2K sacks US PR over Duke review row

By Fred Dutton Published 15 June, 2011

Rep threatens to punish "venomous" critics.

Publisher 2K Games has severed links with its external US public relations and marketing agency after the outfit Tweeted that it was considering blacklisting sites that gave Duke Nukem Forever a particularly rough ride.

A post on The Redner Group's Twitter feed earlier today read: "Too many went too far with their reviews...we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom," followed by another stating "Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews...that's completely different."

Much internet ire duly followed, and 2K has just chimed in, announcing that it's given Redner its marching orders.

"2K Games does not endorse or condone the comments made by @TheRednerGroup and confirm they no longer represent our products," read a post on its own Twitter feed.

"We maintain a mutually respectful relationship with the press and will continue to do so. We don't condone @The RednerGroup's actions at all," a further post added.

The offending posts have since been removed from Redner's feed, replaced by grovelling apologies.

For the record, Eurogamer awarded the long-delayed shooter 3/10 over the weekend.

"The appeal of Duke Nukem lives on. But your time and money would be better spent reliving his iconic past than bearing witness to this gruesomely mangled resurrection," wrote Dan Whitehead.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (57) Latest comment 11 months ago

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

  • Centrifugal #1 11 months ago

    "We maintain a mutually respectful relationship with the respect..."

    Eh?

  • Kanselier #2 11 months ago

    I am amazed how so many people don't think before putting something out in public via Twitter.

  • the_dudefather #3 11 months ago

    'I'll rip your head off and tweet down your neck'

  • The-Jack-Burton #4 11 months ago

    Wow, Much respect to 2K for acknowledging freedom of speech. I'm impressed that they felt impassioned enough by their PR firms actions that cut ties with them immediately, with no reservations. I applaud them! This definitely goes a long way in forging and sustaining customer loyalty.

  • NOSAVIOUR #5 11 months ago

    Well the didn't give games out before launch anyway...

  • arcam #6 11 months ago

    Standard practice, only reason it was a problem is that this time the public were told about.

    Although considering this is a PR gaffe, seems reasonable to sack them simply for being rubbish at PR.
    Edited by arcam at 15/06/11 @ 19:38

  • Collymilad #7 11 months ago

    Good move 2K.

    This kind of shit is not on. These firms should realise that at the end of the day consumers have the power, oh, and fuck off.

  • Phishfood #8 11 months ago

    Well if 2K let this one slide it would mean mostly all 2K game scores are the result of aggressive PR companys. Good that they sacked them, but I'm sure there are stll many reviews on metacritics that are influenced by the need for ad revenue.

  • gjgjg #9 11 months ago

    Respect 2K, PR companies need more venom down their throats.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

  • Rack #10 11 months ago

    I'm sure they'd be happy as anything if they said this in private.

  • arcam #11 11 months ago

    @gjgjg

    Re: the Bill Hicks bit - it's marketing that got a 3/10 game to no.1 in the charts. Don't think 2K will be giving up on marketing anytime soon...

  • beastmaster #12 11 months ago

    "You're not playing it right, you FUCKS!!"

  • HyperTails #13 11 months ago

    Good riddence. Nice to see a publisher do this.

    I am enjoying Duke though. Its a good laugh and has fun gameplay. EG's 3/10 was waaaaaaaay off the mark. 7/10 would be acceptable going on how long i've been playing.

  • Murton #14 11 months ago

    Great move by 2K to drop the PR guys for this fumble, though I do feel that they did have a point. Giving a poor review write up is fine but some reviewers have taken it a little far, but it should be up to the publisher to decide what action if any is to be taken and not an external PR company. Even if 2K felt the same way they'd still be pissed with the PR guys for being so presumptuous hence them being dismissed.

    Also gives 2K some good publicity with enthusiasts like ourselves who will hear this news, which is obviously a good thing for them.

  • actionfitz #15 11 months ago

    PR guy sacked for letting the cat out of the back as regards how Publishers deal with the Press.

    Gerstmann much?

  • KimboDice #16 11 months ago

    2k needs to realise that we live in a democracy and stop acting like a bunch of commy bastards and respect Freedom of speech Edit: 37 Russians Negged me! you funny fuckers hehe ;)
    Edited by KimboDice at 16/06/11 @ 12:46

  • arcam #17 11 months ago

    @actionfitz

    Doesn't matter if you're a PR guy, journalist, publisher or dev. If you let the cat out of the bag about the shady relationship between game creators and their press, someone's gonna fire you.

