There, dramatic title out of the way.
So in case you haven't heard, EA decided not to release review copies of The Sims 4 in advance to reviewers, meaning that they didn't get the chance to review before release. This on the tail end of the no-pools-and-toddlers bit, which was apparently due to EA building the game on the Simcity 2013 engine (yeah, THAT Simcity) meaning that pools and toddlers were suddenly hard to add because the engine wasn't designed to handle that sort of stuff to begin with.
Yeesh.
Interestingly enough, I only heard about the lack of review copies from another thread on the Escapist, where someone posted a link to an IGN reviewer's tweet about the matter. IGN actually has a statement on its review-in-progress mentioning the lack of review copies as well, but before the review broke I had trouble finding out any more about the matter.
If a movie company refuses to show advance screenings for critics, it's usually assumed that the movie is going to be shit (because why else would you hide a product from criticism?). This usually leads to one or more people making a stink - but when I tried to find gaming news sites covering this story, the first result I found was a site called CinemaBlend. Hell, if you search "Sims 4 no review copies", the Escapist thread I mentioned is one of the only results actually bringing the topic up.
Of course, now that the game is out reviews are coming in. An initial survey of them reveals poor/middling review scores all around. A lot of points in the reviews are repeated consistently: some of the new features are nice, but the lack of official content is disturbing, and a lot of the game feels bare-bones or stripped down, awaiting DLC. Load times feel like a step back from the seamless Sims 3 world. So on and so forth.
My question is this: if a company refuses to release review copies of a game, would you expect major gaming news sites/reviewers to cover it, and if so: in what capacity? Should they tweet about it in advance (as the IGN reviewer did), mention it in their reviews, or do you not really care?
Personally I'd like reviewers to mention it in their reviews, as it might have an impact on how hard it is to put a release-day review together - people have a right to know if the reviewer had to scramble to get a review out the door. I recognize that sometimes review copies aren't feasible (with indie games for example, or MMOs) but at least for big-budget games, I'd like to see the reviewers have time to give verdicts before the product is on shelves. Otherwise it just feels like the publishers trying to pull a fast one - like here with The Sims 4, which appears to be getting crucified at the moment.
EDIT: whoops, double-mentioned CinemaBlend there. Nobody saw that, right?
So in case you haven't heard, EA decided not to release review copies of The Sims 4 in advance to reviewers, meaning that they didn't get the chance to review before release. This on the tail end of the no-pools-and-toddlers bit, which was apparently due to EA building the game on the Simcity 2013 engine (yeah, THAT Simcity) meaning that pools and toddlers were suddenly hard to add because the engine wasn't designed to handle that sort of stuff to begin with.
Yeesh.
Interestingly enough, I only heard about the lack of review copies from another thread on the Escapist, where someone posted a link to an IGN reviewer's tweet about the matter. IGN actually has a statement on its review-in-progress mentioning the lack of review copies as well, but before the review broke I had trouble finding out any more about the matter.
If a movie company refuses to show advance screenings for critics, it's usually assumed that the movie is going to be shit (because why else would you hide a product from criticism?). This usually leads to one or more people making a stink - but when I tried to find gaming news sites covering this story, the first result I found was a site called CinemaBlend. Hell, if you search "Sims 4 no review copies", the Escapist thread I mentioned is one of the only results actually bringing the topic up.
Of course, now that the game is out reviews are coming in. An initial survey of them reveals poor/middling review scores all around. A lot of points in the reviews are repeated consistently: some of the new features are nice, but the lack of official content is disturbing, and a lot of the game feels bare-bones or stripped down, awaiting DLC. Load times feel like a step back from the seamless Sims 3 world. So on and so forth.
My question is this: if a company refuses to release review copies of a game, would you expect major gaming news sites/reviewers to cover it, and if so: in what capacity? Should they tweet about it in advance (as the IGN reviewer did), mention it in their reviews, or do you not really care?
Personally I'd like reviewers to mention it in their reviews, as it might have an impact on how hard it is to put a release-day review together - people have a right to know if the reviewer had to scramble to get a review out the door. I recognize that sometimes review copies aren't feasible (with indie games for example, or MMOs) but at least for big-budget games, I'd like to see the reviewers have time to give verdicts before the product is on shelves. Otherwise it just feels like the publishers trying to pull a fast one - like here with The Sims 4, which appears to be getting crucified at the moment.
EDIT: whoops, double-mentioned CinemaBlend there. Nobody saw that, right?
