Falsified review scores on main K&L Page? (merged)

[EEEMasta]

Come now Eidos. I have been a long time fan of all of your games, especially the Hitman titles (I still pop in Blood Money every month or so) and was really looking forward to Kane and Lynch, but the way you guys have been acting has almost convinced me not to support you. First we had the whole Gamespot fiasco that, while the suits say it is just rumors, there is far too much coincidence for it to be that.
But falsified reviews cited on your main website? Thats just offensive. Of both the Gamespy and Game Informer review, neither of them gave you anything near 5 stars, and the text that you are quoting are from previews as old as a year ago...Here are a couple links that prove the point: http://kotaku.com/gaming/kane-%26-ly...res-329529.php
http://www.gamebump.com/go/official_...out_its_scores
Any officials want to comment on this?

[chip5541]

This will be the only thread on this subject. It is now still early morning and none of the offices are open. Eidos has been sent the links and issues being brought up and will be looked at.

All other threads will be deleted.

[Crow_Servo]

When Eiods lies about review scores, do they think they're going to get away with it? I'm just curious.

[Ryoko85]

I wonder this too? Is there refund for lying?

[halflifedave]

Those weren't reviews. Those comments were on the site long before the game was released or reviewed. Rumor sites are just trying to pointlessly put Eidos under more pressure.

[EEEMasta]

Originally Posted by halflifedave

Those weren't reviews. Those comments were on the site long before the game was released or reviewed. Rumor sites are just trying to pointlessly put Eidos under more pressure.

Nah, and if they are, its just a slimy way of getting people to think they are review scores while having a technically legitimate way to explain the falsifications. But I have been messaging the Mod back and forth and I think he actually did report this to Eidos as he said he did, so all we can do is wait and see what they send back. Thanks again Chip

[halflifedave]

Trust me, prior to actually getting the game, I went to the website alot. Those comments were always there complete with the stars. I'm curious as to why the mod you talked with didn't actually know that, but it's true. There are plenty of better reasons to hate this game than just because some bull rumor site tells you to (especially the PC version).

[EEEMasta]

Oh no no no, this is just icing on the cake. I am not hating on the game as much as I am hating on the company (and I really am not hating on anything, just filing a legitimate complaint). And if what you say is true, why have they not changed the articles to reflect the most recent word on their "5 star" game, and furthermore, where did the 5 stars come from in the first place. Neither Gamespy nor Game Informer give out star reviews to previews...

[SuperHitman]

Remember when Sony did this with their movies?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4741259.stm

Cost them $1.5m. And they made their reviewers up. So Eidos' situation is worse because they stand to be sued as well by the publications to whom the phony reviews were attributed.

[sleeper707]

Those ads on the website has been there long before the game was released. They are not reviews but preview comments as we all knew no one reviewed the game when it wasn't even done yet. The guy at Kotaku who posted this must have had his FIRST visit to the site recently and misinterpreted it as reviews. Its also been in magazine ads as well.

I agree that it is misleading NOW. But before it was clear in it being preview comments and not review comments.

Now, ONCE AGAIN, Kane & Lynch and all the hard working IO developers are gonna suffer because of the efforts of the "professional" online gaming journalists.

[EEEMasta]

Originally Posted by sleeper707

Those ads on the website has been there long before the game was released. They are not reviews but preview comments as we all knew no one reviewed the game when it wasn't even done yet. The guy at Kotaku who posted this must have had his FIRST visit to the site recently and misinterpreted it as reviews. Its also been in magazine ads as well.

I agree that it is misleading NOW. But before it was clear in it being preview comments and not review comments.

Now, once again, Kane & Lynch and all the hard working IO developers are gonna suffer because of the efforts of the "professional" online gaming journalists.

Regardless of how old they are, its common knowledge that previews do not get ratings, so for them to give 5 star ratings to previews means they are trying to make them look like reviews

[sleeper707]

Originally Posted by EEEMasta

Regardless of how old they are, its common knowledge that previews do not get ratings, so for them to give 5 star ratings to previews means they are trying to make them look like reviews

So why wasn't this reported when it first showed up in the ads? Why is Kotaku reporting this NOW?

Why aren't they reporting on other companies that have used preview comments to sell a game?

