Review Embargos, why the hell should I care?

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DudeistBelieve

TellEmSteveDave.com
Sep 9, 2010
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I was just reading this thing about the Assassin's Creedy Unity being all buggy and what not, and people bitching that reviews were embargo until after release.

Do gamer's realize no one is putting a gun to their head and forcing them to pick the game up at release?

Next week, the new WWE game comes out. I'm already feeling iffy on getting it day one, but if I go ahead and take that plunge and the game is indeed broken, that's on me for being impatient and not waiting to see what everyone's reaction to it is.

If game companies were saying "No one may EVER review our games" I'd understand, but if they want to keep it hush hush till launch that is their business, and yours and my decision to make an uneducated plunge is at our own peril.
 

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
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"Let the buyer beware" isn't a good excuse for allowing companies to get away with actively preventing information from being provided to said buyers.

Like, I'm the most careful purchaser I know. The only time I won't outright refuse to purchase something before I see uncut, unedited gameplay from a source that isn't the PR department of a company is when I have extensive experience with a developer's past games. But launch-day information is a vital part of the consumer's toolkit. A product being provided for sale with absolutely no information available is just bad for the consumer; I don't know how else to say it, really. Sure, people could wait, but thirty years of history has proven that in general they won't.

Saying "It's your fault you bought this without waiting for information" is just shifting the blame away from the actual problem. (Well, the bigger problem, at least.)
 

sageoftruth

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Jan 29, 2010
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I'm kind of at a loss right now. I'm not impressed by people who can't wait until information is available, but at the same time, pushing out misleading PR trailers while blocking honest reviews sounds like pure swindling. I could forgive that, if they're simply uncertain that their product will live up to the hype, but if they know they have something to hide, then such behavior should not be condoned.
 

Scootinfroodie

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Dec 23, 2013
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SaneAmongInsane said:
if they want to keep it hush hush till launch
The issue is not keeping things "hush hush til launch" it's keeping it hush until *after* launch, which is a clear anti-consumer practice.

Is it the most important issue facing gaming? No
Is it an easily avoidable practice? Yes
Does it benefit the consumer to avoid this practice? Yes

People shouldn't have to wait 12 hours after launch to find out if a game will crash all the time and have ridiculous performance issues
 

BloatedGuppy

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Feb 3, 2010
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Scootinfroodie said:
The issue is not keeping things "hush hush til launch" it's keeping it hush until *after* launch, which is a clear anti-consumer practice.

Is it the most important issue facing gaming? No
Is it an easily avoidable practice? Yes
Does it benefit the consumer to avoid this practice? Yes
Pretty much this.

People are quite capable of being on high alert all the time and waiting patiently for all the information to be available, but that doesn't make it any less unscrupulous when Ubisoft embargoes reviews until well after a game is already on sale. They appear to have their hearts dead set on EA's black hat, it seems like they go out of their way to alienate customers on a regular basis.

I'll probably still get Shadows of Mordor and Far Cry 3 at some point, but when they're well and truly marked down on handsome sales. I'd present this as some form of consumer protest, but to be honest I was fairly apathetic about those titles anyway and I already have too many games to play. Take that, Ubisoft!
 

DudeistBelieve

TellEmSteveDave.com
Sep 9, 2010
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sageoftruth said:
I'm kind of at a loss right now. I'm not impressed by people who can't wait until information is available, but at the same time, pushing out misleading PR trailers while blocking honest reviews sounds like pure swindling. I could forgive that, if they're simply uncertain that their product will live up to the hype, but if they know they have something to hide, then such behavior should not be condoned.
They're selling you a product. You gotta treat everyone that's out for profit like a Ferengi.

Scootinfroodie said:
SaneAmongInsane said:
if they want to keep it hush hush till launch
The issue is not keeping things "hush hush til launch" it's keeping it hush until *after* launch, which is a clear anti-consumer practice.

Is it the most important issue facing gaming? No
Is it an easily avoidable practice? Yes
Does it benefit the consumer to avoid this practice? Yes

People shouldn't have to wait 12 hours after launch to find out if a game will crash all the time and have ridiculous performance issues
I'm under impression after it's release, it's fair game for everyone to talk about it. If the embargo extends after release, that's not only morally wrong I can't wrap my head around why any website would agree to it.

and I know, but really, what is 12 hours in a grande scheme of things?
 

t0ss

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Oct 25, 2014
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It's less about the consumer's choice and more about them engaging in something obviously done dishonestly to sell a busted product to as many people as possible before the word gets round.
 

