You don't have to review our game, just use the review we wrote fo

[Halororor]

As a games news and reviews outlet, we’re often bombarded by PR people and their incessant press releases from all over the world to feature content – or maybe review some game that we’ve never heard of. Many PR firms seem to think that because we’re in the business of relaying news that we’re little more than PR mouthpieces.

 

For the most part, we skim through them, use what we consider to be interesting or relatable news and discard the rest – but today we got one that we actually found to be insulting; not just to us, but to the people that matter – the readers. While we’ve been leaned on for positive reviews – we’ve never been provided with the actual reviews they’d like posted.

 

Until today.

 

 

In a mail today from Monkeybin Studios requesting that we review a game of theirs, Jumpship 2, we found this particularly disturbing bit of communication :

 

"Just to make your life easier, we attach a couple of reviews we have already written that highlight some of the key features of the game. Perhaps you can cut and paste some of the comments and claim them as your own review?! (Just thinking of your time.)"

 

Included with the email were two reviews filled with such hyperbole as “It’s that combination of old and new we like and that will get your pulse racing with this game,” “We can pretty much guarantee that newcomers and old school gamers will love the simplicity, the sharp and imaginative graphics, the sounds and the sights that make this a visually stunning, exciting and fun game to play at all levels,” and “The only negative is that you may become addicted to it and find yourself sneaking out of work early to play it!”

 

To be frank, I’m flabbergasted and find this whole exercise wholly insulting. I’ve not played Jumpship 2 – and after a stunt like this, I have no intentions to. Worse is that we’ve actually found reviews of the game online that have been slightly reworked from the included copy.

 

Monkeybin…you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

 

Source: http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/developer-sends-out-positive-reviews-for-us-to-use/#ixzz1gVyz9FrA

 

This is so disgusting and downright dishonest, I really don't know whether to laugh or feel appalled.

 

I'm definitely never buying anything that comes from this developer.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Halororor

[Vagrant0]

It's for something like that that I'd be tempted to give a very harsh and honest review... Even mentioning the canned reviews as part of contrast. Not only does that do harm to the company for painting their game in bad light, but it also outs any other reviewers who might have used one of the canned reviews.

 

The really sad part is that this sort of thing happens fairly often, even among some or the more well-known companies. I mean, think back at how many times the reviews for a game were so extremely positive, ignored glaring problems, and were even wrong about how various features worked. It's not that they actually use the canned review, but often they use the canned review to base their own after roughly 10 minutes of actual play.

[JimboUK]

I doubt this is the first time it's happened, have a look at the Escapists review of Dragon Age 2, that was obviously written by some marketing twonk.