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Nov 2, 2017
2,244
If someone finds something unaccepteable they ususally don't describe the situation as "cordially" and happily reply. I am sure if he had an issue with it he would have said so but he said the opposite.

Yeah, that's not remotely how this works. Their tone is their tone, regardless of the question of whether it's acceptable for them to make contact in the first place. And if I disliked something and expressed as much to the extent that I was allowed because of embargo restrictions and I got a message from someone that was the cordial version of "wtf?", I'd be "happy" to provide further details of the ways in which their thing sucks. Nothing about that implies that the original contact was appropriate.

In fact, the fact that he's gone so far as to describe all of this and yet pointedly not say "eh, it's no big deal" is actually rather telling. That piece of information is conspicuous by it's absence.
 

Deleted member 15360

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,477
I think the main point of the review is other than the features or the mechanics.
Outlet like Vice and others are trying a more mature approach to reviewing than the product review. I think they don't really care about the physics of the rope


Just to clarify

Each difficulty of (resources, enemies, players) etc can be manually adjusted (this is not rope physics feature)

Hence I dont get the game being easy comment
 

Crushed

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,720
Regarding the Jeff Gerstmann Kane & Lynch thing: Jeff has explained the whole story was actually the culmination of a new management team that had taken over and wasn't accustomed to apparently very common complaints and emails from publishers over review scores, which the old management had learned to ignore and defuse; the new managers first got freaked out by Sony threatening to pull ads from the site over a score (7.5) given to Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction and yelled at Jeff because he was the head of reviews. Then the Kane & Lynch review happened, the managers thought it was the last straw, and canned Jeff.
 

ElephantShell

10,000,000
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,920
People here were revolted by that woman's experience with Square Enix when she reviewed Final Fantasy XII but go off, champ

See now even you're being aggressive for no reason, why? Obviously I must have missed that or I wouldn't have wasted my time typing all that out. I'm not coming at this from a bad place, sorry if you thought I was.
 

Eggman

Banned
Apr 16, 2018
557
You are reading way too much into the specific wording of those quotes despite having no indication what the tone they were said in was, no idea of how the person saying them usually talks, and no knowledge of that person's perspective on relevant topics. Multiple people who have the latter two have already disagreed with you.

Beyond that, multiple people who work/worked with Rob at Vice have chimed in at this point talking about how this behavior from companies is a problem. It should be
obvious that there's an issue here. Come on, dude.

You can easily say this for all the people twisting this into a negative thing. And yes you can get a good idea of how this person usually talks by their reviews and their other twitter comments. Nothing he said can be deemed as negative.

Not a single person related to Vice has said what Sony did with this reviewer is problematic. If so please point it out.
 
Last edited:

Dekuman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,026
I don't think reaching out to journalists is proper, especially directly doing so like it was described in the article.

It's possible developer and reviewers meet in some social function and discussion moves towards prior reviews, and it all is cordial and I think had that been the situation it would still be weird but not as shady. Officially reaching out to discuss a negative review is just strange, regardless of if the other party felt anything negative or not. That's how the mafia behaves, they don't even have to issue threats.
 

Eggman

Banned
Apr 16, 2018
557
You sound so naive, publishers are deliberate about who they send review copies to

They sent out around 100 copies of this game to be reviewed. Pretty much every significant person that reviews games. There was no picking and choosing for this game. They literally just wanted clarification. But muh internet outrage!
 

Deleted member 64241

User requested account closure
Member
Mar 2, 2020
825
Earth
Sony:
brittnee.jpg
He looks much better now.
 

Eggman

Banned
Apr 16, 2018
557
do you think rob spoke to polygon for this article about a totally normal thing that always happens that isn't news worthy

please just think one time
We have no idea about the context of the conversation but I am positive if he wanted it to come off as negative he could have easily done so yet he didn't. You should really start taking your won advice and stop piggybacking off other people's comment and never adding anything of value. If you want me to "shut up" stop replying to me or can you not control your fake outrage.
 

7thFloor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,647
U.S.
They sent out around 100 copies of this game to be reviewed. Pretty much every significant person that reviews games. There was no picking and choosing for this game. They literally just wanted clarification. But muh internet outrage!
You made a general statement about the leverage publishers have over reviewers, but now we're talking about Naughty Dog specifically?
 

OtterX

Member
Mar 12, 2020
1,795
Did ND reach out to critics who wrote glowing reviews? If not this seem a bit inappropriate..
 

BuckRogers

Member
Apr 5, 2018
774
So do you feel threatened every time someone with more power than you asks you a question? For example a boss or manager. I don't think most adults are that easily intimidated.

As someone who is a manager, I worry about how my questions come off all the fucking time. I went through training that made it clear that relationships and conversations change when you become a manager. Understanding the power dynamics involved is a large part of being an effective manager. It's incredibly easy to make someone feel threatened when you have power over them, and mitigating that is hugely important.
 

Eggman

Banned
Apr 16, 2018
557
As someone who is a manager, I worry about how my questions come off all the fucking time. I went through training that made it clear that relationships and conversations change when you become a manager. Understanding the power dynamics involved is a large part of being an effective manager. It's incredibly easy to make someone feel threatened when you have power over them, and mitigating that is hugely important.
And it's a good thing that Sony didn't make him feel threatened. By the reviewers own accord it seemed to be a pleasent conversation.
 

deepFlaw

Knights of Favonius World Tour '21
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,500
You can easily say this for all the people twisitng this into a negative thing. And yes you can get a good idea of how this person usually talks by their reviews and their other twitter comments. Nothing he said can be deemed as negative.

