Red Dead Redemption
Game » consists of 23 releases. Released May 18, 2010
- PlayStation 3
- Xbox 360
- PlayStation Network (PS3)
- PlayStation 4
- + 2 more
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox 360 Games Store
Red Dead Redemption is the spiritual successor to 2004's Red Dead Revolver, featuring a vibrant, open world set in the decline of the American Wild West. Players take on the role of former outlaw John Marston, who is forced to hunt down his former gang to regain his family.
Rockstar refusing to send out review copies
You've not proved that sites like IGN get review copies because of their inflated review scores. You're asserting it. And from my perspective, it's a very weak argument given the nature of Metacritic. The whole point of the Metacritic score is to balance out disparate scores. My argument is simple: there are simpler explanations for the choices rather than the conspiracies that they are being paid for the reviews, or suggestions that the publisher is gaming the Metacritic scores. Sites like IGN get review copies because they have much larger readership. It's more important for people to see a review than it is for the Metacritic score to be upped a tenth of a percent because of score inflation. The later might play a role, but in the larger scheme of things, it is inconsequential. It is not, as you claim, the "only" reason they profit. By the way, their getting a review copy is by no means "exclusive," as is made obvious by the fact that there are now at least ten reviews for RDR. Rockstar is obviously giving out review copies to a number of reviewers, not "exclusively" to one. The fact that the game is highly anticipated means they can pick and choose who will get the copies primarily because they don't need the free advertisement of a review. Review copies for less recognizable games have more review copies distributed because they need the publicity.
My point about making decisions after the fact is about future distribution of review copies. That is, if a review site has proven to a publisher that they treat their games fairly, they're more likely to give them review copies in the future. Since no company can be sure what a reviewer will say about a game, it makes little sense to worry about it until after the copies are handed out. This is not a difficult point to understand. Any attempt to decide who to give copies to is based on past performance, not any expectation of what a reviewer might say about a current game (which would be pretty close to gambling).
Not needing more ads is absolutely no excuse for not sending out review copies to certain sites. Review copies cost publishers next to nothing and each bit of ad space is still welcome, no matter how much you already have.
By the way, I never said that specifically RDR was an IGN exclusive, because it wasn't (I cited other examples for this kind of deal). IGN in this case was just one of the several "safe" sites that would undoubtly contribute to an early high metacritic score and got a review copy. There are many sites with inflated scores, IGN is just one really good example olf them and of how the business works.
Also, there is nothing illegal about it and it's no conspiracy. It's just how the business works and if you or me were pr persons we would probably do the same: trying to get the early scores to be the really high ones in order to maximize early sales. And didn't it occur to you that "past performance" and "expecation about future performance" might be somehow related? Of course, publisher look at the past performance of review sites. And IGN, for example, has time and time again proven to be overly generous with their scores.
If there were only one or two early reviews, yes, inflated scores would matter. But it's rare to see fewer than a half dozen reviews by release date. Like I said, whatever marginal inflation happens in one reviewer's score is insignificant compared to the other factors involved in the decision to release review copies.
"And didn't it occur to you that "past performance" and "expecation about future performance" might be somehow related?"
Oh. My. God. It's as if you didn't read what I said. What you said is exactly my point. Finally. Now, go back and read what I originally said and try to figure out why you didn't figure out my argument four posts ago. My God, this discussion is pointless.
Read my posts again, I'm not willing to write everything multiple times only so you can distort it all again.
" What you said is exactly my point."
Sorry to break it to you: you still didn't get the point.
" My God, this discussion is pointless. "Yup. Rockstar is one of the few places where they can decide (for whatever reasons) not to send review copies to the usual suspects and still have their games sell. Some got reviews (not just a couple) and many did not. Simple as that.
