PR Firm Makes Duke Nukem Review Threats, Dropped by 2K Games

Video game publisher 2K Games has officially announced that it was no longer using the services of The Redner Group for public relations after the firm threatened to reduce or eliminate access to games for a number of the journalists that have written negative reviews for the recently launched Duke Nukem Forever.

Jim Redner, who is the founder of the public relations firm, has publicly said, “Too many went too far with their reviews... we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom.”

The Twitter message with the statement has since then been deleted.

Redner added and then eliminated another posting, saying ”Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews...that's completely different.”

Since the messages were posted, Redner went on to apologize and say that his stance was motivated by emotion and that he was not being speaking on behalf of 2K Games or his own company.

The Redner Group have previously worked with 2K Games on the release of the Gearbox developed Borderlands.

The company will handle no more work for 2K Games and the publisher has also offered apologies to those who were offended by Redner's words.

There's an unofficial policy for some public relations firms to limit the behind the scenes and early preview access for those gaming publications that publish negative reviews for some titles, but these positions are never made public for fear of a backlash.

Duke Nukem Forever has been launched recently and managed to perform well in the United Kingdom chart, which looks at weekly sales performance, but a number of reviewers have declared themselves to be disappointed with the game.

After a development process that stretched to more than a decade and with more than one developer working on it, it's no surprise that Duke Nukem Forever cannot live up to the expectations of gamers and reviewers.