[SuperHitman]

Originally Posted by sleeper707

Those ads on the website has been there long before the game was released. They are not reviews but preview comments as we all knew no one reviewed the game when it wasn't even done yet. The guy at Kotaku who posted this must have had his FIRST visit to the site recently and misinterpreted it as reviews. Its also been in magazine ads as well.

I agree that it is misleading NOW. But before it was clear in it being preview comments and not review comments.

Now, ONCE AGAIN, Kane & Lynch and all the hard working IO developers are gonna suffer because of the efforts of the "professional" online gaming journalists.

No dude. Just... no. The quotes are all preceded with 5 stars to make them look like review scores. They are MEANT to be misinterpreted so that people will be misled into thinking K&L is a better game than it is and buying it. Kotaku.com is actually one of the sites to whom a phony review is misattributed. There's no mistake there. They paired positive-sounding quotes from previews with false star ratings.

K&L's developers are going to suffer, yes, and not through any fault of their own. Not through the fault of any game journalist, either. They're suffering because their publisher's underhanded desperation attempts to artificially inflate their game's review score are blowing up in their face, because they've been caught. IO is not to blame, but Eidos has crossed several lines, and it's probably going to cost them in legal penalties.

It's all right to support developers of games you enjoy. But don't confuse the developers for their publisher, or seek to defend corrupt actions for love of a game.

[EEEMasta]

Because noone really payed attention before the whole Gamespot incident came to light, and now that they are under scrutiny people are looking out for things like this.

Edit: What he said as well^

[sleeper707]

Originally Posted by SuperHitman

No dude. Just... no. The quotes are all preceded with 5 stars to make them look like review scores. They are MEANT to be misinterpreted so that people will be misled into thinking K&L is a better game than it is and buying it. Kotaku.com is actually one of the sites to whom a phony review is misattributed. There's no mistake there. They paired positive-sounding quotes from previews with false star ratings.

K&L's developers are going to suffer, yes, and not through any fault of their own. Not through the fault of any game journalist, either. They're suffering because their publisher's underhanded desperation attempts to artificially inflate their game's review score are blowing up in their face, because they've been caught. IO is not to blame, but Eidos has crossed several lines, and it's probably going to cost them in legal penalties.

It's all right to support developers of games you enjoy. But don't confuse the developers for their publisher, or seek to defend corrupt actions for love of a game.

If only you came up with that earlier before all this mess happened right? I agree its misleading NOW because of the STARS but I and other fans knew that the comments were not reviews. It was obvious that they were previews and what certain critics said were their first impressions.

Also now, us Kane and Lynch fans are gonna have to deal with this SPAM with new posters coming to our forum all over AGAIN and bothering us rather then the Eidos official forum and email. As if Jeff got fired all over again and we had to deal with all those spammers who bothered our community because their god of a game reviewer got canned.

[sleeper707]

Originally Posted by EEEMasta

Because noone really payed attention before the whole Gamespot incident came to light, and now that they are under scrutiny people are looking out for things like this.

Edit: What he said as well^

Noone but those interested in the game. We all saw those ads and thought hey, the first impressions of the game are pretty good, lets hope the final product will be good.

[SuperHitman]

Originally Posted by sleeper707

If only you came up with that earlier before all this mess happened right? I agree its misleading NOW because of the STARS but I and other fans knew that the comments were not reviews. It was obvious that they were previews and what certain critics said were their first impressions.

Also now, us Kane and Lynch fans are gonna have to deal with this SPAM with new posters coming to our forum all over AGAIN and bothering us rather then the Eidos official forum and email. As if Jeff got fired all over again and we had to deal with all those spammers who bothered our community because their god of a game reviewer got canned.

In fact I did try and post in the main Eidos thread and the moderator preferred that the discussion be placed here instead. But they are thus far relatively successful in keeping the discussion to one thread, so I don't think the Eidos community will suffer as a result.

But I think if you are frustrated by these posts, your anger is best directed at Eidos, whose dealings are behind both the gamespot situation and this new review fabrication issue.

[EEEMasta]

I don't care about Jeff...well actually, thats not true. Truthfully, I never actually knew who he was until the whole gamespot thing, but I don't like reviewers getting fired because of marketing BS. I am not going to go into that though, because I am sure "your beloved community" has heard quite enough of it. I know you are just trying to defend your favorite developer, but you really haven't produced anything that has countered our charges and you seem to be overlooking 2 major points in our case against them. 1 being the fact that regardless of when Eidos (and I don't recall them being there emblazoned by 5 stars last time I visited the K&L site) put those reviews up, they are still misleading and old information that has since been updated. 2 of which is that previews don't get star ratings...so tell me where the stars came from.