EternallyBored

Terminally Apathetic
Jun 17, 2013
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SaneAmongInsane said:
Scootinfroodie said:
SaneAmongInsane said:
if they want to keep it hush hush till launch
The issue is not keeping things "hush hush til launch" it's keeping it hush until *after* launch, which is a clear anti-consumer practice.

Is it the most important issue facing gaming? No
Is it an easily avoidable practice? Yes
Does it benefit the consumer to avoid this practice? Yes

People shouldn't have to wait 12 hours after launch to find out if a game will crash all the time and have ridiculous performance issues
I'm under impression after it's release, it's fair game for everyone to talk about it. If the embargo extends after release, that's not only morally wrong I can't wrap my head around why any website would agree to it.

and I know, but really, what is 12 hours in a grande scheme of things?
They agreed to it because it was a stipulation for receiving early review copies, if they had refused then they would have had to buy the game at launch, and would have had to reasonably play longer than 12 hours to get reviews out so it would have accomplished the same thing as the embargo.

As for what 12 hours is in the grand scheme? It's not a ton, but it that doesn't really change the shadiness of the act itself, nor does it really negate customers and reviewers feeling ticked off at the act.

It's not some terrible act that deserves the CEO of Ubisoft being arrested, but it's still kind of a shitty thing to do that at least deserves a few articles and threads of people calling it out as kind of a shady thing to do, I'm not sure what your point is here? The effect isn't colossal so we shouldn't complain about it? Why does it matter if the effect isn't industry ruining, it's still a dumb business practice that should rightfully be called out when it occurs, hopefully so at least some publishers won't try it again, or at least as often.
 

mxc2012

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Jan 9, 2010
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There are several things wrong with review embargos. You really should care about review embargos because they aren't as simple as you put it. Take the shadow of mordor case for example. They did not disallow all reviews prior to release. They disallowed honest real reviews of the game. The only ones that were allowed to be made were basically advertisements, they weren't allowed to show any glitches, say anything negative at all about anything in the game or mention lord of the rings. They also had to tell the people watching to buy it.

As far as I am concerned they should either hold off all reviews/coverage until after the release or none of it. They can't be allowed to censor content the way they did. That is why even though it is a game I would enjoy, I won't ever buy it.
 

Fishyash

Elite Member
Dec 27, 2010
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Consumers are too eager to pre-order games, especially at a discount or with extra content bundled in. This is probably why developers offer these ridiculous embargo deals in the first place. It essentially takes advantage of the consumer, which is wrong, and an anti-consumer practice. (Note: this only applies to devs who offer review embargoes in an attempt to hide a game that they themselves think is shit)

Journalists and critics in the game industry are far too desperate to receive content from developers as soon as they possibly can. This is probably why websites actually ACCEPT these ridiculous embargoes.

Yes, the consumer does take PART blame, but honestly the bigger issue is with the relationship between developers and journalists/critics. Critics shouldn't be so desperate to review a game as early as possible. To me it says something about the general quality of reviews if most people are only interested in who reviews the game first. If your writing is good enough, it won't matter if your reviews come out ten years after the game does.

If the embargo is set at a reasonable date (within a week before the game comes out) then there's no issue. If the game sucks, consumers can then cancel their pre-order.

Ultimately though it's up to consumers to stop blindly pre-ordering games, but more importantly it's up to the journalists and critics to stop blindly accepting stupid review copy deals.

Should you care? Not really, but any effort to dissuade people from pre-ordering something they barely know anything about is ultimately good for the industry IMO.
 

sageoftruth

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Jan 29, 2010
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Totalbiscuit released a recent video on review embargos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavcvi19q1g
Based on what he said, in a nutshell trade embargos can be consumer friendly, but ones that wait until after the release date are definitely anti-consumer. At their best, they set a time for all reviews to be released, so that no reviews get released before others. Due to people's curiosity, the first reviews to get released are apparently the ones that get the most attention, which is bad, since it pressures reviewers to finish their reviews quickly, rather than taking the time to play and understand the game and releasing a quality review.

However, the dark side of them is when the date is after the release date. Since so many people like to buy games on day one, such an embargo only seems to make sense if they fear that people won't buy it if they knew what they were buying.

He plans to publicly call out (or at least expose) all games that have review embargos after the release date, since they go hand-in-hand with pre-order culture and encourage consumers to buy games without being informed about them.

Anyway, if you have the time, watch the youtube video. He can explain it all better than I can.