As far as the who deserves review copies and who doesn't debate is concerned...
It's absolutely silly for publishers not to send review copies to every site that gets a reasonable amount of hits. Just the slight chance that they are going to mention it is enough reason to shell out the minute amount the pressing of the disc costs. That is why Kotaku and Wired get games when they don't officially review very many titles at all. If the editors of either site just put up one post that says "I threw in such and such game and was totally surprised how good it was." that has enough value to warrant sending them 50 games.
Take Penny Arcade for an example. Arguably the most popular video game related site on the Internet. I don't know if any of you caught Wired's recent article on them, but in part of it it talks about how they have a pile of games in the corner from publishers, much of which never really get played. Occasionally though, when they need a comic topic, they throw one in and see what they get. Then, as soon as one relatively obscure game get's a comic, sales are guaranteed to be higher than before. One great example, (though a lot of sites including NWR joined in hyping this game) is Puzzle Quest. They made a comic about it and talked a ton about it. That game sold through it's relatively small initial shipment EXTREMELY quickly. Taking this further, I'm not sure how many of you have seen the Eye of Judgement hype they have going on right now. That's based on play time at Comic Con, and I guarantee you they will be getting an early version of it. Publisher's can't pay for that type of hype.
So anyway, there is no reason for publishers not to send these discs out if they have them. About the only reason I think this particular case would make sense is if these suckers literally didn't come off the assembly line until Sunday because of some delay. That seems a little hard to believe though.
Topic: No NWR Metroid Review Today or Soon (Read 11512 times)
