Apparently, if you know the right people in the right locales you can find somebody who will be willing to sell you a copy of No Man’s Sky before next week’s actual release date. And then, if you’re Polygon and/or Kotaku, you can then get that raw gameplay footage up and then ride the hitcount until Sony threatens to call down a DMCA on your position. I haven’t decided how I feel about any of that, by the way.
No, really. It’s kind of a weird situation. Not really pirating – the software company gets paid – but I can see how the practice is at least a little hinky.
I don’t have a current gen playstation or xbox, and haven’t bought a AAA title on day 1 since Master of Orion 3. So I’m not part of a customer base that Sony cares about. And the current interactions between game developers and game reviewers is, er, messed up.
That said, if the devs don’t give the reviewers a copy at least a few days before the official release, my assumption is that they don’t have confidence in their game. And if the reviewers are doing what the devs ultimately want, just at the wrong time, I have little sympathy, or belief that the reviewers are doing anything morally wrong.
I think the game companies look at reviews for a game that has a ton of buzz (like this one) as having no upside. For the people who want to buy the game day one, if the reviews are good, then they will still buy it. If the reviews are bad, then they might hold off (not a win for the company.)
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Add into the mix the weird stuff going on in reviews, both movies and games (Lady Ghostbusters- with all apologies to Moe- which gets panned by the viewers, but loved by the critics. Suicide Squad- which seems kind of schizophrenic- some reviewers say it is a lot of fun, the viewers seem to be saying it is fun, but the majority of critics seem to be panning it.)
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The question is whether reviewers are going into these things with an agenda, either pro- or con and not really doing a service to the fans. If a game is legitimately crap, it would be nice to have a review letting you know before hand. On the other hand, if something is entertaining, I would prefer to see and decide for myself if some critic decides they are going to try to make a statement with a review.
My take on it, is that if you bought the game, you have every right to tell anybody and everybody what you thought about it.
If you managed to buy a copy early, good for you. It’s very much a legal transaction, and fully legitimate in every way.
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If the publisher has a problem with consumers being able to make informed decisions, then that’s a sure sign that the publisher is up to no good.
I’d say this even if UniSoft hadn’t sold a major title that was so broken as to be unplayable, and if Bungie hadn’t released a completely different game than they marketed. But both of these did, in fact, happen.