Not so long ago, you could be relatively sure that, if a publisher withheld early review copies from members of the press, it was probably because the publisher knew the game was a stinker that would get panned. Now, some of the biggest game makers are withholding early review copies as a matter of course, regardless of expected quality.

At least one of those publishers is being unusually upfront about communicating its policy. In a blog post Tuesday evening, Bethesda Softworks Global Content Lead Gary Steinman writes that "with the upcoming launches of Skyrim Special Edition and Dishonored 2, we will continue our policy of sending media review copies one day before release." For massive games like these, that one-day lead time might as well be nonexistent, from the standpoint of putting together a review in time for launch.

The closest thing Bethesda offers to a reason for this policy is that the company "want[s] everyone, including those in the media, to experience our games at the same time." That justification is a little hard to swallow, considering that Bethesda sent an enthusiastic streamer a copy of Skyrim Special Edition a full month before its release. Apparently, "everyone [playing] at the same time" doesn't include YouTubers that Bethesda can be relatively sure will react with pants-wetting excitement to special, early access to its game.

Bethesda's blog post also points out that the company sent out early copies of this year's Doom reboot to critics just a day before its release. That situation "led to speculation about the quality of the game," as Bethesda puts it, but "since then Doom has emerged as a critical and commercial hit and is now one of the highest-rated shooters of the past few years."

That's true enough. But the fact that Doom ended up being critically acclaimed doesn't seem like a good excuse for forcing players to essentially make launch day purchase decisions blind. As it stands, many outlets ( including Ars Technica ) ended up tearing through as much of their retail copies as possible and offering "early impressions" or "review in progress" thoughts on launch day so consumers would have some idea of what to expect from a game that was already available digitally and on retail shelves.

Of course, there's no reason critics should feel entitled to early review access from Bethesda. In the past, providing early review copies to respected critics was a courtesy intended for everyone's benefit. Reviewers would be able to play the game at a relatively leisurely pace (protected by a mutually-agreed embargo from the need to rush out the "world first" review), consumers would get buying advice before the game hit store shelves, and the publisher would (hopefully) get some promotional help from the increased chatter about the game leading up to its release.

Obviously, Bethesda has examined this calculus and concluded that the risks of early reviews outweigh the potential rewards, at this point. From a purely bottom-line perspective, that calculus is probably correct. Series like Skyrim or Dishonored are big enough, and hyped enough, that preorders and day-one purchases are going to be extremely healthy whether or not there are rave reviews driving people to get out their wallets.

On the flip side, if the reviews end up being underwhelming, it's logical for Bethesda to want those reviews to come well after many players have already shelled out their cash. The relative purchase-influencing power of a traditional written game review is also a much-debated topic in the age of deafening social media and video streamer hype.

If it's hard to fault Bethesda from a business standpoint, it's easier to fault them from a customer relations standpoint. We find it pretty galling that Bethesda's blog post insists it still "value[s] media reviews" and "understand[s] their value to our players.... We also understand that some of you want to read reviews before you make your decision, and if that’s the case we encourage you to wait for your favorite reviewers to share their thoughts."

That seems pretty disingenuous. Bethesda obviously strongly hopes that you don't want to wait for a review, and it actively encourages you to plunk down for preorders of its games well before those reviews are available.

Players who decide not to "wait for your favorite reviewers" to weigh in on Dishonored 2, for instance, will get a free copy of the original Dishonored: Definitive Edition and its soundtrack, an "Imperial Assassin's Pack" full of in-game items, and the ability to play Dishonored 2 an entire day before it hits store shelves. Those who decide to wait for the reviews may miss out on those freebies, but anyone who was underwhelmed after the sky-high hype for No Man's Sky earlier this summer knows the risks of going in based on previews alone.

To Bethesda's credit, it's being upfront about its review-access policy; other companies have started implementing similar policies without announcing them so widely. 2K Games releases like Mafia 3 and Civilization VI were also given to critics just a day before their release this year, meaning reviews either ran late or were admittedly incomplete on launch day.

Other developers use extensive online gameplay as a reasonable excuse for withholding early review copies from the press. That's what Ubisoft said when it failed to offer early copies of The Division to critics this year, though that game at least had a relatively feature-complete public beta to evaluate.

Some developers have gone to the trouble to host review events or online sessions to let critics get a taste of the multiplayer modes before launch. Those controlled online environments can be pretty different from a game's sometimes server-melting launch in the wild , but when it comes to offering day one evaluations of an online game, they're better than nothing.

If the online excuse doesn't apply, developers these days can still claim that "day one" downloadable patches mean early copies of the game won't be "complete" enough to review. That's what Hello Games tried to argue explicitly when early copies of No Man's Sky leaked out to some fans via a broken retail street date. For what it's worth, we can probably expect more and more critics to try to track down similar early copies of highly anticipated titles in order to get around the lack of prerelease review copies going forward.

To be clear, there are still plenty of companies that offer long lead times to critics working on early reviews of games. Still, Bethesda and 2K are probably the leading edge of a developing new status quo in gaming-media relations. The biggest companies in the game industry are realizing that limited previews, always-enthusiastic streamers, and mountains of marketing hype can drive healthy preorders and sales for their biggest titles better than early reviews.

Here at Ars, we'll continue to do our best to provide you with as complete a picture as we can of the big releases as quickly as we can. Until then, as always, caveat emptor.