Eidos Attempting to Artificially Inflate Reviews of a New Game... Again
In case you missed it, Tomb Raider: Underworld was recently released to mediocre reviews and even less excitement, but the kicker was this twitter message posted by Guy Cocker, UK editor for Gamespy:
call from Eidos--if you're planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday.
It was later confirmed (and then denied, of course) by two different industry spokespeople that Eidos was indeed trying to stifle low reviews of the new Tomb Raider game in order to keep metacritic ratings high.
This is not the first time this has happened - not too long ago Eidos embroiled itself in controversy over Kane & Lynch for posting fake reviews/scores of the game on its website. This was in response to a slew of bad reviews the game received because it was - get this - not that good of a game.
The overwhelming opinion of the internet is that the best way to stack metacritic scores is to make a good game. Sounds right to me.