this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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It's a half-remembered half-truth. The problem has always been that major gaming mags were seemingly afraid to mark down major games from major studios because they didn't want to be denied review codes in the future, not that publishers were just up and buying good review scores.
Nowadays I'm not sure that that logic holds up in any case, since so much reviewing is done by small outlets and crowdsourcing, but it did seem like a legitimate concern in the days when a half dozen magazines were all the average person got.
Wasn't it more/also they were worried about ongoing advertising deals? Like it wasn't even necessarily the review staff themselves being in on it so much as the execs leaning on them to not threaten the revenue stream.
Yeah, I remember Kane and Lynch 2, a huge stinker, had a full banner ad on ~~IGN~~ GameSpot that caused a lot of controversy with it's review.
Edit: corrected publication, thanks to comrade AernaLingus
Wasn't it Jeff Gerstmann's review on GameSpot which led to him being fired and creating Giant Bomb
You're right, it was GameSpot!