This discussion gained lots of attention in r/Games - currently trending 1st in main and thread kinda on fire - just wanted to bring it to Era, as well:
Words as of the original user "spik'" (can check in the link if anything):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comm...shes_gaming_site_network_to_publish/?sort=new
User "scrndude" explains in detail:
Words as of the original user "spik'" (can check in the link if anything):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comm...shes_gaming_site_network_to_publish/?sort=new
TL;DR: Square Enix dictates that only one grade should be used across multiple outlets in an european gaming site network
Longer read: So, Square has made some sort of deal with the danish leadership of Gamereactor, a gaming site network with more than ten different outlets all over Europe, including the nordics, Germany and Italy. The deal states that the same review and grade (written by the norwegian site) will be used on all sites.
The information comes from the swedish editor-in-chiefs blog, translated below.
"We ... Yes ... There will be no Swedish review of Square Enix's Avengers license game, this despite Henke playing it to curse and knowing what he thinks of it. Square wants to see a "pan-European" rating, which we have never agreed to before, but apparently have agreed to arrange this time. So, so it will be. The same grade everywhere and it is a Norwegian text that I will translate into Swedish on Monday. Henke will kindly write another opinion and share his opinions, anyway, but now you know why we do not have a text today and why it will not be Swedish when it comes."
Source:
User "scrndude" explains in detail:
Gamereactor has a network of different language sites of the same publishing outlet, the way that Eurogamer has Eurogamer.net, the UK version, as its primary site, but also other language versions with different staff who write different reviews (Eurogamer.cz, Eurogamer.de, Eurogamer.dk, Eurogamer.es, Eurogamer.it, etc.).
(anecdotally, Eurogamer.it seems to be the non-english one that seems to show up on Metacritic the most often, not sure the reason for that other than they may be the oldest)
Game publishers can choose who they send early review copies to. Because websites want to have a review ready to go for release day because that's when most people will be looking for reviews and the websites will get the most traffic (which means a big opportunity for eyeballs/clicks for advertisements, which means it's a big chance for them to make much more money than they do on a typical day), they're motivated to agree to embargo contracts that the publishers ask for. Game outlets with big financing behind them (Like Giantbomb who had a solid subscription base funding them while they were independent, and how has CBS's money funding them. Or Waypoint, who is funded by Vice and has staff that fights for editorial independence from the business branch.) or a solid business foundation are able to have leverage to negotiate embargoes, or to decline to agree to any embargo language requirements that are atypical or unethical (example: outlets will usually agree to avoid mentioning story elements past X part of the game, or avoid mentioning other specific story elements at the request of the publisher. Outlets typically will not agree to avoid mentioning negative things about the experience).
It seems in this case, one of the higher-ups at gamereactor made an embargo agreement with Squeenix that either their Norway outlet's review score would be the same score for all of their outlets, or that the highest-rated review score of any outlet would be the score for all the outlets and that happened to be the Norwegian outlet's score.
Even if the EIC resigned over this, it wouldn't change the fact that the site has to fulfill the embargo contract of the Nordic review being Gamereactor's "official" score. I'm assuming there will be lots of angry phone calls from the editorial team to the business department saying don't do this behind their back ever again.
