Conduit 2 developer High Voltage stands accused of attempting to "Amazonbomb" a man's book in retaliation for a negative Conduit 2 review. Michael T. Murdock called Conduit 2 "appalling" and trashed the graphics, voice acting and story -- even revealing a big spoiler in order to tear it apart.
High Voltage took notice, and art director Matt Corso thought it would be fun if the Conduit 2 team looked up Murdock's book, The Dragon Ruby, and provided a little criticism of their own via Amazon's user review system.
"Michael was kind enough to recently provide us with a Conduit 2 review," said Corso in a staff email. "And so in turn you all should feel at liberty to (of course read it first) and then return the favor by writing a reader review for Michael’s book for him."
Such reviews were provided, though if it was an attempt to Amazonbomb, it was a bad one. Four reviews popped up, all at the same time, and one of them was quickly removed after the accusations started flying. Since the story broke this week, more negative reviews from trolls have popped up, but not enough to do much more damage.
High Voltage Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger confirmed with Wired.com that Corso's email was genuine, but denied that it was a serious attempt to cause trouble.
"I think he wrote it in a very tongue-in-cheek kinda way," he told Wired. "We would want to never attack anyone for their opinions on a game."
Corso said he didn't mean any harm, and sincerely wanted to check the book out: "My mind really wasn’t in that dark of a place when I wrote that. 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."
Meanwhile, Murdock isn't buying it, and thinks High Voltage is trying to backtrack.
"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," stated the reviewer in an email to Wired. "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."
Whatever way you look at it, Murdock's been punished for giving his opinion of a videogame. Be it through High Voltage's chicanery or the trolls that have attempted to stir shit since the story blew up, a man's book was trashed not because of its quality, but because people were angry over a videogame review. That's pretty pathetic, whatever way you slice it.
Makes me scared to finish my book ... available in all good stores soon!
Conduit 2 Developer Calls for Internal Retaliation Against Author of Negative Joystiq Review [Marooner's Rock]
Leaked E-Mail Suggests Retaliation for Negative Game Review [Wired]
Contest:
9:00 AM on 05.22.2011 | 
In other words, this guy is a hack and shouldn't be paid attention to?
sounds like the devs are more upset he was a d-bag and gave away a huge spoiler in the game, just to be a jerk. To me that makes him an awful reviewer in the first place. Neither side is in the right here, but at least the devs aren't pretending to be good reviewers.
Book? Does that mean that Jim Sterling: The Game was canceled? :O
When you spoil a game in review just to make your point, your review also fails horribly. People don't read reviews for spoilers.
The author behaved like a douche in his review. Being a douche tends to breed douchiness, so he shouldn't be remotely upset that some returned his way on any front.
The guy from High Voltage could have taken the high ground though. A lot of developers out there would be better off not responding to critics in any way, no matter how much of a douche the reviewer might be. If the reviewer is a douche, people will know.
@Jim
I'll bite :D - what's the title of your book, and the expected release date? I'd pre-order the shit out of that (does it come with an official Gamestop poster and DLC costume code?)
Battlefield 1943, Section 8: Prejudice, Quake Arena Arcade, and Duke Nukem 3D invalidates your statement.
Also, the reviewer spoiled the ending--isn't that something professionals should not do? Jim, answer me this: don't reviewers have a code of conduct regarding the ending and not mentioning details of it, or is it just common courtesy to not mention it.
Otherwise, I loved Conduit 1 and I dug Conduit 2 (JON ST JOHN IS IN IT!) But this was a dick move from both the dev and HVS.
Read my comment again. "Like most failed XBLA shooters". You mentioned 4 successful ones (I also have Duke 3D XBLA, and I don't see anyone online - I'd agree with the other 3).
How many XBLA shooters are there out there? 50 at least? I'm talking Breach level of failure here.
Note that I said most.
@Epic again
As a reviewer myself, I have a policy of not spoiling endings/major plot points. However, if your review states that the game is such a piece of crap that you should never play it, I can see how that would be ok.
Again, personally, I wouldn't do it, but if your recommendation is to skip the game, as a reader, I wouldn't care.
to people who question High Voltage(and other developers of core/more serious wii games) try reading some of those reviews and frankly you probably would do the same. metacritic/gamerankings is filled with "reviews" from big gaming sites where the whole purpose of those "reviews" was to trash the wii without even trying to play the actual game. i remember one of Mario Kart Wii reviews where guy gave the game low score after 1 hour of playtime simply because he couldn't win a single race.
Aeris dies?!! You bastard, you completely spoilt FFVII for me. There's now no point playing a game I had no plans to play anyway.
Thanks for that. ;-)
What a complete JACKASS. He DESERVES all the fun the High Voltage employee's had with him. He doesn't give the game a chance, spoils the ending, gives opinions that are madness at this point (Conduit having bad controls...), and just outright lies about the games quality.
Hate breeds hate, especially when you're trashing a game that tons of people put countless hours and resources into, far more than your piddling book.
I mean...SERIOUSLY. That shit's fucking hilarious, and I don't think they intended it to be.
If ANYONE knows awful writing, it's High Voltage!
What an absolute hypocrite. Does he feel any remorse for his trashing of the game and the devs. Bet you he doesn't. And no, it was not a review, it was simply trashing people's work for his own pleasure.
I don't care if the reviewer gave it a 0/10 on a napkin: the dev could have responded in a mature manner, on a blog, but he didn't.
Glad I don't have to play it now because the ending is fucking retarded.
I Loled.
Read it for yourselves. It's actually pretty tame IMO, and he does give clear warning before the spoiler. He played the game, too, despite what another poster says. He played it and has full right to his opinion which he clearly presented here without mincing words. Shame on him for doing his job, right? If that review is what pissed these Devs off then they need to grow up and just concentrate on making a better game next time.
Personal highlight: "The creativity of the level design is ... well, it's non-existent. I know players complain about FPS games having the same maps over and over, or every room looking the same, but only Conduit 2 does it and has the guts to comment on it three-quarters of the way through. Ford asks, "Hey, wasn't I just in here?" and your little metal ball gives a big explanation about companies saving money on construction by making rooms very similar, "like they sometimes do in modern video games." Ha-ha! It's okay as long as it makes fun of itself, right?"
His job? come on. He was being an ass. He was doing the same thing they did to him. They have a right to their opinion too right?
Why are they instantly correlating it, to workers at HVS doing this? Couldn't it easily just be angry fans of the game doing it on their own? I find it ironic, because so many people at Joystiq loved the fact, that the women who talked bad about Mass Effect on Fox News, book got bombarded with bad 1 Star reviews after it. Its not so nice now, that the shoe is on the other foot. LOL!
Um.. no. He was payed to give his opinion, which he did. That's his job. They got their panties in a wad about it and trashed his book as an act of revenge. He wasn't being an ass. He thought the game was terrible and said so. He made clear and valid points throughout. Jim Sterling has given MUCH more critical, over the top reviews than this guy. Should the guys who made Socom 4 start trolling Jim now?
Well, in my opinion your opinion of his opinion is wrong. lol
Based on the wording, this is a non-issue.
........Sorry what.
**SPOILER**
They both give up *shrug*.
Still if the reviews were jokes than I guess it may be tolerable at best. Since they weren't that's stooping to the low the reviewer was at in the first place and they're both asses.
Sometimes Reviewer have a warped mind...