And as for your whole beloved community thing, I am a member of this community too. I have played every single Hitman game made and own quite a few other Eidos games as well, so don't try and say that we are any less members of this community than you are. We are just angry members of your same community speaking up

[chip5541]

Ok, I finally had a couple of minutes to check it out myself. It appears to only be in teh flash version. Since the stars are outside the quote I am wondering if maybe they were meant to be bullet points?

[GoranAgar]

Originally Posted by SuperHitman

They are MEANT to be misinterpreted so that people will be misled into thinking K&L is a better game than it is and buying it.

You mean this is an advertising that is not quite scientifically based? Wow, I never thought I would see the day an advertisement tried to sell me something.

[sleeper707]

QUOTE=EEEMasta;711267]I don't care about Jeff...well actually, thats not true. Truthfully, I never actually knew who he was until the whole gamespot thing, but I don't like reviewers getting fired because of marketing BS. I am not going to go into that though, because I am sure "your beloved community" has heard quite enough of it. I know you are just trying to defend your favorite developer, but you really haven't produced anything that has countered our charges and you seem to be overlooking 2 major points in our case against them. 1 being the fact that regardless of when Eidos (and I don't recall them being there emblazoned by 5 stars last time I visited the K&L site) put those reviews up, they are still misleading and old information that has since been updated. 2 of which is that previews don't get star ratings...so tell me where the stars came from.

And as for your whole beloved community thing, I am a member of this community too. I have played every single Hitman game made and own quite a few other Eidos games as well, so don't try and say that we are any less members of this community than you are. We are just angry members of your same community speaking up[/QUOTE]

1. When did I say IO was my favorite developer? Are you trying to make me out as some kind of fanboy?

2. I'm merely giving facts. The ads were up long before the game was released. Because of the recent events with gamespot, people are thinking eidos must have put this RECENTLY or something to counter the recent bad press.

3.

1 being the fact that regardless of when Eidos (and I don't recall them being there emblazoned by 5 stars last time I visited the K&L site) put those reviews up, they are still misleading and old information that has since been updated.

Yes, and I agreed with you guys with it being misleading NOW that the game is Now released.

2 of which is that previews don't get star ratings...so tell me where the stars came from.

Good question, another good question why would 3 to 4 different game sites would give the same type of rating system. IGN doesn't review with stars, they use a 1-10 rating system. luckily when I saw those, the game didn't go gold yet so I figured they had to be first impressions rather then reviews.

But yeah, they are misleading, too bad you guys didn't catch them before all this gamespot fiasco ever happened.

I take it you guys are gonna raise hell on any other company their forums if they did this type of marketing.

[EEEMasta]

Originally Posted by GoranAgar

You mean this is an advertising that is not quite scientifically based? Wow, I never thought I would see the day an advertisement tried to sell me something.

Hahaha indeed, but that still does not make it right. They sure didn't have to do that with any of the Hitman games. I just don't like to see it from them, especially after their entries into the gaming news. Especially from Game Informer, which I have open on my lap turned to the review page...of which a 7 was awarded...7=/= * lol.

[sleeper707]

And as for your whole beloved community thing, I am a member of this community too. I have played every single Hitman game made and own quite a few other Eidos games as well, so don't try and say that we are any less members of this community than you are. We are just angry members of your same community speaking up

Never said you were haters of IO but based on your 6 posts you are new to this particular community. Any one new to these forums who talk about anything other then the game is is under suspect as nothing but spammers especially after spamming of recent events.

[EEEMasta]

Woah, sorry man, didn't mean to make you angry or whatever. I am not trying to make you out to look like a fanboy, you are doing a fine job of that by yourself! Haha jk jk. But seriously though, I will repeat again, as long as those messages have been up, they have been misleading. Less informed people who go to the website and see a 5 star review from Game Informer and Gamespy quoting messages of praise might get the wrong idea, ya know?

[EEEMasta]

Haha just thought this video was hilarious and somewhat relevant lol. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/u...ylist=featured