It seems that Bethesda has stopped offering the gaming press early copies of their games. If you want to see how good a game is, from now on you'll have to wait until the first reviews come out or buy it since day one.

For a guy like me, who no longer buys recent games, such a measure is irrelevant. But it seems this may hurt those gamers who don't like to wait.

Your opinions?

Movie studios do that when they know they are about to release a gigantic piece of shit.

I'm not too bothered by this personally. I prefer to wait until at least the first patch release in any case.

It doesn't matter to me one way or another because I rarely buy games when they are first released.

As long as Bethesda is consistent, and doesn't send early copies for any of their upcoming titles, I don't see it as a problem. If they gave out early copies for some titles and not others, that would raise suspicions.

Besides, this is Bethesda. They always need a couple of patches to get their games to where they should be.

As long as no one gets an early review version, that's OK with me. Pre-release reviews had the tendency to err on the side of caution, that is to give better opinions on the game as a whole. In that sense, you got less information than you would expect of the condition of the final product, so I never really took them too seriously. I only ever buy one or two games per year at release, and even that after reading and watching as much trusted reviews as I can, so pre-releases flew right by me.

I think it is a good move, why should the so called Press be treated any differently and it gives more time to work on the game/ more non-inflated release dates.

Early press copys are riffled with ethical problems as the people who play them right a influenced review in exchange for getting an early copy. This can also go the other way in that they might not want people to be warned if they have a bomb of a game.

Probably for the best to be honest.
And as long as you don't pre-order this isn't an issue anyway.

I think it tends to be a shit practice, but in Bethesda's case, if you preorder and the game's buggy/glitchy and underperforming, you really only have yourself to blame, in my opinion.

Last few times Ubisoft and others did this, the game had huge glaring bugs like... Assassin's Creed Unity... (Still has bugs).

While it's their right not to put out early review copies, it often is a hint they don't have faith in their product, or they want it to be a total surprise (although usually it's to boost early sales before they get review bombed).

Hmmm... With Bethesda's recent games as of late, I wonder if there's anything good to look forward to..

But game companies do it because they are pathological control freaks, trying to control from the way we play, to the way people talk about their games.

Remember Shadow of Mordor and its shady deal? Where to get early copies you had to sign a contract that prohibited you from saying anything bad about the game, or disclosing the existence of the contract. Turns out the game was just fine, maybe even great, it didn't need any of that, but they still did it.

See this is one of the reasons I love hanging out in here. This stuff is fascinating to me and I'm always learning something. For real.

Who cares. I stay away from games that might get DLCs later, and with Bethesda it's for sure.

...

They also don’t reveal their hypocrisy: final code for Skyrim’s Special Edition is currently in the hands of ‘influencers’. Bethesda might argue that these do not count as “media review copies,” but they’re deliberately omitting the disparity from their policy in favour of the impression that they’re attempting to create a level playing field.

...

But I don’t think any of this matters. Because as noted above this is fundamentally a statement by Bethesda that they want their consumers to be less informed for longer when they make purchasing decisions. It’s also emblematic of an industry that wants to control the flow of information for themselves for longer. Companies do this either by handpicking and sometimes paying the “influencers” they want to work with, or by hiring their own writers and journalists (the review policy post is written by Gary Steinman, former editor of PC Gamer US) and streamers to talk about their games in the way they want them talked about.

No... it's about cashing in on the pre-ordering phase even more than they do now and to be honest it stinks... especially when code is gold months in advance of the public release date

Honestly, I kinda feel like anyone who needs to get a game day one, not to mention pr-order nowadays is kinda crazy, and deserves whatever broken piece of crap he or she ends up with. I mean, there are so many games right now, more than ever, AAA games, indie games, free games, and cheaper than ever too. Most people have backlogs even if they don't buy games by dozens. Buy just a few on every sale that comes along, and you'll still ahve more than you'll have time to play before the next one. That's what it's like with me, and I limit myself to DRM-free releases. There is no way in hell you've got nothing to play and have to get this game now, can't wait a week or two. No way, no how.

Well, DOOM turned out fine.

I usually place more weight on user reviews, since a bunch of people who are probably into the same things as me might be a better place to get a warning about certain products. I don't treat them or official reviews as the law though.

I think it's just important to look at the game as objectively as possible, and decide if what it has to offer is something you can enjoy and are willing to spend money on. If you've enjoyed something critically panned before, you know what I mean.

And, like many others have said, avoid pre-ordering games. There really isn't a practical reason to do so. No, not even love.