Ready to 
Embargoed game reviews and the reward for breaking them
Brian Ambrozy
September 14, 2009 6:24 PM ET in Gaming
Let me give you a quick rundown of the way the game review business is supposed to work: A game publisher or their PR company contacts review sites (like us) and says “Hey guys, we’ve got this game coming out in a month. Here is an advanced copy for you to review. Spend some time with the game, write your review, and publish it on the 15th of next month.” That date is called the embargo date, and it ensures fairness; all review sites can publish it on that day and may the best man win. The publishers win because on launch day, there’s lots of buzz about their game, consumers are seeing the name on all their favorite sites, and there is an excitement on launch day generated by the glut of reviews published simultaneously.
But what happens if a reviewer says “screw your embargo date” and publishes their review whenever they feel like it? It’s a major suckerpunch to their peers: sites get a great deal of traffic from aggregators such as Reddit, News4Gamers, Digg, and so forth, and “first to press” is live-or-die for most small sites like ours. Think about it: the first one on Reddit is the only one that people will read. Therefore, when a reviewer screws the system and jumps the gun days early, the rest of us may as well forget it; we will not benefit from a fair chance at the traffic rush that posting on aggregators can bring.
That traffic rush can result in real revenue; therefore, when a peer review site breaks embargo dates, they are actually harming the revenue stream of sites who choose to play by the rules.
Recently, we had received a review copy of a game from a major publisher, and the embargo date was September 15th. Standard operating procedure, right? No problem. Our reviewer downloaded the review copy, and got to work playing it and writing his review.
Today, however, I received a disturbing email from the publisher:
Wow - seems this title had everyone eager to press the “GO” button. While we will not make a habit out of allowing the breaking of embargos, we prefer to see the positive in all this attention and to make it fair, I’ll revoke the review embargo effective immediately. Anyone wishing to post their review from today onwards may do so. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Okay wait: To be fair? So, let me get this straight: A bunch of sites broke embargo, and to be fair, the publisher will revoke the embargo date, and we can publish whenever we’d like?
Imagine getting this letter in your kid’s backpack:
Apparently a bunch of hungry ruffians are eager to get to the Twinkies in the school cafeteria. While we normally don’t allow kids to bumrush the dessert counter, we prefer to see the positive in all this attention. To make it fair, any kid who can shove their way to the front of the lunch line gets their hands on the Twinkies while supplies last!
I mean, seriously? So let me get this straight: Those of us who adhere to the rules get punished by getting to be (very) late to the dinner table, while the sites who broke the spirit of the embargo get to get away with it? The publisher’s reaction is essentially “Well, do whatever the hell you want, we don’t care! More publicity for us!”
What’s in it for us? Do we take the moral high ground? Do we continue to follow the rules in the spirit of fair competition? Does this set us apart from the sites who don’t give a shit?
RSS