Dan Hsu - former 1up editorial director and currently in charge of the gaming blog site Bitmob - has tweeted that Bethesda has apparently pulled several negative reviews of Fallout: New Vegas from unnamed gaming sites due to their current F:NV advertising campaign. It all sounds sadly reminiscent of the Gamespot and Jeff Gerstmann incident all over again.
The relevant tweets are as follows:
- One site was forced to pull its Fallout Vegas review because advertiser Bethesda was unhappy w/ score. Sad this crap still goes on.
- Heard (but haven't confirmed) two more sites delaying publishing poor review scores for Fallout Vegas until Fallout ad campaign is done.
- To clarify, the site's boss pulled that review because advertiser wasn't happy, against writer's wishes.
- Sorry, I know how this sounds, but I can't say which site cause this guy would be fired for telling me (they'd know).
- [Response from current 1up editor] To be clear, 1UP has not published a review because both the reviewer and I felt he needed more time with the game.
- Guys, I did not say it was GameSpot. Please don't put words in my mouth. Thank you.
- I did get a 2nd, independent confirmation on this, tho. The review was pulled by CEO, then put back up when ad campaign was over
- [In response to revealing this information]...I have this dilemma all the time and know the possible messy results. But i can't name names because I would
- [In response to the potential consequences of making this public via Twitter]...get someone fired over it. At the same time, I can't keep quiet about it. So yes, I have a big, irresponsible mouth. :)
Update: Hsu has tweeted again, saying that:
- Bethesda wants to go on record that they 100% did not pressure any editorial and do not condone such activities