  • DrStrangelove #18 11 months ago

    Let God sort 'em out.

  • natureboy #19 11 months ago

    Too late damages has been done. The 'venemous reviews where justified though

  • space_ace #20 11 months ago

    The Redneck Group... which reminds me, where is the new "Redneck Rampage"?

  • inutaihanyou #21 11 months ago

    The game sucks. Get over it

  • mukki #22 11 months ago

    Respect to 2k, I might but the game after all... NOT!

  • Inmediasress #23 11 months ago

    Yeah the only reason they cut ties is because this became public otherwise this is kind of standard practice.
    To cut some slack to Duke it really recieved some shit reviews that seemed to put it down no matter what.

  • mrpsb #24 11 months ago

    Respect to 2K? Bollocks, they'll just hire someone that doesn't get overexcited and tweet details of blacklisting instead.

  • FireMonkey #25 11 months ago

    Fair play 2K!

    Threatening to not send out any future games to sites that reviewed the game bad is basically blackmail isn't it?

    If you get bad reviews you have to just deal with it and learn from any mistakes (that's what the DUke would have done) not winge, moan and threaten.

  • des #26 11 months ago

    EG is dead.

  • Mkwone #27 11 months ago

    Ironically this action give 2k some good PR.

  • timewarp87 #28 11 months ago

    Some ones taking their bat and ball home! I assume COD games have this deal with reviewers ie give us great reviews on a dated engine and you can review it early? And Playstation games dont...
    Edited by timewarp87 at 15/06/11 @ 20:51

  • dirtysteve #29 11 months ago

    The point of Twitter is to share things you're 'considering'. This is exactly why it's a bas idea for certain entities to use twitter. If it wasn't for the compulsive mental diarrhoea it causes, this action would have either been done quietly, or abandoned.
    Upside, at leasts dicks were caught and punished for being dicks.

  • dirtysteve #30 11 months ago

    Also, apparently anyone commenting on any story about Duke Nukem:Chinese Democracy, will receive at least one neg from the compulsives.

  • thedriffter50 #31 11 months ago

    '' A post on The Redner Group's Twitter feed earlier today read: "Too many went too far with their reviews...we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom," ''

    Yeah bad reviewers for giving a crap game a crap score. Next time make a good game.

  • TheGuvernor #32 11 months ago

    Doesn't change the fact the game is still crap.

  • Clive_Dunn #33 11 months ago

    A slightly surprising reaction from 2K given the, presumably endorsed, Randy Pitchfork quote of "We know the game's great. Any journalist that decides to try to go... To lowball it is gonna be held accountable by the readers."
    Edited by Clive_Dunn at 15/06/11 @ 21:39

  • Smoped #34 11 months ago

    The only solution, really. Simplifying a bit, these guys' sole purpose was to make 2K look good, and they did the exact opposite.

  • dirtysteve #35 11 months ago

    @Clive Dunn 'held accountable by the readers'
    I think that's the point, the PR move being considered wasn't by any community. There has been negativity towards the reviews from many readers, but the fact remains, for 12 years of development, this is disappointing. I can only wonder what the hell 3d Realms were doing, is it even possible to work honestly for so long and not have it finished?
    I pity Gearbox for having to drag the corpse for the last mile, I just hope it isn't habit-forming.

  • decider-VT #36 11 months ago

    "For the record, Eurogamer awarded the long-delayed shooter 3/10 over the weekend."

    Really? I'd never have known.

  • Clive_Dunn #37 11 months ago

    Ok, well I've reflected on my original comments for a whole 5 minutes ( or 1,362,816 times less than the dev schedule ).

    I have decided I was wrong in being slightly peeved towards the publisher, in fact I should have been very, very, annoyed indeed.

    I find it outrageous hypocrisy that a PR company can be sacked for saying exactly the same as the developer just before release. Presumably the only change being that the cat is out of the bag, and most people sort of think the game is a bit shit ?

    So a week pre-release you've got Pitchfork saying to the effect of "it's great, and if you don't tell everyone it's great you are very bad people indeed", and a week post release the PR company is saying "we really are angry some reviewers didn't like it".

    It doesn't really matter whether the PR company is right or wrong in saying so, what matters is consistency - you can't promote a game with such aggressive comments pre-release and then sack the PR for effectively saying the same post-release.

