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Bethesda backtracks on its controversial review policy

Deleted member 249

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In 2016, with the release of DOOM, Bethesda announced a new policy to only send out review code to media on the day of release.

The policy was met with a lot of pushback from both players and critics who saw it as a way of stifling pre-release criticism, even though, at the time, Bethesda was releasing some of the strongest games it had ever put out.
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While there hasn't been a big announcement, Bethesda has changed its review policy internally.

"We're constantly iterating and reevaluating. It just didn't make sense," Hines explains.

As I said before, Bethesda was releasing games that reviewed extremely well, but they were all reviewed under the shadow of this new policy – a policy many dubbed as 'anti-consumer'.
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"Then it ended up being the focal point and, honestly, we were tired of reading reviews where the first paragraph spent more time talking about our review policy than the game. So we decided we're not going to keep drawing attention to it – we'll send out copies and maybe people will start talking about the game instead of talking about policies. So we did."
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Source

Don't send me review copies if old.

Honestly, I think this is a good move. Bethesda has put out some great games in the last couple of years that ended up suffering because of their review policy- I get the intent, but it didn't work out as they wanted it to. It's good they backtracked on it.
 
BernardoOne

BernardoOne

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Oct 25, 2017
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Makes sense, I really think it was one of the reasons their single player games from last year bombed.
 
jschreier

jschreier

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Maybe one day some brave reporter will ask Pete Hines on the record why he thinks it's acceptable to have blacklisted a professional video game outlet for nearly five years.
 

Deleted member 11976

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Wish this was done earlier. I think many singleplayer-centric titles (PREY, TEW) suffered as a result of the policy.
 
daybreak

daybreak

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Feb 28, 2018
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Great news for consumers! Very happy that this has been changed. Good on Bethesda for listening to criticism.
 
RoboPlato

RoboPlato

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Oct 25, 2017
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Good to hear. They've released several great games that didn't get the attention they deserved because reviews weren't well timed.
 
VoltySquirrel

VoltySquirrel

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's a change I'm glad they've made but I honestly don't think they deserve any praise for making said change. I welcome recognizing you fucked up, but they still need to earn some of my respect back, especially when half the statement here seems like it's still slagging off the games press for complaining.
 
WrenchNinja

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So we decided we're not going to keep drawing attention to it – we'll send out copies and maybe people will start talking about the game instead of talking about policies. So we did.
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They're blaming the reviewers here still instead of owning up to the fact that it was a stupid ass policy.
 
Duxxy3

Duxxy3

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Oct 27, 2017
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Good. I still feel that the review policy did more damage than good for a lot of their games - namely Dishonored 2, Prey, Wolfenstein 2 and The Evil Within 2.
 
ASaiyan

ASaiyan

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Oct 25, 2017
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Maybe all those non-BGS Bethesda games will actually get some pre-release buzz now, lol. No idea why they insisted on shooting their own marketing in the foot like that.
 
FrostyLemon

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Oct 28, 2017
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Well they experimented with something new and changed their mind once it wasn't working out. Good for them.
 
hank_tree

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This isn't news. They've been sending out early review copies since Death of the Outsider.
 
Jawmuncher

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Thank goodness. Especially when this factors in a lot for helping early sales (which I bet played a factor). I fully believe Prey and TEW2 would've sold better with early reviews out for people to consume and get excited over.
 
Nirolak

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Oct 25, 2017
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I mean, if Bethesda's core issues were marketing and review policies, you would have expected all their games to take off long term on word of mouth.

That said, they don't seem to think that's the real issue, and have started changing all their games into more online and/or service based products.
 
bbq of doom

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I remember quite a few thinking that the policy meant DOOM (2016) was going to be a colossal failure.
 
OP
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Nirolak said:
I mean, if Bethesda's core issues were marketing and review policies, you would have expected them to all take off long term on word of mouth.

That said, they don't seem to think that's the real issue, and have started changing all their games into more online and/or service based products.
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You think the games bombed because they were single player?
 
Jmille99

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Oct 25, 2017
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The review policy was dumb in general, but as someone who typically doesnt read reviews - did reviewers actually mention their policies in reviews as often as they claim?

I would hope not, because that shit seems unneccessary in a review and is irrelevant to the game in general. Which is why I have my doubts about the frequency of it happening.
 
SnowFlakeCake

SnowFlakeCake

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Oct 25, 2017
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He sounds like a real twat actually, his company fucked up with the policy but he's pissed off that reviewers were mentioning it? What a total and utter idiot.
 
VoltySquirrel

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jschreier said:
Maybe one day some brave reporter will ask Pete Hines on the record why he thinks it's acceptable to have blacklisted a professional video game outlet for nearly five years.
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Danny O'Dwyer brought it up with Todd Howard during his history of Bethesda documentary and Todd basically dodged the question, only really addressing the Fallout 4 leak Kotaku reported on.
 
Nirolak

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Phantom Thief said:
You think the games bombed because they were single player?
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I think they bombed because consumers felt they didn't offer enough value and intrigue for $60, and none of them started to do much better until significant price cuts.

Even some of the flagships like Doom reached (very high) with price cuts as opposed to when they reviews and first word of mouth started pouring in.

Compare this to Nintendo, who has been shipping their longest and most content packed singleplayer games ever, and having great success there.

Rage 2 doesn't have multiplayer, but Bethesda said the game is 100+ hours long, for another example of adjustment here. The first game was 10-15 hours comparatively. Their titles that won't be that length are taking a more online approach.

