I’m very curious as to why purexbox (and many other sites) are not properly reporting on all the weirdness with Starfield review copies.
For anyone that not aware. BGS didn’t provide ANY major UK media outlets with review copies (including purexbox)! This is an absolute disgrace on Microsoft and Bethesda’s part. And it’s even worse that basically no one is talking about it.
It’s not clear why exactly they didn’t provide UK outlets with review copies. A lot of people speculated it was because of Eurogamer’s 5-point review system and the fact it would hinder the meta score.
@Tasuki thanks I was talking more specifically about how Microsoft/BGS are trying to manipulate their metacritic score by cherry picking who they gave review copies to.
I’m not just looking for general impressions of the game 😂
@ArmoredMore yeah, at first I thought the 5-point review system was a good explanation, but Pure Xbox has a 10-point system and did not receive a code either. Some people pointed that many of the websites that did not get codes belonged to the same company. Both Pure Xbox and Eurogamer are ReedPop. But other outlets that I think are not related to them didn't get copies either, such as The Guardian.
All we know is that it affected mostly UK, which led to some speculation that it had something to do with the CMA, but I think that would be very odd, since the British Media doesn't have anything to do with that. Pure Xbox has always been a supporter of the merger, so it makes no sense that it would be punished along with other outlets.
I'm as puzzled as you are, this situation is unprecedent and makes no sense.
I feel like Microsoft just haven't pushed this game at all (in the UK at least). I haven't seen any advertisements for the game and no one I know has even heard of it. Only people who are either really into gaming or currently own an Xbox Series console seem to have heard of it.
I just find it very strange that Microsoft's biggest release of the year and first huge release since the acquisition of Bethesda has been handled in this way especially with no massive competition.
I doubt it has anything to do with Metacritic or the ABK deal. They should know that these delayed reviews will only be lower as a result of this (I doubt they are very concerned about the score in general). Since it's humans making this decision there is always a chance of error or bias.
All we can do is guess at the reason and I think the most likely thing is that they decided to prioritize other markets based on some form of internal research.
I feel like Microsoft just haven't pushed this game at all (in the UK at least). I haven't seen any advertisements for the game and no one I know has even heard of it. Only people who are either really into gaming or currently own an Xbox Series console seem to have heard of it.
Well, I think that is the same for pretty much every game. The average person who's not really into gaming doesn't know Elden Ring or even Red Dead Redemption 2. Very few games, like Minecraft or GTA, manage to break the bubble and get widely known.
And most advertising nowadays is in the web. It doesn't make a lot of sense to advertise Starfield in a billboard, when targeted ads on YouTube for people who are actual gamers will do the job much better. So I don't believe Xbox is deliberately prioritising other markets instead of UK.
@ArmoredMore It doesn't make any sense to block off a region due to meta score though. I'm certain that has nothing to do with this decision if it was in fact a decision to skip UK. It would be one thing to do it to one site if they had a history of being tough on Xbox games but there is no reason to think the entire region would affect the metacritic score.
I think we are putting too much though into this in general it is likely something much more minor than any theories we can throw out there.
I say they don't care about the review scores because the game is going to sell amazingly well regardless of the score or the marketing push behind it. Even if there was some weird anomaly where the UK brings the metacritic score down to the low 80s it wont do much to squash the sales or gamepass engagement. Check Twitter or Google Trends, this game is getting a level of discourse that games rarely get.
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Topic: Starfield and (lack of) Review Copies
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