GamesRadar Becomes TombRadar, Review Controversy Brewing - UPDATED

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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GamesRadar Becomes TombRadar, Review Controversy Brewing - UPDATED


Tomb Raider: Underworld [http://www.gamesradar.com/uk] and celebrate the near-universal acclaim the game has received from critics.

"Tomb Raider: Underworld is a great game, well worth the 9/10 scores it is picking up across gaming websites and magazines," said James Binns, publishing director at GamesRadar owner Eidos [http://www.futurenet.com/] unprecedented cut through."

Which is all very well and good except for one minor issue: As Metacritic [http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21/future-renames-gamesradar-for-lara-launch-gets-in-muddle-over-review-scores/] is a generally positive, but far from outstanding, 78.

Making things even uglier, Guy Cocker of Barrington Harvey [http://uk.gamespot.com], a public relations firm contracted by Eidos U.K. to handle the rollout, was surprisingly frank about the issue, admitting that the company was trying to control the release of reviews in order to generate a positive launch atmosphere for the game.

"That's right. We're trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos," he told Official Xbox Magazine's [http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21/uk-tomb-raider-underworld-reviews-under-810-silenced-until-monday/] U.K. site also chose to run a review with a sub-8 score on the same day.

So, business as usual or yet another example of a publisher that sees game reviews as nothing more than marketing tools to be massaged and manipulated? Gamers will no doubt recall the allegedly canned [http://www.kaneandlynch.com/] for giving the game a low score after the publisher had bought a significant amount of advertising on the site. Nobody's been fired over Tomb Raider yet, and the whole thing may very well be less sinister than it appears. One interesting commonality, though: The publisher of Kane & Lynch? None other than Eidos.

UPDATE: VG247 has received a statement from Simon Byron, a director at Barrington Harvey, denying that Eidos or the ad agency has anything to do with any of this. According to Byron, the extent of their restrictions on Tomb Raider: Underworld reviews was an embargo that ended on November 19.

"Barrington Harvey is not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say. We love Tomb Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that's entirely their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem," he said.

"As an ex-journalist myself, I firmly believe in editorial integrity and the right to express an individual opinion. As an agency, we never - ever - make demands of the press in terms of awarding scores; at the end of the day, they are free to score as they wish," he continued. "Barrington Harvey has been working hard to ensure the launch scores of Tomb Raider Underworld are in line with our internal review predictions over the launch weekend - but to suggest that we can in some way 'silence' reviews of the game is slightly overstating our influence."

The full statement can be read here [http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21/eidos-uk-pr-firm-we-are-not-in-the-position-of-telling-reviewers-what-they-can-and-cannot-say/].

Pro Tip: Gamers outside the U.K. who want to see the TombRadar makeover in action can do so by going to GamesRadar.com [http://www.gamesradar.com] and clicking on the U.K. flag at the bottom of the page.

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tendo82

Uncanny Valley Cave Dweller
Nov 30, 2007
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Tomb Radar...seriously?

I love clever advertising integrations(see wario and youtube). But I don't know about this.
 

curlycrouton

New member
Jul 13, 2008
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This is.....an interesting development, and one that has left GamesRadar without any dignity.
 

TheBadass

New member
Aug 27, 2008
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Maybe GamesRadar just really, really like the game and thought they'd pimp out their website in aticipation of it, since it's so amazingly awesome?

Tomb Raider GOTY confirmed.
 

Datrio

New member
Nov 21, 2008
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I don't know about you, but I like TombRadar.com [http://tombradar.com/] more than GamesRadar.com [http://gamesradar.com/] right now ;)
 

Unknower

New member
Jun 4, 2008
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Dammit, I'm ashamed of myself for not getting "TombRadar" immediately.

I think Metacritic score is overrated. Who actually looks at it before buying a game?
 

GoldenShadow

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May 13, 2008
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I'm downloading Tombraider Underworld right now from steam. I am not usually a Tomb Raider fan, but this game caught my eye, plus when i pre-ordered it from Steam, they gave me Tomb Raider Legend for free, which is a totaly great deal for just $40
 

BobisOnlyBob

is Only Bob
Nov 29, 2007
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*sniggers* I just noticed that the writer for GameSpot UK is called "Guy Cocker".

"Guy Cocker". That shouldn't be so funny...

But regardless, the man did a good job in exposing this oncoming sh*tstorm-stormfront... I just hope, unlike Gerstmann, he keeps his job.
 

_Nocturnal

New member
Nov 4, 2006
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"Barrington Harvey is not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say. We love Tomb Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that's entirely their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem," he said.
Oh.
Now only if he was in a position that made anyone care about his beliefs on scoring the game.
Then it would totally make sense to say such a thing, and not seem cheap. Ridiculously cheap, that is.

Also, I am now in wait for his judgement on things like "gravity", "day and night cycle" and "breathing air".
Wonder if he has "no problem" with those as well - 'cause, you know, many people say they do, nowadays.
 

Simon Byron

New member
Nov 25, 2008
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Hello! Am I supposed to respond to something like this? Maybe. It seems slightly more reasoned than some of the stuff I've been reading on the Internet recently. I hope my mother doesn't see any of it.

Anyway, I know it's easy to think I'm just some hopeless PR "shill"; but hopefully I'm far from it. I co-present Europe's only FM broadcast radio show "One Life Left" (www.onelifeleft.com), I have a monthly column in Develop Magazine which seems popular (I'm a terrible judge of these things, so I don't know) and I've co-written two books on videogames.

For what it's worth, I really do think Tomb Raider is worth an 8/10. Sorry. Maybe I'm going a bit mainstream in my old age, but old people can play videogames too, right?

Anyway, really, we're not evil, and I'm certainly not some of the things the Internet thinks I currently am. I have *two* dads, for a start!
 

cleverlymadeup

New member
Mar 7, 2008
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didn't they learn from the last time? i mean why not make a good game and release it instead of making a crappy game and getting caught trying to influence the reviews because ppl are panning a crappy game
 

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
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Hello Simon (if that's really you),

The trouble here isn't that you're evil, or stupid, or utterly lacking in taste when it comes to your choice of videogames. It's the ham-handed attempt to manipulate review scores at launch that has people upset. It's easy to claim you can't "silence" reviews, but Guy Cocker's Twitter seems pretty clear, and the words of the BH rep aren't exactly open to interpretation either. It looks really, really bad, particularly following as it does the Jeff Gerstmann affair, another Eidos-powered debacle.

Obviously you're aware of all this, you don't need some random internet news guy like me to explain it to you. So why ignore the real question at hand in favour of talking about not being evil?