Atari sues computer game reviewer for bad review
June 24th, 2008
An advanced, unauthorized review of their new thriller: Alone in the Dark, has apparently created a wonderful PR experience for Atari. One site broke the pre-release review publication with a “negative review” (5 out of 10 - that’s not negative, thats “meh”) in dutch.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53249
How DARE journalists warn the public in advance that a much hyped product that has a zero return policy is in fact a steaming pile of fecal matter and thereby interfere with a corporations bottom line. God forbid the game publisher should actually wait and release a game that’s original and worth playing.
Pre launch, this game was generating a lot of excitement:
http://buttonbasher.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/alone-in-the-dark/
The good news is that with all of this publicity, gamers will hopefully be put off purchasing the title and rightly so. The hilarity is that this one little Dutch site, that’s IN dutch, would probably not have impacted sales nearly as much if Atari had just quietly black-balled them. That’s right, boys and girls, classic Corporate strategy at work: Greedy AND Dumb.
A while back, I was writing freelance for a gaming magazine. I panned a game called Master of Orion 3 in a review I wrote, mainly because out of the box it was a pile of steaming fecal matter. I awarded it a magnanimous 18%, which the editor upgraded to a 30 something, because he didn’t want to upset the publishers. But to his credit, he published the review intact.
So… Dutch Computer Games Reviewing Website no one had heard of before all this. Crack open a bud light, we salute you. You may have a funny accent, but when it comes to fighting the good fight against corporate sell outs, you tell it like it is.
Oh, and an advisory to any Game Publisher who plans on sending me an advance review copy, if it sucks, I’ll break your embargo to tell the 3 people who visit my site regularly world… and sue you for wasting my time.
And it will be in English, mother-f^@#*rs, not dutch. How’d you like THEM apples?
Skep
June 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I remember something about a reviewer getting fired from a magazine because of his bad review.
There seems to be an unusual amount of critics for games that really are either not very critical, a low sense of morality, or very cheap whores.
Here’s an idea for the gaming companies don’t get mad at the reviewers giving your game a crappy review, but actually put out a quality product.
If you do, it will speak for itself.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Agreed 100% Chris.
Movie critics don’t get this amount of grief. If they think a movie sucks, they’ll pan it. But instead of a 10 dollar Movie Ticket, we’re talking about a 60 dollar video game. Its way more important that the reviews are impartial.