Yesterday 2K Games’ PR company, The Redner Group, spoke out in a negative light about certain games reviewers, inferring that they’d be struck off the list for future games based on their scores for Duke Nukem. Later yesterday, presumably as a result of the Tweet, 2K Games publicly stated that they won’t have anything to do with the company in future.
“2K Games does not endorse or condone the comments made by @TheRednerGroup,” they said on Twitter, “and confirm they no longer represent our products.”
However, in the last hour or so, Eurogamer’s editor Tom Bramwell Tweeted that his site is blacklisted by 2K Games already. “I feel sorry for TheRednerGroup today,” he said. “We are blacklisted by @2KGames and it seems to be standard practice.”
It’s not clear whether Eurogamer were blacklisted before or as a result of their Duke Nukem Forever review.
As far as we’re aware we’re not blacklisted, although we didn’t get review code for the game in question – ultimately our copy was bought by the reviewer, Dan, on the day of release, and a further copy arrived from Microsoft the following week.
aerobes
Disappointing moves by 2K but I think most people could see the reception this game would receive a mile away.
That’s not to say reviewers had pre-conceived ideas, just with the development cycle the game has suffered, the way the gaming landscape has changed and the FPS genre being one the most tightly fought game styles where genuine quality really shines (I’m no CoD fan but please don’t flame my comment just because you dislike it), I felt there was a certain inevitability about how well this game would do. I’d have been very surprised had it done much, if any, better. Shame.
mugsybalone
You know who likes CoD? Donadel. He loves it – especially the MP, him and Gilardino are all about the killstreaks ;)
aerobes
Legends, the pair of them. Donadel on-purposely volleys it against the bar so Gilardino can head it in on the rebound.
mugsybalone
Oh, you and your Fiorentina love triangle.
aerobes
Oh, It’s glorious. Heavenly, even.
TheLig
While I agree that if a site was blacklisted for a bit review then poor sportsmanship on 2ks part. But all we have to go on is EuroGamers word here. There is no evidence either way. And “seems like standard practice” sits rather like sour grapes to me. How do they know this? At present I’m not writing off 2k unless EuroGamer come up with something more convincing than a hasty tweet.
hazelam
their own pr firm’s tweet said they would do as much.
for any other publisher’s pr firms reading this, if you like your jobs, don’t let on how much of a douchebag your employer is.
skibadee
Eurogamer give Sony terrible press but they still work with them.
hazelam
what a douchebag move by 2k games.
blacklist them because they gave your game a bad review?
what a bunch of arseholes, it’s not like eurogamer were alone in giving the game the roasting it deserves.
maybe i’m being overly cynical here but maybe they picked eurogamer because they gave it one of the lower scores and they’re using them as a scapegoat to try to scare other sites into being more lenient in future.
and it also looks like the only thing 2k are upset with their former pr firm for is making their bullying policies public.
Mick939
WOW, surely they played duke before thinking they were going to get decent reviews. The first half hour set it up to be great. I almost spat when i saw IGNs five, but when i wen’t back to the game i quickly found i was getting bored. I want to finish it in the memory of duke but… im saddened while playing.
Foxhound_Solid
Eurogamer deserve it. Joker site.
colmshan1990
Eurogamer’s reputation has been called into question a few times over the last few years, and there’s no word on whether they were blacklisted because of the DNF review or something else.
Or even if they were blacklisted at all. Then again, what exactly does a blacklisting entail? Not getting the review code first? Or not getting a hands-on preview?
Surely they’re not going to give one to every site, anyway…