Yeah , of course. RS doesn't worry about review scores at all. That is why they didn't write a letter to a ridiculously unimportant magazine last month giving advice on how to properly review their game. Oh wait..." @haggis said:
Yup. Rockstar is one of the few places where they can decide (for whatever reasons) not to send review copies to the usual suspects and still have their games sell. Some got reviews (not just a couple) and many did not. Simple as that. "" My God, this discussion is pointless. "
" @SugarRay said:I never said or implied that they 'don't worry about review scores at all'.Yeah , of course. RS doesn't worry about review scores at all. That is why they didn't write a letter to a ridiculously unimportant magazine last month giving advice on how to properly review their game. Oh wait... "" @haggis said:
Yup. Rockstar is one of the few places where they can decide (for whatever reasons) not to send review copies to the usual suspects and still have their games sell. Some got reviews (not just a couple) and many did not. Simple as that. "" My God, this discussion is pointless. "
" @pweidman said:"this shit again? They have the EXACT SAME TRAILERS up as every other site. "
This staff @Giantbomb has shown little to no interest in RDR,no? I wonder if that factors in. Have they run any preview stuff about RDR? None that I'm aware of. I've also heard Jeff and Ryan say many times they had to purchase games. This seems like Giantbomb's issue more than any silly R* conspiracy or fear of some metacritic score reductions. The game's getting stellar reviews across the board. And Gametrailers does have one up:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-red-dead/100286 And somehow blaming other sites like IGN for their early reviews with the justification thet they pad scores to get early review copies is just rediculous. Print copies might be another story, but I do not believe any of this shit about 'subtle' payoffs for website reviewers. Giantbomb has become, for me, more of an entertainment site vs. information because the crew are just fun and so damn hilarious mostly, and less of a site for baseing purchase decisions on. Their reviews are just not as timely, and some lately from Brad, sorry to say, have just been misleading, and inaccurate imo. "
Amusing. First, no they don't. They only have a couple last I checked, but I said 'preview stuff'....you know interviews, early impressions articles, hands-on biz, you know, what's been brewing on many other sites?
"RS doesn't worry about review scores at all."
When you start responding to what other people are actually saying, then I'll respond to you again. Now you're just being a dick.
@SugarRay: I think you're exactly right.
But my copy was just delivered by UPS (thank God I'm off today), so I'm going off to play Red Dead right now.
It's possible Joystiq didn't get a copy because of all the nasty articles they wrote about the games development, employees being overworked etc. There was some pretty nasty drama around that game on Joystiq.
As for GB? don't know, maybe they feel their game wasn't 5 star material and didn't want a 4star (80) on their metacritic for launch.
I love wild conspiracy theories.
Like I said, in the long list of things that influence who does and does not get review copies, assurances about higher scores (especially one point higher variations) mean virtually nothing. Red Dead Redemption had eight pre-release reviews. Assassin's Creed had eleven. AVP? TWENTY-SIX. The reason? Reviews are valued not primarily for their scores, but as free advertising. Scores aren't meaningless, but reviewers are too unpredictable to game the way you suggest. I'm not naive. I know perfectly well what you're suggesting is going on. I'm simply suggesting that publishers don't think the way you think they do. They know better than you what the value of a review is. Because you can't seem to grasp that your assumptions about the review numbers are wrong, you can't fathom why Rockstar would behave the way they do. The reality is actually quite simple: Rockstar didn't send out a lot of review copies because they didn't need to. A game like AVP that sucked was going to get bad scores. They knew it. A few good scores wouldn't matter. So they spammed review copies. Everyone got one. They played the odds, and one of the dozens of gamers who got the review copies actually liked the game. The odds of higher scores for mediocre games goes up as the number of review copies goes out. See how this works? It's not complicated. The company is still doing what you expect them to do: act in their own interest. One high scored review is not worth much to a publisher, as you suggest.
You're kidding, right? You're telling me you've never heard of exclusive review deals. That's beyond naive." @CptBedlam: As I've said, there are no singular early reviews.
@haggis said:
*sigh* Please, please read my posts before replying.
one outlier doesn't provide a significant boost to a Metacritic score. Initial review scores tend to fit a standard curve, to the point that I would say if publishers were selecting reviewers for review copies based primarily on the assumption they would give them good scores, the publishers are failing miserably to game the system. You offer one example of a high-scored early review, even though there are hundreds of games reviewed, and thousands of reviews. Tens of thousands of reviews.
I'm now telling you for the third time that it is not just one site that provides the early metacritic boost. There are lot's of sites that dish out inflated scores on a regular basis.
Exclusive reviews are another story. Those deals aim at throwing out a single score for a few days before release while everyone else is still restricted by an embargo. It's a more concentrated effort of spin and has nothing to do with metacritic.
Also, it is pretty common that metacritic scores decrease a few points over time. You can observe that with almost every game.
@haggis said:
That is complete and utter BS logic. The worse the product, the less it is shown to testers. That is a common concept in most industries. Movies, games etc. If there's a sea of bad reviews and just a few good ones, then no consumer is gonna think "oh, this might be a good product because a few people thought so".The reality is actually quite simple: Rockstar didn't send out a lot of review copies because they didn't need to. A game like AVP that sucked was going to get bad scores. They knew it. A few good scores wouldn't matter. So they spammed review copies. Everyone got one. They played the odds, and one of the dozens of gamers who got the review copies actually liked the game. The odds of higher scores for mediocre games goes up as the number of review copies goes out. See how this works? It's not complicated. The company is still doing what you expect them to do: act in their own interest. One high scored review is not worth much to a publisher, as you suggest. "
AVP for about a week had ONE review out - the IGN exclusive review. Unfortunately a scan of an unfavorable test by Game Informer leaked on the net and undermined the exclusive review strategy.
