Integrity Check: 2K Games – Consumer Fraud?

Introduction

In episode 802 of Will & Grace, “I Second That Emotion”, Jack McFarlane hosts a talk show for gay men, and for a guest, he blindsides Grace. During her talk, she states “I don’t like gay men . . . who don’t like themselves”. Without thinking of the consequences, Jack edits her quote to cut out the second part, and as a result, all that is seen is that Grace doesn’t like gay men. The fallout from the incident nearly drives her to madness.

This exposé is about “Context” and “Perspective”, and why we must be VERY careful what we quote, and how what we say is perceived by others. 

A few weeks ago I wrote to a few game publishers to see about review copies of games and other support materials for my site.

Some were very helpful.

Bethesda immediately sent some Steam keys and began supporting with daily press updates and has been very good about answering questions. Copies of new screenshots from their upcoming Skyrim are on my site. A review of Brink is forthcoming, and I may also do a fresh take on the Fallout series.

Some publishers have yet to respond, but one responded with a decidedly harsh tone. In stark contrast to the above the 2K games representative told me basically to go away.

At first I did not fully understand this attitude.

When Bethesda sent me Steam keys, I noted that the keys themselves were denoted as review copies. This leads me to believe that Valve is giving a discount or perhaps even free keys for the sake of review. Whichever you believe, the simple fact is that it costs virtually nothing for a publisher to give out review based Steam keys for their entire catalog of games, and therefore having an attitude about it is absolutely unacceptable.

2K Games – PR Nightmare

If we assume that it costs nothing to next to nothing for a publisher to provide Steam keys for a game, why would 2K risk the backlash of blowing me off when it would really have cost them nothing to support me?

I suspect that the answer lies with Duke Nukem Forever.

Duke Nukem Forever has a storied history, and the final product is questionable at best.

Virtually every review outlet has completely panned the thing, and despite not receiving a free copy, my investor bought mine so that when I write the review you can look at my Steam account, under the name "Uryaen" And see that I do in fact possess Duke Nukem Forever and have put a good number of hours into it.

My suspicion is that 2K knew reviews were going to be a nightmare and simply tried to slow the tide.

Obviously this failed.

This story is not about that though. Damage control is one thing. This is about a blatantly misleading attitude in their advertising.

This "integrity check" is a step-by-step evaluation of the claims made by 2K versus the reality of quotes that they use in their own advertising.

In this exposé I will show that 2K used deliberately misleading quotes, and attempted to control the flow of information about Duke Nukem Forever using highly unethical tactics, which constitutes fraud against the video gaming community.

Let's Get Into It

First take a look at this picture from an email sent at 6:57 p.m. on June 14, 2011 (after the game’s release):

You will notice that there are four quotes displayed which one would reasonably assume came from actual reviews of the game. We’re going to look at each in turn, and why each is clearly misleading.

We all expect a certain degree of hyperbole, hype, and lip flapping when it comes to advertising. What 2K did went far beyond the normal hype machine and moved into dishonesty towards the game-buying public.

What do I mean?

First; it is bad form to review a product that is not feature complete or in a releasable state. If I was to review a "preview" of a product I would explicitly state that this is the case.

However what 2K did here is present a number of quotes, none of which are based on the final product, or possibly any product at all. All of these quotes were taken completely out of context, in order to deliberately change the meaning of the quote.

NO matter how you slice it this is consumer fraud, and I am calling out 2K on it.

First Up: MAXIM MAGAZINE

Quoted as saying "A TRUE FIRST PERSON SHOOTER WITH BALLS"  with size emphasis on "with balls".

http://www.maxim.com/amg/GAMING/Slideshows/Gaming%27s%20Newest%20Hotties

This represents two problems.

One: the brief blurb was about two hotties in the game, and not about the game itself. Maxim, as any magazine is wont to do simply churned the hype machine a little in the process.

Two: There is no suggestion that Maxim even SAW the game, much less the FINISHED game, and the article still references a greatly out of date May “release date”, which means that this article was a fluff piece, and not a “review” as the poster above would suggest.

This is hardly the most damning of the evidence that we have but it does set us up nicely for this next one.

Next up: COMPLEX

Is quoted as saying "DUKE'S AS OVER THE TOP AS EVER".

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2011/02/game-preview-duke-nukem-forever-is-real-and-we-played-it

Once again we see emphasis where there was none. This "preview" was based on only 90 min. of gameplay, hand-picked by the developer to showcase some of the more interesting parts of the game.

