What game companies/developers, if any, are you considering/thinking about BOYCOTTING on? And if you want to, please feel free to rant on those very and at the same time make up/come up with a list of YOUR top least favorite or even most hated game companies/developers for this VERY thread 
for me itâd be CIG/RSI the company behind the star citizen pre-alpha*. its a crowdfunded scam thats raised over 130 million by using predatory marketing and having the bad habit of always moving the goal posts further back so they can get more money off saps. when that game fails, its gonna seriously hurt crowdfunding for gaming really bad and it will be remembered for doing so.
edit: its not even a game yet, stuck in pre-alpha for more than 4 years.
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Bethesda. If they want to bypass objective game reviewers and hand pick their own, then I can live without their games. The last thing I want is for other companies to look at what theyâre doing and think itâs okay to follow suit.
For the people that say âdonât rely on game reviewsâ or âif youâre going to buy the game anyways, then reviews donât matter,â Iâd say this: Some people need reviews to help make a decision. Sorry, but thatâs just a fact. Not everyone is 100% convinced that theyâre going to purchase something, even if the coverage for the game has been positive leading up to that point.
Just as most people look at Amazon ratings and reviews before making a purchase, so too do some people look at the scores and read the reviews for a game. Sure, maybe youâll get Skyrim. But maybe youâll get Watch Dogs, a game that, for me, was an automatic, day one purchase because of how great it looked in the previews. Had I waited and read the reviews, I wouldâve seen that I was getting a game that was more like a 6.5 or a 7; a GTA knock off with less going on in a relatively uninteresting world, and that the hacking option wasnât nearly as innovative or fleshed out as Ubisoft made it seem.
Not to specifically knock Ubisoft here, but would people be okay with this if companies with more of a checkered past with consumers started eschewing objective reviewers? Do you want Electronic Arts or Activision doing this? How about indy developers that youâve never heard of? How many No Manâs Sky buyers wish theyâd seen the reviews before jumping in head first? Now imagine if they had been able to hand pick their own reviewers.
Oh, and for the people that just assume that reviewers are already bought and paid for because Game Informer is owned by Game Stop or because IGN is I donât know, IGN, Iâd ask that you put your tin foil hat away. I can read something and detect bias relatively well and Iâm betting most gamers can too. I can also tell based on who the reviewer is whether or not I agree or disagree with them more often then not. Is it a perfect system? No, of course not. But Iâll gladly take what we have over any company hand picking their own reviewers. The fact that some people canât see the inherent dangers in that, or where it could potentially lead utterly mystifies me.
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This whole âreviewsâ issue could be disscussed until death.
Most work this way(Gonna use Ubisoft as example):
Ubisoft pays you a lot of money for putting some Assassins creed advertisement in your webpage. When the game lauchs, your reviewer gives the game a low rating, a 6. Then, Ubisoft comes and says you: Change that into at least an 8, or you will not only woulndât get more money from advertisement, also you are going into our black list: No more closed events, no more early access, no more press copy for reviewsâŠ
And what can you do? If you are big, you could take some attention over this, and maybe win. But if you are a small website, you are doomed. If EA, Activision or Ubisoft puts you in the black list, you are screwed.
I could go for this topic for long, so I will stay on topic:
-Ubisoft(I had a funny discussion with @BigBadAndy about why I think Watch Dogs is one of the worst AAA ever made)
-Activision(nuff said)
-EA walks in a thin edge. I hate that they do lots of stuff which annoys me, but they publish some great games.
I âboycottâ companies that never make games I like, I guess. I donât really have any specific blacklist. Iâm willing to buy anything as long as I generally hear itâs good and will offer a fun, worthwhile, and fair experience.
If any notable company would qualify, probably Activision.
So by this logic, every review that comes out on a site or in a magazine that has advertising is compromised because publishers can just say that theyâll pull their advertising and put them on a black list (no closed events, early access or review copies).
I have a few questions about this:
-How can Ubisoft go to, letâs say IGN, and tell them to change a review score thatâs already been given? Or are you saying IGN submits their review to Ubisoft before publishing for approval? Iâm asking because I donât ever recall seeing a review score change after a game has been put out unless there were technical issues that were fixed. So if the IGNâs of the world are going to publishers with their reviews before publishing them, then how do we know this is happening?
