Conduit Studio Accused of Amazonbombing Conduit Reviewer - UPDATED

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Conduit I/II is sincere trash to put it lightly.

Just out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what would it be if you put it...ummmm...not-so lightly?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

If they got 4-5 people to give negative reviews, then they got 100% of the people who liked Conduit 2 to help!

Really, this strikes me as childish, to say the very least.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Conduit I/II is sincere trash to put it lightly.

Just out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what would it be if you put it...ummmm...not-so lightly?

I don't think Escapist would allow said content. xD

Fair enough. I shall listen to either Bill Hicks or George Carlin rant about something fervently and pretend that their disdain matches yours about Conduit later on in the evening.

 

[IndianaJonny]

UPDATE NUMBER TWO: Eric Nofsinger of High Voltate responded to our inquiries and acknowledged that Corso did in fact write the email in question. He also said, however, that "four negative Amazon reviews does not constitute any sort of retaliation/Amazonbombing," and noted that Corso encouraged people to read the book and then review it, rather than just hammer on it blindly. Furthermore, he said that Corso wasn't responsible for any of the Amazon reviews himself and "absolutely was not the first person to suggest something like this."

"Sure, it's a tad unprofessional but if you knew Matt personally as I do, you would know it was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek jibe at most," Nosfinger said. "And for that, I apologize on behalf of High Voltage Software."...

Joseph Stalin wasn't the first to introduce mass killings but that hardly qualifies him for humanity. Juvenile, and, at this level, insultingly unprofessional.

Am loving the constant updating btw, the aura is almost

Spoiler: palpable

 

[Jeziah]

Feh, artists. I don't think this is anything to be upset with High Voltage over, it's more personal than that. Also somebody spelled Valve "VALVe"; don't do that. In the logo it is spelled "VALVE", the "E" being superscript, and this is because people glancing at the original (uniform font, size, case, formatting) logo tended to read it "VALUE". Just call it Valve.

 

[Baresark]

It is a possibility that one actual reader reviewed the book that poorly. I find that even in the best situation, there are a lot of folks on Amazon who are total book nazi's, and never review anything on Amazon well.

That being said, the idea is in such bad taste. I think the review for Conduit 2 was heavy handed and reeked of bias from moment one. But, that is his opinion. No one elses review was that bad at all. IGN and Gamespot gave it 7 and 7.5, respectfully. That is still a good game.

Off Topic: He had given Alpha Protocol a great review, and I felt it was a great game myself. I actually bought it twice. First when it came out on the PS3, then I bought it again on Steam down the road so I could have it added to my preferred game collection, and it was on sale.

 

[Actual]

The same reviewer also gave last year's Alpha Protocol a five-star score, however, calling it "an RPG masterpiece," so maybe he or she just has really bad taste.

Woah what!? I've found that Alpha Protocol only gets bad reviews from people who haven't played it or those who tried but got irritated by the many non-game breaking bugs it did admittedly have.

It is, in all other respects one of the most original, interesting, fun and funny games to come out in years. Its a tragedy that the bad reviews prevented so many people from playing this gem.

 

[mjc0961]

I don't find this terribly surprising. These are the guys who think they're some kind of great gift to the Wii, despite making two terrible first person shooters. And then they go and market it by sending reviews apology letters because their game is so good that it will make all the other games look crappy? Yeah, I don't really believe that the guy who wrote the e-mail even expected people to read the book. It's more than likely in there so he can cover his ass like he just did.

If they got 4-5 people to give negative reviews, then they got 100% of the people who liked Conduit 2 to help!

ZING!

 

[Enderrr]

Whatever. Amazonbombing his book might be cheap and unprofessional, but giving away the ending and plugging his own book in a review was cheap and unprofessional too. You reap what you sow.

 

[DayDark]

"When this 'news' flared up this morning, I informed Matt about what was going on," he continued. "He apologized and went on to say, 'My mind really wasn't in that dark of a place when I wrote that. In fact I seriously considered buying the book myself. I wanted to know how good it really was that this guy felt so in the right to trash our game and give away the ending like he did. And then post a plug to his book at the end, implying that we suck and he is totally great."

I can understand why one would want to know that. Trash a game, spoil it, then promote your own product. What a humongous dick move of the game reviewer. I'm practically tempted to go review this book myself.

 

[Sannom]

Joseph Stalin wasn't the first to introduce mass killings but that hardly qualifies him for humanity. Juvenile, and, at this level, insultingly unprofessional.

He did alphabetize most of Russia though. Now Pol Pot on the other hand...

The same reviewer also gave last year's Alpha Protocol a five-star score, however, calling it "an RPG masterpiece," so maybe he or she just has really bad taste.

Then you, mister Chalk, have really, really poor taste. That assessment about Alpha Protocol is perfectly true. You must be one of those american idiots. [http://free-pc-guides.com/games/difference-of-opinions-alpha-protocol-eu-vs-us-reviews-whos-right-and-whos-wrong-01928]

 

[sunpop]

Clearly this stunt is just going to help him out and get more attention to his book. Also does anyone really care what high voltage says? They put out crap games with no value to them claiming they are amazing so clearly they are to be trusted about as much as Peter Molyneux talking about what the next fable will have.

 

[The Bandit]

"When this 'news' flared up this morning, I informed Matt about what was going on," he continued. "He apologized and went on to say, 'My mind really wasn't in that dark of a place when I wrote that. In fact I seriously considered buying the book myself. I wanted to know how good it really was that this guy felt so in the right to trash our game and give away the ending like he did. And then post a plug to his book at the end, implying that we suck and he is totally great."

I can understand why one would want to know that. Trash a game, spoil it, then promote your own product. What a humongous dick move of the game reviewer. I'm practically tempted to go review this book myself.

Please go read the actual review. He gives a spoiler warning (and it's not even a spoiler; it's more akin to Yahtzee's "the bad guy dies" spoiler in order to plug a joke). And his "plug" for his novel? It's at the end of the article, where it says who wrote the review in very tiny letters.

So, no, it's not justified at all. And thank God a reviewer actually has the balls to call out a terrible game as a terrible game. I'm so sick of really, really terrible games getting a 6/10.

 

[Krantos]

What you intended or not. The removal of the reviews by the authors suggests that they were exactly what they appeared to be.

Word to the wise: Open mouth and insert foot before you say something someone might take seriously.

 

[Hungry Donner]

At least High Voltage is being up front about this; and either they're taking the reviews down or Amazon is on top of it all. Still a dumb move on their part, but I agree with Sunpop that it could turn out to be a boon for Murdock.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

Hey, not his fault that Conduit 2 sucked! Are they really so butthurt about a number that they have to make his numbers look infinitely worse? Why not put out quality games instead of trying to over-compensate for something? Sorry your TMI sucks ass, High Voltage (Cookie for the reference!), but there IS such a thing called admittance. At least admit that you made a sub-par FPS game and all will be forgiven.

I love how you're so quick to bash High Voltage when I don't see you doing any better than they did. You're no better than either of them if you're just gonna talk smack. Your opinion doesn't equal truth.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Gotta say, I take mild offense (though barely enough to motivate me to write this post) at your off hand comment that people have to have bad taste to like Alpha Protocol. Granted, you'd have to be inured the Obsidian Effect in order to give it a full 5/5, but if you can get past the bugs, it is a good game.

 

[dibblywibbles]

I bet the book sucks. they were just retaliating with the truth. just because conduit 2 sucks, don't mean your book is good.