  • Tomo #38 11 months ago

    I imagine 2K had a fair idea it was going to be shit anyway, but judging by the sales, they won't care that much. The appetite for Duke is still there, which bodes well for a sequel that doesn't take 14 years to make.

  • azix2 #39 11 months ago

    People calm down. THey didn't actually say anything bad so Why react that way? They said bad scores are ok but when a reviewer is going to go out of their way to smash a game into the ground, why bother with them? They probably shouldn't have tweeted it tho. IMO all FPS game reviews should go like this "its another FPS. 7/10"

  • ajaxpliskin #40 11 months ago

    I've been playing Duke Forever for the last two days. The problem with the reviewers these days is that they are catering to a different demographic. There are too many casual gamers that want polished games that just look nice and have tons of scripted cinematics. This game is really made for the old school gamers. You know, the ones that used to get mocked and bullied for playing video games at all. That was before this industry became a place for the 'casual' gaming parent who plays games inbetween doing their 9-5 and changing their babies nappies.

    I've enjoyed the game, probably because it reminds me of a more exciting time in the games industry. There are a lot of shitty things about it, but it's because it hasn't been finished properly, and a lot of games from the Duke 3D era had problems.

    I feel that Eurogamer should have given 3d Realms and bit of respect by reviewing it on PC instead of the 360 port as that was it's original target platform. The original Xbox, let alone the Xbox 360, didn't even exist when this game started development.

  • adman123 #41 11 months ago

    This deserves a *funny*!

  • Ranger101 #42 11 months ago

    @ajaxpliskin - nice try but you forget that Duke Nukem 3D was released on the 360, Eurogamer did review it's 360 incarnation (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/duke-n... and gave it a glowing 8/10 review score.

    It's a valid review. It's a damning review as well when contrasted with DNF - the rerelease of a then 12 year game scored more than DNF. Duke 3D XBLA was released after CoD 4, Halo 3 etc, putting dead the ridiculous accusations of 'they don't get old skool FPS on consoles', and showed that an 'old skool' FPS could be critically acclaimed on a machine that wasn't a PC.

    Edited by Ranger101 at 15/06/11 @ 23:45

  • ajaxpliskin #43 11 months ago

    @Ranger101

    Nice try at what? It's just my opinion. I didn't forget anything, I played Duke 3D on 360 literally this evening before I posted here. It deserves an 8/10, it's a pretty solid port of a good PC game. You need to also take into consideration that Duke 3d on XBLA is considerably cheaper than a new disc release. I'm saying Duke 4 has been ported very poorly to the 360, whilst the PC version is actually quite playable, which is probably why PC Gamer gave it an 8/10.

    Seriously, I'm just posting an opinion here and I like to read other peoples opinions. If I wanted some kind of lame flame/fanboy war, I'd take it to youtube where it belongs. Also, I wasn't making accusations. I'm merely stating that even if this game was free of all it's bugs, maybe a game like Duke Forever still wouldn't fit into todays gaming demographic so well.

  • ajaxpliskin #44 11 months ago

    @Ranger101

    I also still think I'm right, when this game started development 12 years ago, it wasn't targeted at todays demographic... because today's demographic didn't exist then, and aside from shoe horning in a regenerative shield, sprint and a 2 weapon carrying limit, they didn't really adapt it for that. Therefore, it is made for the old school fans.

    Please don't dress that up as me saying that new players won't get it because they're dumb, I'm saying it's not going to be appreciated half as much because todays casual gamers expect ... well... better!

  • shadowdogg #45 11 months ago

    "I've got balls of steel"

  • shadowdogg #46 11 months ago

    "I've got balls of steel"

  • Turbotim3 #47 11 months ago

    i dont think he should say jes sorry. video game journalists go way too far with some of the critisism. the real problem is the videogame journalists dont have anyone holding them to any standard and nobody ever calls them out with all of their contradictions and inconsistancy. you can tell that i hate them. they have way to much power. you could take one journalists ten previous reviews and you would find many ridiculous contradictions that would never be allowed in. any other form of journalism. just review the game based on the art that it is and not based on what you thought it should be or what you think of the developer.

  • Ahskay #48 11 months ago

    Twitter is destroying more then the earless rabbit from Japan!

    And that eurogamer review of the Duke was utter rubbish. Playing it on the 360 and not even bothering to play it on the pc while at the same time giving the exact score for all platforms, rubbish and poor journalism. Play this on pc and you will be in for a fun ride.