-As far as pulling advertising⊠I mean, thatâs a two way street, right? Ubisoft is pulling their ads from places where people, specifically gamers, can see them. Even with a bad review, wouldnât that be cutting off their nose to spite their face?
Same goes with the black list idea. If youâre a publisher, donât you want companies doing previews on your games to drum up excitement and interest? If a companyâs game gets bad review scores all over the place, is it really in their best interest to blacklist twenty websites?
-Lastly, if I have reviewers that I trust, how does it benefit me if a publisher decides that the people I trust canât get their reviews out until several weeks after the game has released, while reviewers I donât know and have zero reason to trust, who just happen to be hand picked by the very publisher whose game is being reviewed, get their reviews out right away?
Regardless of how compromised companies might or might not be by advertising dollars, Iâd still rather have people that I know share similar tastes, people that I decide to pick, rather than having the company thatâs putting out the game make that decision for me.
Sorry, donât mean to hijack the thread. Iâm not buying Bethesda games. Iâm not howling in to the wind about it, Iâm just perfectly fine living without them. No problem.
@Dayv0, are there any companies youâre boycotting?
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meanwhile people are getting fleeced for buying .jpeg ships for more than $1,000 for a game that isnt out. some people have dropped well over $10,000 into a game that doesnt even exist and is vaporware with just tech demos. one guy even dropped over $30,000. the whole game review thing is a serious issue, but so is this lmao anyway
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I boycott Iron Galaxy because they are milking KI dryâŠKappa
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The people behind DayZ and EAâs marketing division.
Of course yours is a serious issue. I didnât mean to imply that it wasnât. Did I do that somewhere in my posts?
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I will put you a example:
-Kane and Lynch scandal: One of the reviewers from Gamespot, Jeff Gerstmann, was fired after a bad review of that game, which was covering Gamespot site with all their publicity. Years later, it was confirmed that the publisher pressured Gamespot for this.
Maybe IGN or other big sites donât care about this because this doesnât happens to them, but smaller(yet popular) sites could have an issue here. Some spanish sites, like Vidaextra, had ex employees that spoke about how they were conditioned into speaking well about some games, or they wouldnât get press copies. And that can kill blogs.
The review issues are not new. Meristation, a spanish site(a big one here), faced hordes of angry people because they put crazy notes in some titles and they had to tune them down.
-Assassins Creed 1 got a 10. After thousands of complains in their forums, they toned it down into 7
-Street fighter V got a 9. After several complains in their forums due bad online and lack of content, they downed it into 6.5
-Driveclub lauched with a 8-9, canât remember. Donât know if you recall how disastrous was itâs lauch, but after some time, they lowered it into 5.
There are more examples. My point is that the damage is already done. Thousands of people buy games because reviews says so. Yeah, itâs their fault, but the press should do a better job. Heck, they should DO THEIR JOB.
At the end, I blame both press and publishers, since they work in harmony. I worked 8 years in a videogames store, and we had âmistery shoppersâ from several companies. I had one friend working as zone controller for Activision, and he told me how Activision imposed their publicity to some stores in order to recieve COD on time or allow them to sell the game sooner, or recieve it the launch day, so if someone skips the launch date, you coulndât put yours on sale.
This industry backstage is a really dark one
Iâm not actively boycotting nobody, but I donât like how Ubisoft and Activision makes videogames for several reasons.
Oh god, what have they done to AC, Prince of Persia and COD
Also, @TheNinjaOstrich, I donât know if you wanna hear me speak about watchdogs, since I already achieved convencing people who liked it into hating it xD
As a gamer, I personaly donât find any advantages to boycoting a game compagnie. If I like a game, I buy it, if not, I donât buy it and I donât care the slightest whoâs behind it. But i can understand a more âmoralâ point of view wich i arguably lack.
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Is this common practice though?
I dunno, maybe itâs just my own ignorance (which is entirely possible), but I just donât see this on American sites, or perhaps I just donât notice it. Sure, I see people complaining about review scores all the time, thatâs nothing new. But I donât recall seeing companies then going back and lowering those scores.
