Conduit 2 dev in review furore

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 May, 2011

Staff encouraged to review reviewer's book.

Conduit 2 developer High Voltage Software has apologised for asking its staff to review a book written by an author who awarded the Wii-exclusive shooter one star out of five.

HVS boss Eric Nofsinger admitted that an internal email from staffer Matt Corso calling for his colleagues to review T. Michael Murdock's The Dragon Ruby on Amazon was "a tad unprofessional".

Murdock savaged Conduit 2 in his Joystiq review, labelling it "appalling".

"I thought you might like to know that Joystiq reviewer Michael T Murdock (sic) has a book that he wrote available on Amazon," wrote Corso. "It looks to have had decent reviews based on six reader's feedback.

"Michael was kind enough to recently provide us with a Conduit 2 review, and so in turn you all should feel at liberty to (of course read it first) and then return the favour by writing a reader review for Michael's book for him."

"Matt Corso did indeed write that internal email, however if you read the email he encourages folks to read Mike's book and then write their own review in a 'turn-about is fairplay' sort of way," Nofsinger told Marooner's Rock.

"The email went to 70+ people on the list contains nothing slanderous or inflammatory; I believe people took it as such (the fact that there aren't 70 negative reviews would support that assumption). Sure, it's a tad unprofessional but if you knew Matt personally as I do, you would know it was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek jibe at most. And for that, I apologize on behalf of High Voltage Software."

Corso also responded. "My mind really wasn't in that dark of a place when I wrote that," he said. "In fact I seriously considered buying the book myself. I wanted to know how good it really was that this guy felt so in the right to trash our game and give away the ending like he did. And then post a plug to his book at the end, implying that we suck and he is totally great. Then I forgot about it, and got busy with other stuff. But I can see why some people might try to read more into this. But I did mention that people should read the book before giving a review.

"My point is: I did want you to know we don't hold a grudge against reviewers for their opinions. We learn through critique."

Speaking to Wired, Murdock accused HVS of "lunacy".

"They don't honestly care about what happened, and they're trying to get their hands out of the cookie jar before they get smacked," Murdock said.

"They simply have no remorse for what they've done, and they think the industry and everyone else will just laugh it off. I hope that doesn't happen. A game company shouldn't just keep shooting themselves in the foot, hoping their limp goes away."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • richarddavies #1 1 year ago

    Not played the game so I can't comment if it's shit or not yet but I did read the review. It was one of the worst written reviews i've read in ages. It read like a 12 year old wrote it so the fact the guys actually wrote a book has taken me by suprise a bit.

  • streetmagix #2 1 year ago

    Not wishing to trash the competition, but I've seen some pretty badly written reviews on Joystiq. Most recently the Brink review.

  • repeater #3 1 year ago

    I can see how game developers could feel like they aren't always judged in a completely fair manner. But this clearly isn't the way of handling such an issue: after all, reviewers are in the service of us consumers, so any kind of illegitimate pressure or retaliation being put on a reviewer is an indirect attack on us consumers. I don't have a problem with game developers or publishers responding to criticism in any legitimate way - in fact, I think they should so more often as it is their chance to address misconceptions about what a game actually set out do accomplish, etc. - but this is far from that.
    Edited by repeater at 23/05/11 @ 10:01

  • playgen #4 1 year ago

    Sounds like a perfectly fair comeback to me. If you can't take criticism, don't give it out. If someone slagged off my work, I would be a bit interested in how good their own work is - gives you an insight into how accurate their opinion is.

  • LowEnergyCycle #5 1 year ago

    Eye for an eye.

  • Eraysor #6 1 year ago

    Reviews by their nature should be impartial; I don't think I'll be purchasing any games from that company in the future...the Joystiq review really isn't that bad. You can't personally attack a reviewer because of their opinion.

  • CallousB #7 1 year ago

    Have Eurogamer actually reviewed the Conduit 2? I couldn't find it.

    Perhaps their time would be better spent doing that than writing articles about where the Wii is at.

  • Tyronne #8 1 year ago

    Its no wonder games are still regarded as things for kids by a lot of people when you get playground antics like this occuring...grow up for goodness sake.
    Edited by Tyronne at 23/05/11 @ 10:13

  • makariel #9 1 year ago

    An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

  • telboy007 #10 1 year ago

    Doesn't look like it's faring too badly...

    http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/condu...

  • Perfecto #11 1 year ago

    The only difference between High Voltage and any other games company is that they got caught. This sort of stuff happens everywhere, just like all the user reviews on Metacritic are made up from the Dev staff. People get very precious about something they have spent the last year or so pouring their heart and soul into.

  • mkreku #12 1 year ago

    Hmm, to me the email doesn't sound so bad. But T. Michael Murdock comes off as a real humourless douchebag though. Might just be the way the article is written..

  • wizlon #13 1 year ago

    I decided to give Conduit 2 a try and I have to say that it isn't the best game ever made, but it certainly doesn't deserve 1 star, it's a fairly generic shooter with some interesting ideas but overall it's executed quite well... I would give it a 6/10.

    Leaving a bad review for that guys book is a bit childish though.

  • arremelle #14 1 year ago

    that guy must have been in a really bad mood when he wrote the review. I havent played the game yet myself but it quite good and the graphics certainly look decent. To suggest that the graphics on the N64 are better is a bit childish really.

  • HyperTails #15 1 year ago

    This game is not only getting rotten reviews, but i've seen loads of gamers say its crap as well.

    If reviewers cannot write what they feel (and lets face it, one or two reviews saying its crap can be dismissed, but when their all doing it, and gamers shouting about being ripped off, you know it sucks) without retailiation from the company that's wrong.

    HVS make a shit game, they don't have the right to criticise people who tell it like it is. Man, I hope Sega have a 'little chat' with their company head.

  • BonzoBanana #16 1 year ago

    I've played a bit of the Conduit 2 and it seems much better than the original Conduit both graphically and in playability terms. I've not played all the game but going by what I've played so far its much better.

  • xandaca #17 1 year ago

    No-one comes out of this well. High Voltage have been unprofessional for sure, but it's hard to feel sorry for Murdock when he's so notoriously unprofessional when it comes to reviews - it was discovered that a game he recently reviewed, Brink I believe, he'd barely played for two hours. Conduit 2 is far from a great game, but to give it the write-up he did is absurd - he clearly went in with no more intention of being fair than the HVS devs did when writing their reviews of Murdock's book.

    Here's my Reader Review of Conduit 2: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/review...

  • toy_brain #18 1 year ago

    Nobody at HVS did anything wrong.
    Michael Murdock sounds like a whiney little bitch.
    Spoiling the end of a game - no matter how bad you think it is - in a written review, is both mean and unprofessional.

  • mrfrostynova #19 1 year ago

    doesn't surprise me, half the review comments on the web read like furious HVS employees attempting to extinguish all critical thought.

  • DriftingAsassin #20 11 months ago

    This game sucks, no one should go through the choe of playing this. I have had root canals more fun than Conduit 2. However what High Voltage did in retaliation for someone expressing thier own opinions in reprehensible. Also the ending sucks, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln come out of a portal in space armour.