Gamers react to any change in a beloved franchise with a fury the average person reserves only for tailgaters and spiders in the bathroom. Go into the comments section on an article about, say, a rumored easy mode for the notoriously difficult Dark Souls -- a change which would be entirely optional and negatively impact precisely nobody -- and while there are some reasonable voices, you'll still witness more righteous indignation than a room full of popped monocles. Which is why it's so odd that when it comes to these issues, which are actually legitimate complaints that truly screw over every gamer, there are few if any retaliatory arsons on record.

4 The Big Game Publishers Keep Critics Under Their Thumb

Bethesda Softworks

God help you if you're a critic who gives a popular game a bad score (bad, in the gaming world, meaning anything less than a 9 out of 10). Every hit game has hardcore fans that refuse to accept even the slightest criticism without turning into rabid murder-monkeys. But why? Why do we bother, when the PR departments of the big game publishers are more than happy to game that system themselves, all while employing shadier tactics than the jumpkick-sweep?

Capcom

"PERSONAL INSECURITIES!"

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For example, in order to receive advance copies of new games to be reviewed -- so they can put in enough hours to develop an informed opinion come release day -- reviewers are forced to sign embargoes: non-disclosure agreements forbidding them from saying anything until a specific date and time decided on by the developers, and also from giving their reviews to the Cuban government. When Assassin's Creed Unity was released, Ubisoft didn't lift their embargo until 12 hours after the game had hit store shelves. Spoiler alert: Unity was the gaming equivalent of setting a cat on fire, if the cat had only ever worked half the time to start with.

Ubisoft

And if you used the burnt carcass for the skin texture layers.

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Word eventually got out that their game was tepid garbage water, but Ubisoft had already sold a ton of games. Embargoes to the rescue! And so publishers doubled down: Bethesda put an embargo on their embargo of Fallout 4 -- reviewers weren't allowed to say there was an embargo until Bethesda told them they could, because people who review video games are slowly watching their lives turn into a Terry Gilliam movie.