And as I said, review copies of videogames cost the publishers practically nothing. Denying them to major websites who even asked for the review copy is clearly NOT a case of "we don't need more reviews". It's managing which reviews go out early and which do not.
Btw.: Funny how you claim to know reality; then do the same that you ask from me: provide proof (at least I provided examples to back my claims).
@Milkman said:
If they were only going to send out a small number of review copies, the main reason being advertising, surely it would be a wiser decision to send copies to fairly large and respected sites like Joystic and GiantBomb than Cynamite and Playmania, sites (or publications) most people have never even heard of? But they didn't do that. No, they sent copies to those sites, and downright refused Joystic, even after repeated requests."places like "Cynamite", "GameReactor", and "Playmania", among others, were given review copies"
I don't see any reasonable explanation other than scores. The GiantBomb staff have expressed their lack of excitement for the game, and I'm sure Joystic has done something similar.
My own guess is that they've given a few review copies to major publications, those that they prefer for whatever reason, because they wouldn't want to give the impression of only giving the game to smaller sites and having no confidence in their product. If they could dispense of reviews without repercussions they almost certainly would.
I don't blame them for not wanting reviews on day 1 knowing there are people that will buy anything on day 1 just to see for themselves. But me I won't touch it till GB or other sites review it.... Thats just the way i am..........
............................................................................................................................................................................................... Zelda 2 will be the only day 1 purchase that I bought that sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rockstar nor any other game company is obligated to give review copies to anyone at all. That said, if you, the person reading this comment, were to be in charge of the Rockstar review copies to be handed out, would you give them out to a) all media outlets that request them, b) all media outlets that are reputable, c) all media outlets that have given favorable scores to Rockstar games, or d) wish you had a more fulfilling job?
***NEWS FLASH***
Not a single fucking company out there is obligated in the least bit to send a review copy of their game. Moreover, if I were a company that made a game and I were sending out review copies, why would I send one to a group of doods that (and I mean this with no offense) were posting up the RDR videos days after we were putting them out, wasn't posting up every press release, etc? I'm going to send it to the major outlets that the mass mainstream notices.People bitching about Rockstar not sending copies to everyone are the same kind of people that bitch about a Zerg rush.
I think it's just a matter of trust not to leak a review, and also just positive relations with different publications/ websites. That's what it's like with retailers. There's a local shop in my town where he got shafted copies of God of War III since he didn't have the credibility.
"I'm now telling you for the third time that it is not just one site that provides the early metacritic boost. There are lot's of sites that dish out inflated scores on a regular basis." And if a lot of sites are dishing out lots of inflated scores, then are they really inflated? I would say not. There is a range of scores that gaming sites give games. If you could prove rather than simply assert that publishers were getting better scores early in the process (by gaming the system, as you suggest), then show me evidence of it. But when I look at early Metacritic scores, you know what I see? No evidence that this is actually true. In your mind it's how things work, but not how it works in the real world.
My logic isn't BS. Look at it from the publisher's perspective: they've got a great game. They know it. Why? BECAUSE TONS OF SITES HAVE "RED DEAD REDEMPTION LAUNCH CENTERS." They're already hyping the game. What added benefit would an early review grant? Very little. Instead, they hand out a limited number of review copies, for a variety of other reasons, some of which are certainly the ones you're suggesting, but the fact is by the time past review scores come into play, the decisions have already largely been made for other reasons. DO YOU GET IT NOW? Probably not.
On the other hand, a game like AVP has hardly any press. The game had lousy buzz. Rather than dump good money after bad and buy a shitload of ad space, they spam review copies, knowing that at least a few reviewers will give high scores, because in a pool of 20+ reviewers, they'd get at least one who would like it. During the long run-up to the release, they no doubt noted at least a handful of game journos who seemed to like the game a lot, or at least more than the others, and showed more interest. They gave the review copy and exlusive to them. But the fact is, by the time the game releases, there are enough reviews out to harm the game's sales. Most people don't look a week early for a review, and then read other reviews later. ESPECIALLY when they use Metacritic.
