No Early Reviews Of ‘The Sims 4’ Allowed

When EA released Sim City, it was a complete and utter disaster. Now, it seems as though the publisher wants to try to keep negative press from affecting a game launch, by putting the kibosh on it altogether.

It’s easy to jump on the EA hate train, they’re widely considered the worst video game publisher out there, recently getting voted out of The Consumerist’s “Worst Company in the Country” bracket by Time Warner, but only just barely, finally losing the title it had held for two years prior.

The game had a decent showing at E3 during the EA Press Conference, but has more recently come under fire for a few glaring omissions of major features in previous games that are no longer being included in the base game, instead being slated for release in later DLC.

Now, ahead of its rapidly approaching September 2 release date, it has come to light that EA is not issuing early copies of the game to video game press outlets for review, as displayed by this tweet from IGN Executive Editor Dan Stapleton:

Looks like there’ll be no The Sims 4 reviews until after it’s out. EA tells me no one’s getting access ahead of release. I’m nervous.

— Dan Stapleton (@DanStapleton) August 18, 2014

Because the best way to make sure your product is purchased by the most people possible is not to provide a high-quality piece of merchandise that you believe in, but rather to try to keep as many people in the dark as possible and hope that even if it is bad, the terms and conditions of your digital distribution service don’t allow for returns.

But remember, it could be worse: they could be paying outlets for positive coverage, instead. Maybe give The Sims 4 a little time to cook before you head out to grab it.