I agree that the press should be independent and they shouldnât allow companies to affect them in such a way. Iâm also not naĂŻve enough to think that there isnât some level of contamination when it comes to publishers, sites, and favorable treatment.
But for me, I still tend match my own personal tastes to that of specific reviewers. If I trust what theyâre putting out there and I agree with what theyâre saying, then Iâm more likely to trust their opinion in the future. Now, if that same reviewer starts putting out reviews that I donât agree with or I think their scores are becoming way too high, then I have no problem with trying to find other reviewers.
But again, this is my choice and it should be my choice. I should be able to pick where I get my reviews from and who I trust. I donât trust Bethesda or any other company to have my best interests at heart. I just donât. Iâll take the media and their off-putting relationship with publishers over straight trusting the publishers themselves any day of the week, even if itâs debatable just how different those two groupings might be.
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This is just a garish example. There could be more less flamboyant, and some of them, we wouldât ever know.[quote=âIago407, post:15, topic:16431â]
I dunno, maybe itâs just my own ignorance (which is entirely possible), but I just donât see this on American sites, or perhaps I just donât notice it. Sure, I see people complaining about review scores all the time, thatâs nothing new. But I donât recall seeing companies then going back and lowering those scores.
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Maybe you should look in another direction. Maybe is not websites, but bloggers and youtubers where you should look. Currently, youtubers have the power. They are the trusted reviewers. The big sites are âcorruptedâ and most people see them as this. But you could see a youtuber, agree with him, and then go with his opinion and trust him. And then, the publisher goes against him and start lawsuits because they are making bad reviews of their games, so they âbotherâ them. Jim Sterling had several of these.
Funny, even if they donât let sites to review their games, Bethesda is one of the few companies which I trust. I havenât get Dishonored 2 yet, but thatâs because of money, not because I want to see reviews. In fact, I havenât see any.
If a company makes GOOD games, I trust them. I trust Bethesda, because they gave me hundred of hours of enjoyment. Same goes for Bioware, among others
I donât trust Activision or Ubisoft, because they made every COD since MW2, or Ubisoft, for what they have done to AC, POP, or their politics with games like Watchdogs
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So if we donât know, we should just assume the worst?
Well, what âmost peopleâ see aside, Iâve been looking at many of the larger sites for years and havenât had any real problems, but thatâs just me. Sure, there are some examples here and there where I find what one could generously describe as moral ambiguities, but a lot of what I see some consumers ranting and raving about doesnât really bother me as much. In fact, I feel a tad safer looking at bigger sites that can afford to tell the Activisions of the world to take a walk if they donât like the score for a particular game.
I do however look at a lot of youtube reviews on games if Iâm unsure and I try to read reviews at both ends of the spectrum to see if what bothers them would bother me, or if what I like might match what they like, etc. I do try to get a full picture, which is why any company saying âforget the full picture, just look at the picture we want you to look atâ is so galling to me.
Oh I think Bethesda makes great games for the most part. But for me, that doesnât factor in. Their goal is to make a profit just like any other business. So what I care about is the fact that they want to decide for me where I can get review information of their products on launch day. I care that other companies, like an Activision or a Ubisoft might look at what theyâre doing and think itâs a good idea. I think theyâre setting a terrible precedent, and Iâd rather go without their games than support that precedent financially.
Canât change my mind, Got a hat and Pre-Ordered both Games 
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Itâs not âassume the worstâ, its more a âbe preparedâ scenario.
I understand, and agree.
But at the end, IMO it doesnât care. If all of them take this way, maybe they will sell less the first day, but they will recover it the second week.
I have bigger issues with Capcom and their âsneaky spywareâ fiasco
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OHMYGODITOTALLYSERVEDTHEGAMETOPEOPLELIKEYOUANDIWANTEDTOKILLALLOFYOU
/Kill
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-Bethesda for destroying Fallout series and overrated Skyrim.
-WB for being greedy scumbaggy publishers and putting Letherface and Jason instead of Reiko and Fujin in MKX. Also for ordering HVS to bake up crappy MKX port that got fixed 17 months later
(seriously I want WB Games to get erased from existence so hard)
-Diablo 3 dev team for being total incompetent idiots.
-Gearbox for killing Duke Nukem franchise.