There are good games, mediocre games, and bad games. Games that are truly bad are indeed withheld from reviewers. But there aren't that many games that are so bad that they are withheld. It's relatively rare. On the other hand, it's just as rare for a can't-miss game like Red Dead Redemption. RDR needed very little advertisement space. Everyone knew it was coming. Gaming sites covered it extensively. Rockstar gave gaming sites a long video series that sites put up for free. Rockstar knows, in short, how to market a game.
As for proof: I posted some data samples about the number of pre-release reviews, which you've completely ignored. So, now it's your turn. Post some numbers like I did that back up your arguments.Your claims could easily be proven if you'd go on Metacritic and actually assemble some lists of game scores. You're making the claims; now provide some numbers. But you won't, because you're lazy.
@Icemael: I think you misunderstand me, a little, but that's understandable. Publishers will approach reviews differently based on the quality of game they are offering. A mediocre game like AVP needs to be seen since its pre-release buzz was not great, and the publisher could not rely (as Rockstar did) on offering free content to sites (in the form of videos) to drum up interest. So it spammed review copies as a form of getting free advertising space in the form of reviews. By the release date, the Meta score was already in the 60s (despite the IGN UK score). For a game like RDR that had much better buzz, and lots of anticipation, review copy recipients are almost certainly chosen based on whatever other choices the PR department might have had in mind, mostly for buttering up sites for other reasons. Some of it was almost certainly based on personal interaction (developers recognizing a reviewer's particular interest when doing pre-release interviews, etc) journolistic quality, page views, subscriber numbers, etc. What seems pretty obvious is that handing out limited numbers of copies means those copies are more valuable. That is, the fewer sites that have them, the more pageviews they'll get from them. For a huge game like RDR, that value is correspondingly huge. Not so for AVP. Part of me wonders if more review copies of AVP were given out than produced reviews.
In short, review copies aren't just about free advertising. Just in certain situations. In others, they can be handed out more tactically. The idea, though, that it is primarily about review score is silly. There is a long list of other criteria at work. It's far more complicated than what some people are suggesting. They're forgetting that this is a business, and that business is far more about relationships than it is about ephemeral numbers on Metacritic.
Maybe Rockstar saw GiantBomb and said "Who?" they are still kind of new and don't have ads up yet so they kind of thought it was a waste to send it to them. To be honest we won't know until someone from Rockstar says why. I suggest someone give them a call.
Really disappoints me that a studio that can make such good games seems to be staffed by dicks. "Well, Rockstar is a publisher. They don´t really clarify which studio makes which game, but in this case it is Rockstar San Diego.
I think the actual developers of the game would gladly talk about it, but Rockstar as a publisher doesn´t want them to talk about anything. I guess the development of RDR has not been easy and they want to avoid any mention of bad working conditions or something.
Basically you're writing the same BS over and over and hope to win the argument by length of your text.
And lol@ your numbers of pre-release reviews that you pulled out of your *ss. That's your proof? You got to be kidding. I at least referred to specific examples. Also, you completely didn't get what I told you: there are LOTS of (big) gaming sites with inflated review scores. IGN is just one tip of one particulary big iceberg. It doesn't matter if there's a handful or a dozen reviews before release because most of them are going to be from sites with inflated scores. THAT is why the metacritic average ALWAYS decreases over the weeks after a release.
You've been factually challenged the whole time. You say that the AVP review at IGN UK (you keep saying IGN, even though their score was 7 of 10, not 8.5), was up for "like a week" before there were any other reviews, but in reality it was only four days before Gamespot's review (5.5, by the way) went up. You make it sound like IGN UK's 8.5 was somehow unusual, even though AtomicGamer gave it an 84, and Worth Playing gave it an 80. Neither has a reputation for inflated scores.
If you read carefully (or at all), you'd realize that I understand exactly that you claim there are lots of review sites with inflated scores. You just completely glossed over my suggestion that if, as you suggest, lots of sites have inflated scores, than one has to wonder if those scores are really "inflated" or not. If half of reviewers give a game a six, and the other half an eight, are the later scores inflated? Or are the former scores deflated? That is, of course, what Metacritic is for: aggregation sites like metacritic and gamerankings level out the outliers through averaging. You know, middle school math.
I keep writing long text because I'm trying to dumb down for you what is a very simple argument. If you're too lazy to argue the merits, that's fine. You're basically admitting that you can't defend your argument with facts, and don't want to spend the time to do so. By now, though, you've certainly stopped reading. If you ever do provide some evidence other than just assertions, I would be interested in seeing it.
