Why are there huge, gigantic, overly large, humongous ads on every video game site for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty? Destructoid, IGN, and many others, feature prominent ads for the game, which came out on February 26, 2008.
Not one of those sites feature a review of the game. Coincidence, or review blackout in exchange for ad dollars?
Most big websites feature reviews on the day of a big title’s release, or post a review a few days afterward. Neither Gamespot, nor IGN feature reviews for this game, that’s been out for almost three days. Yet, IGN had a review posted for Frontlines: Fuel of War and almost every other game ever made, on the day of the game’s release.
When was the last time that IGN didn’t have a game review up on the day it was released?
Did The Turning Point advertising team trade dollars for a review blackout? What if they feared bad press that poor reviews would generate during its release week. The backlash following the release of the demo was so palpable that the Turning Point developers went into complete spin control mode after its release. Media outlets, including G4TV’s X-Play, even had features on the game in the days following the demo’s release with tons of “this is just a demo” type statements peppered throughout their interviews.
Could this be a new phenomenon? If so, I dub this the Kane and Lynch effect. What if developers and publishers start promising a truckload of cash to websites for a complete media blitz, and request a moratorium on any reviews from the website for a pre-determined amount of time. Sure would have kept that low Kane and Lynch Review out of the public eye. I’m just sayin’.
This is all pure speculation, but as Metacritic is still silent on the game and websites continue to prominently feature GIGANTIC Turning Point Ads, one can only wonder…
Were they paid to be silent?
Popularity: 1% [?]
I was going to say it seemed more like the prerogative of the review sites… Perhaps they didn’t want to get wailed on for any perceived bias in their reviews due to the ad campaigns? Especially in the light of the CNet thing…
I think its time for us all to stand up and say “Listen, your credibility as an entire industry is now worth less than the collective IQs of the American Idol Judges. Keep your reviews, we have our own minds to make up. Just give us the media updates to help us make up those minds on our own.”
I think they have been given a moratorium on reviews, but not because of a review score though.
The idea of trusting other people’s ‘opinions’ on whether a game is any good or not given the current marketing driven world of online and magazine games reviews is utterly ridiculous.
As far as I’m concerned the demos available on Xbox Live determine whether or not I’ll purchase a game.
A poor demo is highly unlikley to suddenly become the greatest game ever in the world, EVER. Is it? No.
I might have even ended up purchasing Turok if it hadn’t been for the shockingly poor demo… urgh. On the other hand the Orange Box demo convinced me to make that purchase, and I have not been disappointed.
Lono, would this actually surprise you?
Lets face it, the media industry is shady at best when it comes to promotion and reviews
Lots of net & TV ads.. yet no reviews… Soccer mom’s are easy prey.
How long does it usually take Metacritic to get reviews in… as currently they’ve got 0. And they use more then just the sell out review sites.
oooo Jesus the reason IGN hasnt reviewed it yet is bc the want to make sure the review is somewhat OK so the game doesn’t pull its advertising… this article is describing the next Gamespot Gate
IGN review is out: 5.0
link = http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/855/855861p1.html
now we know why there was a blackout…
ahhhhh you beat me to it ritterjcat. My favorite part of the review is the fact that the music in the game got the best score of 7.0. Take out the music score and it doesn’t even crack 5.0. Demo was horrible and so is the game.
This is going to become the norm. Said it in all of the Too Human articles – reviews are now useless. Too much money to be made on advertising. Either play a demo or find a smaller outlet you trust cuz there is too much $ flying around now