Last week, The Redner Group was removed from its position as the leading public relations firm for 2K after Jim Redner lashed out against the gaming press for their negative reviews of Duke Nukem Forever.  In a guest column over at Wired, Redner decided to explain his side of the story, calling the entire thing “a brain fart of epic proportions.”

“I was working late and received an e-mail from my former client, 2K, asking if I had seen one particularly negative review of Duke Nukem. I would like to stress that the e-mail from 2K only pointed out the diatribe. The e-mail did not contain covert instructions on how to post something insidious on Twitter,” he began.

“It was a scathing diatribe masked as a review. Hate is a strong word, but I believe after reading his review it is fair to say that the reviewer hated the game,” he continued. “Opinions are never wrong. Reviews, when backed by fact, are always correct regardless of the score. The reviewer’s story was downright mean spirited. It’s as if the reviewer had a grudge and finally found an outlet to unleash his hostile brand of negativity.”

Jim Redner is the only employee of the Redner Group and he called his work on promoting Duke Nukem Forever a “labor of love”.  He explained that he too is a gamer, citing numerous recent titles played including Borderlands, Crysis 2, Homefront, Alan Wake, Portal 2, Mafia II, LA Noire, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Redner also explained that he does not support the idea of blacklisting and tried to explain his reasoning on the entire deal.

“First and foremost, I do not support the McCarthy era notion of blacklisting. I never used the word blacklist in my tweet. I said that there were some reviews that had gone too far and that I was going to re-evaluate our reviews process (it was just one review and it wasn’t even the lowest scored review),” he stated.

“Publishers are under no obligation to send out copies of their game for review. They reserve the right to pick and choose who they want to send their game too, just like writers have the right to publish a review in any manner they choose. It’s a choice. Hopefully all PR professionals make their selections based on any and all data available. They should weigh past coverage, personal information gathered from conversations and past dealings. That’s not blacklisting. It’s a selection process,” he explained.

Redner even points to the looming specter of Metacritic as a method for determining who receives review copies.

“One question I get a lot is how do we in PR decide who gets a game for review. We cater to sites that are featured on Metacritic. For those sites not on Metacritic, I judge them by the following criteria: If you have provided my game with a consistent stream of coverage, I provide you with a copy of the game for review,” he said.

“I do it this way because I feel it is fair. I also try to add new contacts as well because new sites appear all the time and they tend to bring fresh perspectives. I have a kinship with new and upcoming sites because I know their struggles being as I am an upstart PR agency myself. They fight to compete against the bigger sites and I like to try to help them grow,” he added.

Finally, Redner explained that not every outlet needs a review copy ahead of time, as there are other ways to obtain a game.

“It is not a publisher’s job to blindly send out product to everyone for review. Just because you are writer does not mean that you are entitled to a free copy of the game for review. You are entitled to publish your review in any way you see fit, just as publishers have the same right to pick and choose who receives the game to review. Please remember, there are other ways to get a copy of the game for review. You can always buy it,” he emphasized.

“Our job is to promote and protect the game. Why would I send out a product for review to someone who has previously shown that they unfairly write over-the-top stories? Let’s look at this in a different context. If I walked up to you today, and you hit me in the face as a form of greeting, do you think that I should I approach you again tomorrow? Would you?”

The full piece is over at Wired.  Do you believe Redner was in the right?  Were some of the reviews of Duke Nukem Forever out-of-line?

At long last, the Duke Nukem Forever demo has been released to the masses. If you've not been poisoned by the numerous scathing reviews the game has received in the past week and still want to give it a try, head over to the game's page on Steam and download it.

All i can say this is the most regretful game i ever buy...just wasted my RM120++
Finish it (SP) in just 2 days, about 7 hours
I thought the final BOSS is something huge / big, then it just like the others Boss...
Definitely no replay in second time... maybe uninstall it soon...to gaining more HD space.

What about the mirror mode? I read you can unlock it after beating the game.

Are there any more jumping puzzles in Hoover Dam and beyond?

just a bit. nothing tooo distracting or hard though.

Gamers waited over a decade to play the official sequel to Duke Nukem. The title was originally announced by 3D Realms in 1997. It was finally released on June 14, 2011 in North America, and on June 10, 2011 in the rest of the world. The reviews that followed were poor – they basically concluded the game sucks.

Duke Nukem Forever will not, however, be the game that killed the franchise. In a recent interview with Forbes, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick hinted that we would be seeing more of Duke. Making another game anytime soon would not be a good idea. Then again, I really can't see Duke on TV, or even in a movie. Okay, I can see him in a movie, but I'm scared it will be abysmal (think Doom).

    Does Take-Two own the intellectual property surrounding Duke? Could you spin that out into not just new games, but movies and TV?
    We don't really talk about it in detail but you will see future Duke IP coming from this company.

One other aspect came up in the interview: the raunchiness of the game. While many die-hard fans of Duke Nukem insist this is just how the game is meant to be, some believe the fact that it wasn't tasteful only further hurt it. Although Zelnick understands the need to properly label a game as inappropriate for certain audiences, he believes that once you get over that hurdle, you can do whatever the hell you want:

    David Ewalt: Are you concerned about criticism over the adult content and humor in your new game Duke Nukem Forever?

    Strauss Zelnick: We take ratings guidelines and marketing guidelines as seriously as a heart attack around here. We do not market mature products to children. When friends of mine say, "Oh, I plan to get Red Dead Redemption for my fifteen year old," I say, "You know this product is intended for adults?" We are incredibly serious about it.

    That said, when we put something out I stand behind it, and will not compromise. When you put all those things all together it's difficult to be critical of the company. Because here in America, thank God, we have the ability to do what we want.

    What is there left to be said? I'm sorry if you don't like it. Don't consume it.

While I can't comment on whether the game was a good mature title (because I have yet to play it), I have to say that its launch trailer (the NSFW one) was very well done. I have never seen a trailer that was so entertaining.

Duke Nukem Forever's review scores came in much lower than 2K Games would have wanted, and external PR firm The Redner Group was none too pleased with the tone of some critics. Unfortunately for Jim Redner, this led to a tweet about limiting review copies to those in the press, and Take-Two immediately removed Redner from the job.

IndustryGamers decided to dig a little deeper to find out what Redner's mindset was, how this could/should have been handled, and to get Redner's full take on blacklisting in this industry.

Dunno y i try play MP seems no ppl playing (at our time zone)

bcoz the game 2 sucked that it bcum downgraded "throw in the bin" status game titles i guess