Only thing that doesn't make sense then would be the fact they aren't doing console review codes, but maybe part of their EGS deal was to review exclusively on PC / EGS? Which would be silly if the store doesn't support it.
I'm confused.
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[Kotaku] Borderlands 3's Review Situation Sure Is Strange
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Only thing that doesn't make sense then would be the fact they aren't doing console review codes, but maybe part of their EGS deal was to review exclusively on PC / EGS? Which would be silly if the store doesn't support it.
I'm confused.
Private investigators are expensive, especially when you want to send them to an office instead of someone's home! I could see why they want to avoid that.
That... Uhm... That sounds to me like a perfect situation to balance stuff, specifically for the reviewers to make the game as enjoyable as possible and then when it releases for people to buy, boom, grinding time.
Wouldn't even be the first time a game changes after the reviews get released, people mostly noticed that because patches changed them, but here, we would never notice because it's a whole separate build, they could do stuff in a situation like this that I probably can't even imagine, holy shit. This just smells incredibly fishy to me.
Reviewers should decline this shit, smell that this is fishy all by themselves and decide to test the retail version and meta websites shouldn't allow reviews out of this fishy situation.
Wouldn't even be the first time a game changes after the reviews get released, people mostly noticed that because patches changed them, but here, we would never notice because it's a whole separate build, they could do stuff in a situation like this that I probably can't even imagine, holy shit. This just smells incredibly fishy to me.
Reviewers should decline this shit, smell that this is fishy all by themselves and decide to test the retail version and meta websites shouldn't allow reviews out of this fishy situation.
Well the critics can only review what they're given. If Borderlands 3 gets worse reviews because of this "early build" that's Gearbox's own damn fault.
With the PC gamer performance chart, this seems somewhat unlikely.
Only thing that doesn't make sense then would be the fact they aren't doing console review codes, but maybe part of their EGS deal was to review exclusively on PC / EGS? Which would be silly if the store doesn't support it.
I'm confused.
When has a lack of features ever stopped Epic from going for another exclusivity deal? :P
I see what they're doing. Blaming technical problems on it being a "early build" so the reviewers aren't going to be to hard on technical issues. That day 1 patch better be huge.
Maybe they have marketing deal with Epic? Because usually console always got review copies unlike PC.
This thing usually implemented a few month after release.
Could these review accounts use different builds? Game's gone gold for a while now, it'd weird to call it a WIP.
I'll prolly refund it if it's not 60fps on xbone x. Thankfully MS has a painless refund system in place lol.
Jason debunks claim that EGS doesn't support early review codes for press
This is false. We've gotten plenty of early review codes on the Epic Store. This is an unprecedented scenario that's entirely on 2K.
True :P but it wouldn't exactly be in their favor, unless bad marketing for Borderlands 3 is considered good PR for EGS.
That's pretty worrying then :O
For context, Gearbox only sent review accounts to US and Asian (yes, Asian) outlets, for god knows what reason. From what I dig around it might be just Chinese outlets, maybe also Taiwan as I did not find anything from Japan.
True but since the NBA games and GTA have been printing money with either MTXs or stuff similar, I thought maybe they'd probably get arrogant and have them in at launch
Maybe they left the flash drive with the actual review codes at a Medieval Times.
Wha? There's been a ton of EGS games that have had pre-release PC reviews.
Just the fact we frequently see many streamers get early access to builds of the PC versions of games should have told you this was false.
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Im gonna guess with them giving out new accounts specifically for this it could have any version on it.
Maybe they raised giving access to the entire store was a bit dumb and the only way around it is a new account for every game.
It is definitely an odd situation.
so this is just fuckery from gearbox.
Going gold is only a thing for physical releases and those will probably have a day 1 patch. They can keep updating the game as much as they want. My guess is that they are playing the "gold" version, but the "gold" version isn't what gamers are going to be playing at launch.
Yeah that's a really bad situation but if the game is technically subpar, the review scores should reflect that. If a game causes me to lose 6 hours of progress, I won't rate it higher than a 5 no matter how much I like it. Guarantee 2K changes their strategy next game if reviewers hit them hard.
Such a weird fumble at the line for a game that feels like it wasn't going for anything that ambitious. If this was the long rumored., "Border Worlds" where it was some always online MMO Light shit, I could see them being up to sketchy launch stuff like this, but it just seemed like an improvement on Borderlands 2 and fun to be had for those that like the franchise. My main concern is whether or not this is hiding shitty console versions. Seemed to run fine on the Playstation Underground videos.
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2K is acting wack about it, yes. EGS does not seem to be of any issue, just that accounts are provided to reviewers.
i don't even understand the end game of this. if it was a complete trash fire why even bother to send limited codes out in the first place? why not just send none out and play hope everyone thinks the game is like 2016 doom? or if it's actually a good game like the few reviews currently imply...why hold anything back to begin with?
Either likes the reach that they provide or they couldn't avoid having to give them one.
So it's not an Epic thing but a 2K games thing, that just makes this even more weirder, like I don't care about Borderlands much, but this game didn't look bad so I don't get the really weird coyness around this, the last time I've something close to this was with Doom 2016 and even then it wasn't as secretive and odd.
Definitely channeling some Ernest Byner "fumble at the goal line" spirits.
The only explanation I can think of is they made some last minute changes to the production version of the game, those changes fucked something up, so they sent reviewers an older version of the game they knew mostly worked.
As for why they only sent out epic game accounts to select reviewers, there must be some kind of limit on the number of these accounts epic give out. It sounds like the accounts have a lot of privileges
As for why they only sent out epic game accounts to select reviewers, there must be some kind of limit on the number of these accounts epic give out. It sounds like the accounts have a lot of privileges
This isn't 2013. Reviews don't matter anymore in terms of sales. Gearbox and 2K know this incredibly well.
They've successfully drummed up the hype and they know that Day 1 will be massive with thousands of streamers promoting their game, which is where the vast majority of 'on the fence' people will judge whether or not to buy it.
They've successfully drummed up the hype and they know that Day 1 will be massive with thousands of streamers promoting their game, which is where the vast majority of 'on the fence' people will judge whether or not to buy it.
This is just bizarre. It seems like everything around this game is strange in one way or another.
I had edited my original post, but they most likely just issued a bunch of test accounts which is most likely limited in how many they can have since they probably don't have the advanced versioning support like valve does on steam.
That and most likely they wanted to revoke those accounts once the reviews were done which is why they gave them an account and not a key to this version of the game? I'm only speculating but this would be the most likely solution.
I don't entirely buy the 'they just want positive coverage' line, because if that was the case - why not just pull a Bethesda and only give early access to streamers/YT stars? Polygon isn't exactly an outlet guaranteed to give out positive reviews. It feels selective for sure, but also isn't really following much logic in the process of that selection.
Huh. I guess I'm an outlier, as reviews have determined a number of my purchases this year, pushing "maybe" purchases into "buy it now" purchases. Control and Astral Chain, for example. I don't watch streams for SP games because I don't like spoilers and the only games I find streams valuable for are MP-focused games, which BL really isn't in the traditional sense.
That sounds like the reason then. The shipped version must be in a pretty bad state, hopefully the day one patch fixes it