of 5:00pm, Wednesday 19th November 2008. Nothing else. No further obligations whatsoever.
So... was the other guy lying? Or has the story changed now that it's become "a story?"
One last pretty funny bit on this topic before I leave you to draw your own conclusions. The UK version of GamesRadar is currently skinned up with a takeover ad that rebrands the site as "TombRadar." That's pretty clever, I'll admit, but this bit from a press release about the ad deal that surfaced on The Escapist is the actual funny part...
"Tomb Raider: Underworld is a great game, well worth the 9/10 scores it is picking up across gaming websites and magazines," said James Binns, publishing director at GamesRadar owner Future. "Getting the message out there on launch day is essential in the games market and this takeover gives Eidos unprecedented cut through."
The game is currently sitting around 77 on Metacritic with only one score sitting at or above the 90 line.
"I don't really see what's so wrong about this. Eidos wants to make more money. Is that so wrong? Just let them go on with their business. It's not like your purchase depends on Metacritic scores, right?"
Hm. So do you think EA was in the right for trying to buy out TakeTwo in order to shut down their sports gaming division, effectively eliminating competition in that field?
Eidos sucks in this respect and everyone knows that. Look at what happened to Jeff with his Kane & Lynch review. And guess what....Eidos is trying the same shit AGAIN! For all you people who say that Eidos is just trying to be profitable, maybe you should introduce a few words into your vocabulary like say, moral, ethical, manipulative, deceipt, you get the idea. I'm sure no one would like to read a review about a game that gets high scores and then go and give your hard-earned money only to find out that the game is C-R-A-P. And to top it all off, it was the actual publisher who "convinced" the professional reviewers to score it that way.
I, dunno, I'd be hard pressed to say I'm surprised at this sort of carry on. PR companies can't get away with telling reviews to postpone there bad reviews and we can see that in this case they haven't. But hell if they can I don't think it would make a huge impact. As it turns out I've heard from PC Gamer magazine that this is the best Tomb Raider they've played. So for me it's more the direct recommendation rather then the lack of bad reviews that gets me interested in a game. If a game is truly bad then there clearly wouldn't be so many good reviews on metacritic, it's not as if it's hard to see if a game is worth $60 or not. Also I think Guy Cocker is a great reviewer and has guts to twitter something like that (P.S. If you can get Cocker to move to and join Giant Bomb that would be awesome). And also great response from the PR Company, if you got caught red handed and admit to it then I have no problems with that. It's the stupid cover-up’s afterward that are just annoying.
Why do PR people always seem like a bunch of slick talking used car salesmen? They don't care if the engine block has a crack in it, as long as the wheels still role.
It's Kane and Lynch all over again but this time Jeff doesn't get fired for telling what he thinks! Seriously, what the hell is with the obsession of Metacritic scores? How many consumers look at those when they are looking at the game?
Having played Tomb Raider Underworld for a few hours, it is actually a realy good game. It has its issues but nothing too serious. I wonder what GiantBomb will give it, will we see a biased poor review?
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No. We'll see a poor review, an average review, or a great review. It will not be a biased review.
This stuff happens all of the times with reviews. Don't make a big deal about it. Publishers don't want their game to have a bad rep before it's released. Seeing as they are giving the reviewers the game for FREE, this is perfectly legit. After release, the reviewers can say whatever the hell they want.
More gamespot/eidos related controversy... Great, I just hope this one doesn't involve the sacking of guy. Guy is one of the few decent people left at gamespot. If he does get sacked, Giant Bomb should hire him as their UK dude, someone to report on things happening in gaming this side of the pond.
I want somebody to punch Eidos in the face. Although unrelated to any of this I vowed to not play Tomb Raider Underworld a long time ago, I haven't read or watched anything about the game until this. I'm not even sure when it is coming out....nor do I care. Tomb Raider quit being fun for me....ok...well it was never fun for me, but it quit being relavent to me about the time the first movie came out.
NOOOO JEFF!!! don't comment on this...let vinnie or ryan take the bullet...let's not have GERSTMAN-GATE 2008!!! Can you get fired from your own website? I hope not. Still I have to thank Eidos for helping to create Giant Bomb! Maybe someone at VideoGaming247 will end up getting fired and start Giant Bomb UK.
This is why I love Giant Bomb. It is an island of trust in a sea of what I can only describe as " :-| "
Unlike that OTHER Eidos game, I still kind of want to play this one. Too bad that Crystal Dynamics' blood, sweat and tears have to get dragged into this whole publisher/game site/marketing controversy.
Wasn't it this time last year Kane and Lynch reviews, including one in particular.........hit the internet? Oh Jeff, you gotta love the irony you are reporting this tidbit! Eidos is full of poopoo heads!
This is awesome in a really effed up way. They are surprisingly honest about this bullshit! Btw, Jeff, the title of this article made me laugh. And I'm not just saying that.
Bullshit or not bullshit, this is common, and not something to rage about. It happens all the time and it's the duty of the PR department to do this kind of stuff. I'm kinda surprised how many blogs and such have commented about this, it's nothing big, really. It happens and ofcourse they want the game to sell, lots of heart and money went into making it. Even bad games are often produced with alot of heart and alot of money. I can't blame them really.
Really? Really!?! Oh well, guess Eidos doesn't learn from their mistakes. They could have just made a quality game and gotten good scores as a result of that. It's crazy but I hear some companies tend to go that route.
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