If you are able to download the demo you will see the same parts that we’re talking about here.

This same article ends with several negative points, evident even at this early stage of reveal.

By taking a small portion of the preview article, and putting emphasis on certain words, 2K has completely altered the meaning of the quote, and this is a clear case of deliberately misleading the reader.

Next: OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE

http://www.duke4.net/news.php?extend.425

This next quote is perhaps the worst of the bunch, and is nothing more than straight up dishonesty. According to "Official Xbox Magazine" Duke Nukem forever is "A GUILTY PLEASURE WORTH WAITING FOR".

Reading only these words, any reader will reasonably ascertain that this sentence is a statement from a review of the game. As such, were you not to source this statement you would assume that the magazine is stating deliberately that "Duke Nukem is a guilty pleasure worth waiting for". But is that what they said?

Sourcing this quote took a little digging. The quote came from a print magazine, and therefore is a little harder to find in the search engines. I did happen to find a scan of the very article in question. Let's take a look:

If you look towards the end of the final page:

http://www.duke4.net/news.php?extend.425

The ACTUAL quote is thus:

"If the whole game is this full of laughs and thrills and energy, it should be a guilty pleasure worth waiting for. - Corey Cohen"

So, for clarity, let's look at the parts of this statement that are important, and how it was altered in meaning: 

"If the whole game is this full of laughs and thrills and energy, it should be a guilty pleasure worth waiting for. - Corey Cohen"

DAMNING indeed. I added the underlines to the above quote in order to point out the alteration in INTENT. Once again this quote was based on an early preview of the game and not the final product, and the author does not specifically state that the game is "a guilty pleasure worth waiting for", only that "If" and "it should be". You might argue that the semantics don't matter, or you may not understand the implication, but this is a very clear violation of both consumer rights and of PR integrity.

Finally: GAMEPRO

Who had this to say about an early preview of the game:

http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/218164/duke-nukem-forever-preview/

“While those who've built up the King's return as the second coming of the FPS will be left scratching their heads, those who just want to lock, load and laugh their asses off can count on a booze-chugging, stripper-ogling, baddie-blasting good time.”

This quote is your typical game review hyperbole, and again is based on a preview the game. 2K however saw fit to lift this quote non-verbatim, and published the following:

“a stripper-ogling, baddie-blasting good time.”

Again, look at the original quote and then look at the excerpt (which isn’t even lifted verbatim). Do they say the same things in context? Of course not! Again, by altering the meaning and context of the quote, 2K is deliberately misleading the reader.

But, what merits special attention is that emailed ads were still using a selectively edited quote from a preview article the day AFTER the actual GamePro review had been published.

The final review from the same outlet sees a much more negative picture:

http://www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/220392/review-duke-nukem-forever-360-ps3/

The GamePro quote was based on an early review of the game with a generally positive spin, but the review of the final game is highly negative. For 2K to continue to publish this quote as representing GamePro’s views of this game is completely unacceptable.

So Where Does This Leave Us?

As I write this, Ars Technica released an article today about Duke Nukem PR:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/duke-nukems-pr-threatens-to-punish-sites-that-run-negative-reviews.ars

I will let the article, and its updates, speak for themselves. It seems I'm not the only one who sees a problem with 2K PR. Despite the "damage control" attempted by 2K it is clear that where there is smoke there is indeed quite a large fire.

Sometime in the coming days I may publish a more comprehensive review of Duke Nukem Forever itself, although at this point everything that can be said of it has been said of it, and I mostly concur with the largely negative reviews it has received.

So What Have We Learned?

Taking a comment completely out of context can completely alter its meaning, and even damage the reputation of its source. Doing so with DELIBERATE intent is unforgivable.

The poster above contains several quotes that are intentionally misleading. This is incontrovertible, and unforgivable. These quotes were based on either early previews of the game or no actual time spent in-game at all. This is vastly different than simply pasting quotes from otherwise positive reviews of a released product.

To 2K games: you are on warning. If this behavior doesn't stop it will have highly negative repercussions. Indeed, it may already have done so. I strongly urge Gearbox Software to dump 2K as a publisher, as they are doing them no favors with PR fiascos like this one.

If 2K responds to my article, I will publish what they say here. I should warn them though: I am not fooled by excuses. The above is clear as day. You did something wrong.

Fix it.

The above was sourced, researched, and co-written by Uryaen and uryaen.com contributing editor James A. Cooley.