  • fizzyfish #49 11 months ago

    "Damn, those critical bastards are gonna pay for roughing-up Duke's ride!"

  • AgentWhite #50 11 months ago

    I picked this game up and see what the fuzz was about. It feel it is a bad game and would have given it the same score. If its name was not Duke Nukem Forever no one would care about it being 3/10. The original had much better gameplay and was a technical step forward while this game I feel is the total opposite. If the reviewer felt the same as me why should he give it 7/10? Because you liked it?

    On another topic: Freedom of speech means just that. People seem to confuse it with the nonexistant law "I can say whatever I like with no consequences". I can excercise my right to free speech on the behalf of my employer, but it is his right to say if I am ruining his company or in breech of contract.

  • Inmediasress #51 11 months ago

    @Turbotim3
    You forget that this very article describes how gaming journalists are held at bay by the PR companies and big publishers.
    That explains for example why some games get stellar scores and others don't.
    For example this explains why DA2 recieved a 94% review before release and was then contradicted by almost every other review because it was a simple pressured/payed for review.
    They usually play a crefull game of ballance not to churn out 10/10 9/10 reviews but it's mandatory for big games they at least recieve a 7/10 if the company puts in a enough pressure which as it looks 2k didn't do for Duke.
    All in all people should not expect unbiased reviews from gaming sites because you know the gaming industry pays for them to exist in the first place.

  • DwarfyP #52 11 months ago

    While Eurogamers review was crap it is good to see 2K taking this action.

    If you look at Duke Nukem Forever as a 12 year old game that it really is then it is an awesome and fun game (I'm still playing and enjoying it). If you try to review it based on current games then maybe it doesn't stand up so well but is still a funny game.

    @KimboDice
    Are you on drugs? 2K is the one allowing freedom of speech by taking the action with the PR company. They aren't the ones fighting against it like you claim.
    Edited by DwarfyP at 16/06/11 @ 08:41

  • dmt2 #53 11 months ago

    Just to be clear. Gearbox took over development after the last lot went bust. They did, by all accounts, the bare minimum to get the game to gold... So minimal production costs + nostalgic great unwashed = bonus profit. Where's the problem?

  • figgis #54 11 months ago

    Eurogamer have just been blacklisted by 2K directly for their DNF review. Wonder if they'll recind that?

    http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/16/eurogame...
    Edited by figgis at 16/06/11 @ 13:07

  • President_Weasel #55 11 months ago

    "Wow, Much respect to 2K for acknowledging freedom of speech. I'm impressed that they felt impassioned enough by their PR firms actions that cut ties with them immediately, with no reservations. I applaud them! This definitely goes a long way in forging and sustaining customer loyalty."

    More like they didn't want to employ a PR firm that showed itself to be so spectacularly inept at PR. Not only did they not prevent the title getting low scores (which is only arguably something that a PR firm can influence) they then did a classic Steisand effect move, making the low score part of the news cycle for longer and making 2K look bad at the same time. Worst PR Firm Ever? Maybe not, but they hardly covered themselves in glory did they.

  • RexRunti #56 11 months ago

    If you look at Duke Nukem Forever as a 12 year old game that it really is then it is an awesome and fun game

    And if they released the game 12 years ago maybe it would have got good reviews. Unfortunately it is now 2011 and we expect our games to be actually worth playing. Afterall if the 1962 version of Space War was released tomorrow as a full price game I doubt it would get stellar reviews.

  • warlockuk #57 11 months ago

    If you want a fluffy bunny review of a crap game, go to bunnyflufflovepoogames.com

    If you release a game years late which looks like it was rushed and plopped out of the mid 90s then you're going to take some heat. Combine that with the type of game it is - an obviously adult-ish oriented game where the original fanbase are now at least in their 30s - and you'll see a few snarky remarks. Man the hell up, you released a turd. Move on.

    @DwarfyP - you can't treat this like a 12 year old game. It probably got scrapped a few times over. It's got a few years development in the current incarnation plus it was finished by a different group to whoever started it off - the whole thing is a cobbled-together abomination. It looks like someone got fed up with the delays, gave it as-is to someone to finish and then shat it out into the world for people to purchase and somehow make money back for 12 years' development hell. And it's a turd.
    Edited by warlockuk at 16/06/11 @ 19:38