Precies een week geleden raakte de spreekwoordelijke stront de muur, want het PR bedrijf dat 2K Games had ingehuurd voor de Duke Nukem Forever promotie bedreigde websites die een slecht review over de game poste. Deze kwamen op de zgn shit lijst te staan waar mijn naam hier in Nederland bij bepaalde uitgevers ook op sta. 2K Games beëindigde onmiddellijk de samenwerking met The Redner Group, wat nu achter af een slaapkamer bedrijfje blijkt te zijn. Deze doen nu huilie huilie bij de website Wired en leggen hun werkwijze omtrent het verstrekken van review exemplaren uit.

Na het lezen er van kan je nog steeds de conclusie trekken dat het een zooitje assholes zijn die alleen goede reviews willen lezen, en nu eigenlijk meer aan damge control voor hun bedrijf aan het uit oefenen zijn.

One question I get a lot is how do we in PR decide who gets a game for review. We cater to sites that are featured on Metacritic. Sales teams live by Metacritic. The better the score, the easier it is to sell games and so we as PR people provide those Metacritic sites a steady diet of content and games for review. For those sites not on Metacritic, I judge them by the following criteria: If you have provided my game with a consistent stream of coverage, I provide you with a copy of the game for review.

I do it this way because I feel it is fair. I receive many requests for copies of the game from outlets the day before the game launches. Some of these last minute requests are from writers that do not have a forum to publish early stories, so I take care of them. They tend to be writers at magazines, and broadcasts and newspaper journalists. I also try to add new contacts as well because new sites appear all the time and they tend to bring fresh perspectives. I have a kinship with new and upcoming sites because I know their struggles being as I am an upstart PR agency myself. They fight to compete against the bigger sites and I like to try to help them grow.

The writers I decline are from sites that have not provided my game with coverage previously and have a forum to publish previews and post content prior to a game's launch. Sometimes I decline a request because I am already out of copies. And sometimes I decline a review request based on the tone of a previous review or coverage. That happens very rarely, but it does happen. In my opinion, my methods are fair and just.