I know, an actual blog post. Crazy, huh? I’m trying to make good on some New Year’s resolutions and this is one of them.
As the title above hints, EGM (and 1UP at large) have apparently lost some publisher cooperation from Ubisoft, the Mortal Kombat team, and Sony Sports due to less than favorable review scores (such as EGM’s 4.5 review of Assassin’s Creed. You can find out more about the whole mess here.
I find it unbelievable that these companies would pull something like this so shortly after the whole Gerstmann thing. Eidos got so much bad publicity for that, and Ubisoft, a company that saw almost all of its big games for the next few months delayed, does not need any of that.
People bought Assassin’s Creed after seeing all the hype for it on websites and in magazines like EGM. By the time the issue with the review came out, I’m sure a lot of people had already decided whether or not they would be buying the game. Without this preview coverage to cement that idea in people’s minds, they far more likely to wait for the review (which will still come eventually) and decide from that opinion.
Imagine if you never saw anything about Assassin’s Creed before its release other than a 4.5 in EGM. Would you have bought it? Of course not. But we all saw the gorgeous screens and read the previews that promised fluid controls and a dynamic world. And while we did get some of that, a lot of it was only taken halfway. And while we all enjoyed the first time we pick pocketed someone or saved a citizen (as I’m sure EGM and other previewers did), we soon realized the repetition within the game (something previewers may not have because of their limited and controlled time with the game).
I’d say the loss of the Mortal Kombat guys and Sony Sports is no big deal, but Ubisoft is still a major player (though I feel their role is becoming diminished as they continue to become a franchise whore house in the vein of the EA of recent years). All three companies have just decided to cut the free advertising and delay the inevitable review.
– Ajguy