As I’ve stated before, it has become standard in our culture of gaming for companies to hold swag over a company’s head, in return for more favorable reviews. Ask any developer with loads of cash, and they’ll tell you it’s not technically bribery for, say, Eidos to purchase a major full page advertising space on Gamespot for Kane and Lynch, and then have a reviewer fired for giving the game a poor rating. Or when a company puts an embargo on reviews for their game, where the publishers can probably expect not to get any preview copies if they break that embargo.
So Square Enix has put out a polite request to reviewers to hold back their reviews for three to four weeks after launch, much in the same way Clint Eastwood holds a gun to your head and asks if you feel lucky, punk. Sure, there’s a chance that all six rounds were expended, but do you really want to take the risk and miss out on the Final Fantasy XV preview copy? I didn’t think so.
The real question will remain in how Square Enix responds to those who do not listen to the embargo, especially those that publish poor reviews, like Gamespot (4.0). Will there be an embargo on Square Enix sending swag to said publisher? Will Square take the Realtime Worlds method and try to laugh off the bad reviews by saying they were expected? Personally, I’m against reviewing MMOs at all, in favor of getting players into free trials.
Square asking for a few weeks to fully review the game really isn’t a terrible idea, what will make the difference is how they respond to those who go against their request.
More on FFXIV as it appears, which could be a while due to the slow patcher.
MMO Fallout 