When I said "scores" I didn't necessarily mean only scores. I meant the sites' response to the game in general. GiantBomb have shown their lack of interest in several ways. They've talked very little about the game on the Bombcast, posted very few articles and videos relating to it, and openly said what amounts to "meh... we don't really care"."In short, review copies aren't just about free advertising. Just in certain situations. In others, they can be handed out more tactically. The idea, though, that it is primarily about review score is silly. There is a long list of other criteria at work. It's far more complicated than what some people are suggesting. They're forgetting that this is a business, and that business is far more about relationships than it is about ephemeral numbers on Metacritic."
Now a nice way to sum up "it's because their response to the game has been less than positive, which they've shown in several different ways" and then explaining each of said ways, is to say "because they probably wouldn't give it a great score". The score is, after all, the end result; it's where a site's interest (or lack thereof) in a game culminates.
" @cancerdancer said:No doubt." Quality control over the reviews. They send out review copies to the companies they trust. "Read: Pay. "
It's possible they chose to send review copies to those who best supported the run-up to the game with videos, etc., except ... GameSpot seemed to have every video up and even had a launch center, and they didn't seem to get a copy, either. More evidence, I think, that the entire process of choosing who got copies was driven more by personal pique than any serious marketing strategy.
"GiantBomb gets 9045 visitors a day, and Gamesite gets 7085 visitors a day."
"Yeah, but GiantBomb's average Rockstar game rating is 80%, while Gamesite's is 90%."
"Don't forget, guys. We also have to take into consideration their coverage of the game -- GiantBomb has posted 3 articles, two of which were previews and one of which was positive, and 2 videos, while Gamesite has posted 8 articles, three of which were previews, and all of which were positive. So I think we should send a review copy to Gamesite, but not Giantbomb."
"All in agreement?"
"Aye."
But you sprinkle a few PR people in, and you get stuff like, "But Bob from GameReviewSiteX.com and I had a great discussion the last time we showed them the game, and while the site hasn't given us a lot of attention, I think if we gave them a review copy then maybe when the sequel comes out they'll play more of our videos in the future." The numbers guys would complain, since that site gets half as many pageviews as the others, and then the entire thing would devolve into an argument, the result of which would be a number of compromises that, from the outside, look like a complete clusterfuck. Which is, in my experience, how nearly all such meetings end. I've been in way too many of those sorts of meetings. The fact is, early review copies are entirely too valuable a commodity for PR people to not want to use as tools of the trade, no matter what the marketing people might say.
Even when you get a number of pure-numbers marketing people in a room, there is rarely any deep agreement on strategy, or even what the numbers mean. Even those sorts of meetings you're lucky to get much more than grudging agreement.
Edit: It's also worth noting how marketing people love complicated metrics. After all, if just about anyone could do the math, they wouldn't be needed. The more complicated the formula for deriving marketing data, the more argument there is over the results.
Still not sure where people are pulling this two videos argument outta."GiantBomb has posted 3 articles, two of which were previews and one of which was positive, and 2 videos...
(ps: It's twelve if ya don't feel like following the link)
I have no idea how many videos or articles they've actually posted, just as I have no idea what their average Rockstar game score is, or how many visitors they get per day. I made those number up, just as I made up Gamesite." @Icemael said:
Still not sure where people are pulling this two videos argument outta. (ps: It's twelve if ya don't feel like following the link) ""GiantBomb has posted 3 articles, two of which were previews and one of which was positive, and 2 videos...
EDIT: I tried going to "www.gamesite.com" and got taken to Hasbro's website. I very much doubt Rockstar sent a review copy to them :P
O.K., I'll bite..
First off, I don't know why GNTBMB got refused, but I might know why 'Stiq got dissed.
When they did their "Best Games of the Year" or something like that, ALL of the editors (or writers) EXCLUDED GTAIV from ALL nominations.
From what I remember, games like Mirrors Edge, Assassin's Creed and MGS4 was mentioned alot, but NO ONE voted for GTAIV. -Again, GTAIV got snubbed from everyone's nominations. -It wasn't even a "honorable" mention!
A few days later, one by one the writers gave out their personal "fave" lists.. Again, no Mention of GTAIV -except from one writer from what I remember.
When Justin did his list and (of course) excluded GTAIV he was questioned on the GTAIV snub. He "Claimed" that he NEVER played ANY of the GTA series from GTAIII up to GTAIV. (WOW)
Justin also "Claimed" that he enjoyed Saints Row 2 more!! (WOW)
At the end of the day, someone at Joystiq actually thought it was "Cool" to diss One of the Biggest game of that year. -So I think that is the reason, or one of..
Now, Joystiq is a well written Game site, but when you have what, 7 or more writers SNUB GTAIV and one of the Main writers/editors DISS the Whole GTA Series, would you give them a copy of your next big game for review??
I wouldn't!!
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