Regarding the "CA bribes reviewers" rumours.

CA does not bribe the reviewers to get better reviews. This is not happening.
To the people who constantly write this, in what feels like more or less every thread, feel free to prove me wrong - untill then, please do refrain from making such ludicrous accusations.

First you prove that they are not. I highly doubt any competent reviewer would of missed all the bugs plauging the game can you honestly tell me that all the games these days get the scores they deserve?

It doesn't deserve 90+ procent across the board...

Originally Posted by userstupidname

It doesn't deserve 90+ procent across the board...

If you play empire total war for a couple days before you realize that the AI is a bumbling mess, it actually seems pretty amazing. And to those people that cry about all the bugs still in empire: WHAT BUGS? I've had like 1 crash in the past 5 months, and that was from trying to combine 2 fleets with armies in them. (not that I actually play single player anymore with the terrible AI and horrible diplomacy, but all strategy games have boring, easy battle AI)

No, ETW did certainly not deserve 90+ across the board. But, admitting that, is a far cry from proving that the reviewers were bribed by CA or similar conspiracy theories. Incompetence, stupidity, human error in general is always a better explanation than a massive, carefully orchestrated plot by CA to bribe a few hundred reviewers. A plot that has managed to remain a closely guarded secret, despite so many people knowing of it, no less

The simple truth is, first, reviewers spend very little time with every new game, just a few hours I believe, which is clearly insufficient time for them to form an in-depth opinion on the game. I, myself, was very much still excited with the game for the first few days after buying it. It took around a week, before the excitement wore off and I began to notice all the bugs, the poor AI and so on.
Also, unless I'm mistaken, the game sold well, which means, despite what we here may think, most of the gamers out there (the clueless Joe Public, if you will) liked it. What made you think that the average reviewer is any different than the average gamer?

Fact of the matter is guys, that if you give stock to reviews and base your purchases on them, it is your fault. You can only rely on the reviewer's opinion, if you know the particular reviewer, seen their previous work and concluded that their opinion conforms with your own.

actualy ubisoft tried to bribe reviewers (didn't work in at least 1 case) but still if you look at all reviews there still are ones which gave empire bad reviews (I found 2)

Originally Posted by Ulan1990

actualy ubisoft tried to bribe reviewers (didn't work in at least 1 case) but still if you look at all reviews there still are ones which gave empire bad reviews (I found 2)

I don't doubt that it has happened and I don't doubt that companies find other ways of ingratiating themselves with reviewers (or that online publications have incentives to give good reviews, though they have incentives to attract readers, too), but the people making these accusations have no proof that CA bribed anyone. Furthermore, there are alternate explanations (namely, the one I provided above) that explain the unreasonably good reviews.

Originally Posted by Destraex

there are certain things that do not work in a democracy, burden of proof is one of those very human things thats never accurate.

You lost me.


Edit: The other thing the foil hat and black helicopter crowd has to account for is why bribes worked in this case, but not in all cases. They also need to account for why other CA games, such as Stormrise, didn't receive 90+ scores, especially when the potential market for those game (and hence the motivation for bribery) was much larger.

Originally Posted by Ulan1990

actualy ubisoft tried to bribe reviewers (didn't work in at least 1 case) but still if you look at all reviews there still are ones which gave empire bad reviews (I found 2)

And there are a few reviews that pointed out that ETW has some performance glitches (Which were fixed later on) and AI issues (which have at least been reduced) but stated the game was still fun to play and rated it 8.5 at least.

Probably the most important one is that reviewers do not receive full copies of games. In the case of ETW, they only got to play RtI, which was far more polished than the rest of the game and obscured problems such as the lack of naval invasions.

No the most probable and simplest explanation is that people don't bother reading the reviews and therefore just look at the numbers rather than looking at HOW the reviewer came up with the score. Lots of reviewers give a break down on how they gauge the game and by reading it you know where they are coming from. If it doesn't ring right for you or something's missing then it's usually because the reviewer has different tastes than you do.

I mean reviewers are humans after all. They have their likes and hates.

Originally Posted by Beagle74

First you prove that they are not. I highly doubt any competent reviewer would of missed all the bugs plauging the game can you honestly tell me that all the games these days get the scores they deserve?

Since you're making the accusation, the burden of proof is on you. There are plenty of good explanations for ETW's high scores other than bribery. Probably the most important one is that reviewers do not receive full copies of games. In the case of ETW, they only got to play RtI, which was far more polished than the rest of the game and obscured problems such as the lack of naval invasions.

Originally Posted by erasmus777

Since you're making the accusation, the burden of proof is on you. There are plenty of good explanations for ETW's high scores other than bribery. Probably the most important one is that reviewers do not receive full copies of games. In the case of ETW, they only got to play RtI, which was far more polished than the rest of the game and obscured problems such as the lack of naval invasions.

there are certain things that do not work in a democracy, burden of proof is one of those very human things thats never accurate.

Originally Posted by Beagle74

First you prove that they are not. I highly doubt any competent reviewer would of missed all the bugs plauging the game can you honestly tell me that all the games these days get the scores they deserve?

I think you bribed reviewers. I also think you paid off the jury in the OJ Simpson trial, also shot JFK and Oswald, and hid the alien remains from Area 51.

Also, you are responsible for all my missing matching socks.

Prove that you are not.

Not specifically true, the close combat series AI can give me a damn good caning...

I'm willing to bet most of the overly positive reviews of Empire came from the reviewers being TW fans who were just really excited about the game and allowed themselves to be sucked in and ignore th flaws...rather than them being bribed.

stormrise would've been too obvious. but in all likelihood, ca was probably involved in some sort of payola activity. any big company does this, it's no surprise. when eidoes and ubisoft were caught doing it everyone went up in arms and i just laughed. did you guys really not expect that?

anyway wasn't there a guy who got fired some time ago for writing an honest review about etw?

Originally Posted by johncage

stormrise would've been too obvious. but in all likelihood, ca was probably involved in some sort of payola activity. any big company does this, it's no surprise. when eidoes and ubisoft were caught doing it everyone went up in arms and i just laughed. did you guys really not expect that?

anyway wasn't there a guy who got fired some time ago for writing an honest review about etw?

Your logic is so flawed I'm not sure it's worth continuing this discussion. For starters, you might want to read up on Ockham's Razor. There are far more cogent explanations than bribery for why the reviews are skewed.

You might also want to ponder this: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Originally Posted by erasmus777

Your logic is so flawed I'm not sure it's worth continuing this discussion. For starters, you might want to read up on Ockham's Razor. There are far more cogent explanations than bribery for why the reviews are skewed.

You might also want to ponder this: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

your "logic" would only apply if bribery wasn't the norm in the game industry.

when evidence is there, what's to ponder about?

gotta love the condescending attitude btw.

Originally Posted by johncage

your "logic" would only apply if bribery wasn't the norm in the game industry.

when evidence is there, what's to ponder about?

gotta love the condescending attitude btw.

You're right, I was being condescending. I apologize However, I do think that your reasoning isn't sound. How do you know that bribery is the norm in the gaming industry? There have been some well-known cases, as you mention, but you shouldn't extrapolate from those instances that it's the industry norm. How do you know that? Without proof, it doesn't make sense.

When you have two competing theories to explain the same event and one is complicated and requires all kinds of exceptions (e.g. "CA bribes reviewers for good scores except in some cases and we know those cases because they don't get good scores.") and the other is straightforward (e.g. "Reviewers get partial game files that are carefully selected by the developers to highlight the best parts of the game and obscure problematic parts."), the straightforward explanation tends to be the right one (or at least should be preferred until proven false). By saying that bribery is the norm, you're begging all kinds of questions. Why would bribing for good reviews for Stormrise be "too obvious" if every other company is bribing for good reviews for their products? You see, if you follow your line of thinking, you end up in places that need more and more elaborate explanations in order to be convincing.

Originally Posted by erasmus777

You're right, I was being condescending. I apologize However, I do think that your reasoning isn't sound. How do you know that bribery is the norm in the gaming industry? There have been some well-known cases, as you mention, but you shouldn't extrapolate from those instances that it's the industry norm. How do you know that? Without proof, it doesn't make sense.

When you have two competing theories to explain the same event and one is complicated and requires all kinds of exceptions (e.g. "CA bribes reviewers for good scores except in some cases and we know those cases because they don't get good scores.") and the other is straightforward (e.g. "Reviewers get partial game files that are carefully selected by the developers to highlight the best parts of the game and obscure problematic parts."), the straightforward explanation tends to be the right one (or at least should be preferred until proven false). By saying that bribery is the norm, you're begging all kinds of questions. Why would bribing for good reviews for Stormrise be "too obvious" if every other company is bribing for good reviews for their products? You see, if you follow your line of thinking, you end up in places that need more and more elaborate explanations in order to be convincing.

It is no use, I have already tried reasoning in another thread. I subsequently discovered that I too had been paid to come on here and stick up for CA. I sure wish that check would hurry up and arrive, I've got to pay rent in a few days...

I don't think so but oh man there was a huge uproar with some review for Supreme Commander. One reviewer smacked and gave it a really low score to the point that he was accused of being bribed by ANOTHER company to do it.

Bribed? No.

Applied a bit of the stick+carrot (nice reviewers get early versions from us)? Definitely.

Colored the truth up a bit? As in - those bugs are all addressed in the release-day patch, that's one of the wonders of STEAM which allows us to shorten the development cycle, you're reviewing an early version with a few small quirks remaining? Sure thing.

Evidence of #1 I don't have, though I have heard it repeatedly from various sources about various publishers, so I assume its universal practice in the industry. As to #2: here you go, this is from GAMEPLANET's review of Napoleon:

As a pre-Beta build, the game we played has its share of curiosities, missing assets and known issues – but that’s to be expected. What’s important is the superior gameplay and polish that Napoleon is exhibiting. Already, Napoleon looks set to be the game that Empire could have been.

This proves that Gameplanet does not pay much attention to bugs (failing to mention them in detail, which would help us out in judging this game... for example, if you can't fix the forts in Napoleon beta, then I will bet you serious money that you won't be able to fix forts in Napoleon 1.0).