Bethesda, developers of Elder Scrolls and Fallout and publishers of Dishonored, Doom, Wolfenstein and more, say that their policy now is to send out “media review copies” one day before their games come out. That’s what they did with DOOM earlier this year and that’s what they intend to do with the approaching releases of both Skyrim Special Edition and Dishonored 2.
Traditionally, when a company holds back review code it’s because they know that the game they’re releasing has flaws and they want to delay the low scores of reviews til as late as possible. At the very least they want to withhold information from consumers until after the release of the game so that those who pre-ordered don’t have a chance to cancel those pre-orders.
To be clear, I don’t think the quality of Bethesda’s games is the issue here. By all accounts, DOOM is good. Wolfenstein: The New Order was good. I loved Dishonored and everything we’ve seen of Dishonored 2 so far has been promising. Fallout 4 released with plenty of bugs, as the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series seem to do, but was still beloved by many, is still being played by tens of thousands right now on Steam, and was supported post-release by the developers with plenty of bug-fixing updates.
But I don’t think any of this matters. Because as noted above this is fundamentally a statement by Bethesda that they want their consumers to be less informed for longer when they make purchasing decisions. It’s also emblematic of an industry that wants to control the flow of information for themselves for longer. Companies do this either by handpicking and sometimes paying the “influencers” they want to work with, or by hiring their own writers and journalists (the review policy post is written by Gary Steinman, former editor of PC Gamer US) and streamers to talk about their games in the way they want them talked about.
Bethesda’s games might have been good of late, but that doesn’t mean they won’t release another Elder Scrolls Online, another Wet, another Rogue Warrior. It doesn’t mean that their currently strong series’ won’t misfire.
I hope it’s clear why the information that Bethesda release officially – even when it’s livestreams done in partnership with media outlets as per those happening today and tomorrow with Twitch, IGN, GameSpot and PC Gamer – is less trustworthy than a review, because Bethesda will choose what parts of the game they show. These livestreams, like game trailers, exist primarily to sell the game and not to inform you about the quality of the game, and make the press – ourselves included – complicit in the marketing of games.
