Editorial: Rush Job

Rush Job

          Prey, Bethesda’s first big game of the year, released last week to very little fanfare. There was little in the name of advertising or lead-up. The game just kind of showed up finished on Tuesday, and those who were looking forward to it bought the game.

          With the release of this game, Bethesda once again decided to employ their new review embargo policy: no review copies for anyone. Every single person, regardless of whether they’re journalists, reviewers or just normal folks, has to wait until launch day to play their games.

          First employed with the release of Doom last year, here’s why Bethesda decided to screw over reviewers: “It led to speculation about the quality of Doom. Since then it has emerged as a critical and commercial hit, and is now one of the highest-rated shooters of the past few years.”

          In normal, not-insane people terms, this basically means that Bethesda feels that everyone should put blind faith in them just because they released one game that was a big success despite having a late embargo. Normally, when a game developer decides to delay the review embargo, it’s because they have extremely little faith in the product and are trying to hold the low review scores as close to release as possible in hopes that potential customers won’t see them and will buy their game on Day 1 anyways.

Since then, Dishonored 2, Skyrim: Special Edition and now Prey have released with no reviews on Day 1, leaving the consumer with no trustworthy sources on whether they should shell out $60 of their hard earned cash on the games. Checking Metacritic on Day 1 for Prey, the only review there was an in-progress one without much content. Doesn’t exactly build consumer confidence, does it?

Regardless of the immense backlash from fans and critics alike, Bethesda continues to back this policy. They keep trying to paint themselves in a more positive light every time it comes up, most notably pulling the classic “nobody says you have to buy our games on Day 1” argument. But this falls flat when you remember one crucial detail: we live in a games industry that’s currently dominated by pre-order culture, and Bethesda is certainly not an exception to that.

          If you decided to pre-order Prey, you got the “Exclusive Cosmonaut Shotgun Pack”. This gives you a special in-game weapon I don’t believe you can get anywhere else, as well as some bonus goodies like extra medkits and crafting materials to help you on your alien squashing adventure. It should be mindboggling to see a developer can go from encouraging waiting to see reviews before buying their game to shoving all the bonus content Day 1 adopters will get down everyone’s throats, but once you spend enough time in this industry these things stop being surprising.

          This review policy isn’t just bad for consumers either. Game reviewers for major sites like IGN and Kotaku are especially taxed by these policies. Clicks are everything in online business, because the more clicks you get on your review, the more cash comes rolling in at the end of the month. Because of that, these sites are in constant competition with each other to get their reviews of the latest major releases out first.

          The biggest problem with this is that Bethesda now gives these sites little to no time to actually write reviews. Most game developers will send these sites review codes two weeks to a month in advance, giving the reviewer time to go through the game at their own pace, taking note of their various praises and criticisms along the way. At the end of the day this results in a more eloquently written review, because the writer was allowed to spend more time in the game and really get to know it better.

          This is a thing that cannot happen with Bethesda’s review policy unless the reviewer also happens to be a speedrunning god. Because sites like IGN depend on the reviewer getting their article out before everyone else, this means that they have to rush through the game, which often results in them not enjoying it as much as they would’ve had they taken their time with it.

          At the end of the day, Bethesda’s review policy only benefits to one entity: Bethesda themselves. No reviews on Day 1 mean that they’re able to avoid any potential negative criticism that might convince early adopters to skip out on the game. Their excuse that you don’t have to buy their products on Day 1 ring hollow when you look at the fact they participate in pre-order culture. And ultimately the reviews that do come out are usually rushed in an attempt to get more clicks, leaving consumers that decide to wait with lackluster criticism that doesn’t help them with their purchase whatsoever.

          Bethesda needs to get with the program. Just because they released one good game with this policy in place doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing another Elder Scrolls Online down the road. Holding back review codes due to low confidence in a product is scumbaggy in the first place, but doing it for all your games regardless of quality turns buying one of your products into a complete gamble. With no reviews to fall back on I can’t accurately predict whether a Bethesda game will be worth my $60 or if it’ll turn out to be a buggy mess. If they want to build consumer confidence, their first real step should be to go back to the drawing board and remove this plan entirely.

Song of the Week

          Streets of Whiterun – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim