I don't understand what being a good guy has to do with being professional in a review that is seen by thousands of people and will probably make some people not buying the game when you say "but that really might not be a risk an average buyer will want to take". We are talking about potential sales lost mainly due to a bad review made by a guy who was either realy realy tired or realy, i don't know.
Nothing. It's just sad to see people pile onto a good dude, regardless of the circumstances.
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I also understand that you want to defend him no matter what, it's a commendable action from your part and i do the same with my reviewers (not PC gamming tough, Motorcycles as a side information), but sometimes we just need to understand that our actions move a huge amount of people (and money) and thus we need to be professional and spot-on perfect even in a "small review".
Completely agreed. I don't want to defend it if it's wrong through. I'm a disabled vet, so I ride a Can-Am Spyder motorcycle. Now ya really hate me?
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Again, i'm criticizing the quality of the review (lack of), not exactly the score. I also understand the poor usease of pictures, it was lazy, but completely excusable, sometimes time is scarse and shortcuts are made.
Yep. I think that was a factor here to some degree. We'll do better in the future.
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ALso: "We received the game well in advance of release".
I'm sorry but AFAIK larian didnt send out review copies because the game was being made up to the last few days before the 30th June, wich means that your reviewer played the beta version of the game, or a preview code that was not finished, or he played the final version after the 30th June, but most patches were done up to the 3rd July so... i'm kinda confused here and not sure what version he played. But probably it's not relevant to this conversation i guess, because all other reviewers played the same version and even tough all mention some minor bugs, it seems your reviewer was the only one (and another one in a lowish score i think) that state the game is probably not worth buying for that price due to being imcomplete with bugs... oh man, this is so wrong, unfair, biased and untrue that it boils my heart.
I looked it up (sorry, bouncing between threads) and we did receive it on the 30th. We just ran into bugs with the retail launch before they were patched I suppose. We don't review beta products as final though - you are right, that's not how you conduct good business.
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Anyways, i'm not going to keep arguing with you. You already mentioned that you will review what was done and that you already have your weekend destroyed, i don't want to be responsible for making you even more upset, i'm not that mean.
I genuinely hope you can make the review fair and true. Don't change the score if you don't think it's needed, but at least provide more depth and arguments to the criticism in it. Good luck
I appreciate that. We'll be making a decision shortly now that I've had a chance to really talk it over with my editor. I promise we'll make it right though.