Atari Tries To Supress Bad Reviews, Claims Piracy

im_thatoneguy sends in an account up at Shacknews about Atari's actions to get early reviews of its upcoming game Alone In the Dark pulled from Web sites in Europe. Atari sued the German site 4Players, alleging piracy, and also cancelled an advertising deal on the site, after a pre-release review gave the game only 68%. 4Players posted a commentary (translation) alleging that Atari is doing this bcause the review is unfavorable. Shacknews reports that Atari has also demanded that both Gamer.no and GameReactor remove early reviews — both reviews gave the game a score of 3/10. Kotaku editorializes: "[Does Atari] fear that, because these outlets may have received copies of the game 'early' (i.e. from pirated copies), that they're somehow reviewing incomplete code, which could affect their opinion of the game? Maybe. Pessimists could, however, be forgiven for thinking it's a convenient excuse for Atari to attack negative reviews of the only game they're releasing in 2008 that has any chance of making them some money."

Comments

Re:The 'incomplete code' thing

[ximenes]

These sites probably did base their reviews on incomplete code, and its probably the same thing being shipped to stores on CDs right now.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

No the pirated version is not the same as the final version. The pirate version lacks annoying DRM and so provides a more enjoyable experience.

ATARI:

[dodecalogue]

from "pew pew pew!" to "p.u. p.u. p.u.!" .... awful. sorry.

wait a minute

[DreadfulGrape]

Atari still makes games?

This clear up one thing for me...

[haaz]

I didn't know Atari was still in business.

Re:Hard to say.

[Fred_A]

Arr, wait: I actually bought those games. You know, in shops. With money. Maybe the review sites did the same thing? Is this even legal ?

Re:Hmm....

[Spy der Mann]

SUUUUUURE.... improving a 3/10 game to 10/10 in only a month. I got an idea. Let's hire THESE guys for Microsoft and see what miracles they can do with Vista in only 30 days.

Re:Hard to say.

[johannesg]

Arr, wait: I actually bought those games. You know, in shops. With money. Maybe the review sites did the same thing? Is this even legal ? Well, I downloaded the money from the pirate bay, and printed it on a color laser I stole from the office, so I reckon I'm still ok with the pirate code...

Re:Just take it

[Ford Prefect]

I love bad reviews, especially those dripping with badly-spelled verbal venom. Here are some choice quotations from random forum postings about my own MINERVA mod for Half-Life 2:

lighting was fucking shit, its just like these other fucking mappers making maps extremely fucking dark

Despite the website that oozes more angst and self-hatred than an emo concert at an emo convention, this is worth downloading.

Was anybody else annoyed by those frequent messages? That pompous, cliche tone gave the sense that a smarmy Brit with two dictionaries, three encylopedias and a latin textbook shoved up his ******* was faxing you orders.

i made a box map with a giant penis that has better lighting that this shit

Besides, the content of the website is overly presumptuous, overloaded with vague metaphors, random big words and allusions to irrelevant Greek myths, as if they were talking about anything but a second-rate Half-Life 2 mod.

Other people claimed to like it, but I derive great fun from tracing Referers to the website, and reading what the Truly Informed Forum Users inhabiting this 'ere internet think of it...

Strangely, nobody's yet told me it's rubbish in an email. I must try harder.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

sober up or step away from they keyboard.

Re:The 'incomplete code' thing

[mgblst]

Doesn't calling it 'incomplete code' imply that there might some day be a complete version?

No. This is an incomplete sentence and I have absolutely no inclination to finish it at

Re:Hmm....

[BlackCobra43]

God was the FIRST advocate of limiting free speech. "Thou shalt not take THY LORD's name in vain"? Come on....
 
Ironically, the captcha for this post was "praying".