Not a signle person related to Vice has said what SOny did with this reviewer is problematic. If so please point it out.

I wasn't talking about random twitter comments.

Like this is a weird line to go down, it's not like hearing someone talk on a podcast means you know things about someone, but: do you know how many hours I have listened to Rob speak on a podcast for? (Including one or two on TLOU2, already!) I imagine it was professional, but I cannot think that it was a particularly deferential response from him, lol.

Also, I said this behavior from companies:





(Patrick also posted in this very thread, but not directly about this.)
do you think rob spoke to polygon for this article about a totally normal thing that always happens that isn't news worthy

please just think one time

Also, just, this, lmao.
 

Titanpaul

Member
Jan 2, 2019
5,008
The entire article is about how hard it is to be critical, and when you are, you get called out and questioned from all sides. Especially for this particular game.

Yeah, this is a good distillation. This doesn't just apply to developers and corporations either. Its hard to review games because you will get harassed if you go against the grain.

Sony, please dont.
 

Gassy_N0va

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,748
This is gross from SONY, but I'm not surprised. Just take the glowing review average and just move on. Heaven forbid someone levies criticism against the game. I can only imagine what fanboys sent to Rob after he posted his review.
 

Eggman

Banned
Apr 16, 2018
557
I wasn't talking about random twitter comments.

Like this is a weird line to go down, it's not like hearing someone talk on a podcast means you know things about someone, but: do you know how many hours I have listened to Rob speak on a podcast for? (Including one or two on TLOU2, already!) I imagine it was professional, but I cannot think that it was a particularly deferential response from him, lol.

Also, I said this behavior from companies:





(Patrick also posted in this very thread, but not directly about this.)


Also, just, this, lmao.

Again if it was in any way negative than I am positive Rob would have expressed that but he never did. He expressed the opposite. None of these people are saying anything that Sony did here was bad (except for that one over dramatic person), including Rob who I am sure would have said so once again when discussing it on twitter. It really is that simple. I am sure if he felt intimidated or thought it was meant to intimidiate him he would say so. He obviously has no problem expressing his opinions clearly.
 

newmoneytrash

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,981
Melbourne, Australia
Once again proving you are unable to provide anything of value. Some good backseat posting though, that way you don't actually have to use your head.
i'm not sure that i would be confident after spending two pages in a thread where everyone is telling my that i am wrong to then claim to be an arbiter of what is and isn't valuable

also please just conveniently ignore my other replies while thinking that this is an easy layup lmao
 

Cuburger

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,975
That's a terrible look. It's been a long time since I've personally heard of a big developer pressuring reviewers for their reviews like this, like last generation. Then for this to be Sony on top of that is incredible and out of line.
 

ekim

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,405
I could imagine ND is just being honest, wanting to have a more elaborate explanation on why this particular reviewer thought the way he described in his review. Having confidence in your creative output is vital, so it is understandable that you want to know where you can possibly improve.
For example, I didn't like TLOU1, UC2 and UC3 at all but UC4 is one of my top 3 games this gen and I can't even tell you why exactly. Maybe it's a certain feeling or the moment is wrong where you play the game - it is humane to be diverse or not always rigorous in your opinion or behavior.
 

Gassy_N0va

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,748
This just makes me trust reviews less and less when you have reviewers afraid to be honest as to not upset a publisher or their horde of rabid fanboys.
 

SonicFighterV

Member
May 13, 2019
350
I could imagine ND is just being honest, wanting to have a more elaborate explanation on why this particular reviewer thought the way he described in his review. Having confidence in your creative output is vital, so it is understandable that you want to know where you can possibly improve.
For example, I didn't like TLOU1, UC2 and UC3 at all but UC4 is one of my top 3 games this gen and I can't even tell you why exactly. Maybe it's a certain feeling or the moment is wrong where you play the game - it is humane to be diverse or not always rigorous in your opinion or behavior.

Agreed to a certain level that wanting to know what can be improved is a good thing. But that doesn't mean a Sony PR team contacts the said reviewer, especially when the game is close to release. It comes across as a powerplay. It's quite easy to gather all the criticism and understand what needs to be made better the next time. Doesn't have to be you personally contacting a big website to know what the game could have done better.
 

NoUse4AName

Banned
Feb 5, 2019
385
You even have a writer
for someone who accused other people of not reading the OP you should already know that the review isn't scored

My friend....where in the article or the Op the writer is accusing Sony of trying to change his review?

I mean....there is not mention of Sony pushing to change the review and even the Guy say that is something that happen...you also got a push square Editor saying this...

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, this kind of thing is generally rare but it does happen. I've been asked to clarify a handful of Push Square's reviews over the years; sometimes the publisher reaches out to check we were aware of a feature/detail that we may have missed, and other times it's for clarification of a certain criticism.

This is almost always a polite and professional conversation with a swift resolution.

Worth mentioning that it'll be Sony PR who contacted Vice about this and not Naughty Dog.


There is no article saying that Sony reach the Reviewer to change or Influence in his review .....is exactly the opposite.

What's wrong with you guys..there is no reviewer or media outlet accusing Sony....is just people in this thread talking nonsense without evidence.
 

SonicFighterV

Member
May 13, 2019
350
This just makes me trust reviews less and less when you have reviewers afraid to be honest as to not upset a publisher or their horde of rabid fanboys.

I think it's good to have reviews but I think one should just decide for themselves, after reading them and making an educated guess on whether its going to click with them or not.
 

noyram23

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,372
I understand the purpose but it's not a good look still due to power dynamic. I think it's better if Neil himself reached out personally rather than the 'Sony PR Squad'