I realize we talk about games as art a lot, but the business realities around them still tend to be product oriented, especially at the $60 game on the shelf level.
 
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FallenGrace

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WrenchNinja said:
They're blaming the reviewers here still instead of owning up to the fact that it was a stupid ass policy.
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That was my take on it.

The policy was always stupid and simply self harming especially with the quality of games they have been releasing. Everyone here called it at the time and lo and behold it was indeed stupid.
 

Deleted member 2595

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Nirolak said:
I mean, if Bethesda's core issues were marketing and review policies, you would have expected them to all take off long term on word of mouth.

That said, they don't seem to think that's the real issue, and have started changing all their games into more online and/or service based products.
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First-day is so important to sales, though? Like the biggest return is usually day-one, and reviews are hugely important to day-one momentum/hype, so losing that could let the ship sail.

Either way, the tails on their games are decent, right? Due to the quality.

And yes they're moving away from the model now, so.
 
GameShrink

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"Then it ended up being the focal point and, honestly, we were tired of reading reviews where the first paragraph spent more time talking about our review policy than the game."
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Poor Pete. It must be hard to read all of those nasty words.

Having the game you slaved over for 3 years be largely ignored due to a boneheaded policy, on the other hand, is really no big deal. Those devs should just suck it up!
 
Nirolak

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Paraside said:
First-day is so important to sales, though? Like the biggest return is usually day-one, and reviews are hugely important to day-one momentum/hype, so losing that will let the ship sail.

Either way, the tails on their games are decent, right? Due to the quality.

And yes they're moving away from the model now, so.
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Historically it was a lot more important because you couldn't really sell games digitally, and your game actually got dropped by stores after a couple months, so if you missed your first shot, you were pretty dead in the water.

These days it's possible to recover more on the basis that you don't have a maximum shelf life due to digital.

Their games do better over time, but some of them sputtered earlier than we might have expected, and started to really move with price cuts as opposed to people hearing about this really neat game. If we look at the legs and price hold on a game like Nier Automata, it was actually much stronger (ratio wise, to be clear) than your average modern Bethesda game.

Even Bethesda's games earlier this generation were showing bigger legs. Wolfenstein and The Evil Within moved a pretty shocking number of copies over time compared to their follow-ups.
 
Armite

Armite

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Mar 30, 2018
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"We're tired of people calling us out on our shit, forcing us to be less shit."

Good. It was a fucking stupid, not to mention shady idea in the first place. Good on the reviewers who made their thoughts known.
 
Kaako

Kaako

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Oct 25, 2017
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Hahaha they got tired of reviewers giving them shit for it. It was a dumbass review policy to begin with.
 
Khrol

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Oct 28, 2017
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I feel like this has more to do with the quality of their output lately. Their games are super high-quality right now, so they don't have to worry as much about reviewers bagging on their games. That's how I'm seeing it at least.
 
Persagen

Persagen

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Oct 27, 2017
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Then it ended up being the focal point and, honestly, we were tired of reading reviews where the first paragraph spent more time talking about our review policy than the game.
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Yeah, who could've seen that coming? Such an expected reaction from reviewers.

Come on, Pete.
 
Dyle

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It was a bad policy that significantly cut into the excitement around their titles on day 1 and prevented them from reaching their full potential. There was no benefit and I'll never understand how they stuck with it for as long as they did. Wolfenstein 2 was pretty much doomed to fail coming out on the same day as Mario Odyssey and AC: Origins, but if reviews, which were more positive than the consumer opinions, came out ahead of the pr for those larger titles it would have had a better shot of holding its own
 
Kthulhu

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Oct 25, 2017
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Even if the messaging is trying to deflect blame I think it's ultimately for the best. Bethesda usually puts out great games anyway, so delaying reviews is kind of pointless except for games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls.
 
MadLaughter

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Oct 25, 2017
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They claimed they wanted everyone to play the games at the same time...and then sent out Skyrim remastered or whatever to a bunch of youtubers early anyway. It was shady as fuck from the start.
 
ry-dog

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This industry is so fucking immature sometimes
 
KaiPow

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Good on Bethesda to re-evaluate the situation. I hope reviewers can get more time to focus on Bethesda's single player projects. I could understand them wanting to hold off until release day for Fallout 76 given how connected that game will be.
 
AvernOffset

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May 6, 2018
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Ugh. It's nice that they finally rolled this hot garbage back, but trying to blame journalists for their own failings is not a good look. You're not fooling anyone Bethesda.

I've had such a strong love-hate relationship with Bethesda. Their output has been really phenomenal lately, but they seem intent on sabotaging the good will they've generated. This review policy. Their gross, litigious behavior towards indies. The lovely reveal that Rage 2 is apparently going to be full of MTs. And now it really looks like they may try to lock off more games behind their crappy PC launcher. It's so strange to see such a garbage publisher backing such good games. (Though depending on how the Rage 2 MTs thing shakes out, maybe they'll just upgrade to behind a bad publisher backing terrible games.)
 
Greigor the FellHand

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Oct 26, 2017
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the only reason that would make them change that is if one or more of their upcoming games, on their internal polling is doing really really bad.

and they realize that the name of the product isn't going to hit the numbers they want/need so they are going to attempt to use the Journo's as a another marketing mechanism.

I think every journo that gets a review copy should wait a week after launch and then reveal their review of it.

( my guess, rage 2 is polling very poorly, and Fallout 76 is tracking behind the numbers they want)
 
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