Driv3rgate: A Case of Corruption in Video Game Journalism

by Who Cares?

Driver 3 (adapted as DRIV3R) is a 2004 open world action-adventure video game. It is the third game in the Driver series and was created by Reflections Interactive and distributed by Atari, Inc..

The initial two Driver games are viewed as two of the best PS1 games ever (2 not as much 1), both selling more than 6 million copies and are considered as the some of the best open-world games of their time. As such, Driver 3 had a great deal of expectations to fulfill, for example an a lot greater world, a larger number of vehicles and more realistic vehicle damage than both Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City.

In any case, the game was being developed for a long time and the game’s distributer, Atari, wound up worried. The game was such a colossal cash sink, it needed to sell 4 million copies just to earn back the original investment.

Frantic to recover their investments as well as to contend with Rockstar’s up and coming Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Atari chose the best course of action would be to release the game incomplete, a move that they had pulled before for their tie-in game for The Matrix Reloaded, Enter the Matrix.

Contrasted with Enter the Matrix, be that as it may, Driv3r wasn’t as finished, nor did it have a then-prevalent motion picture movie to ride upon thus, 2 months before release, Atari gave British Publisher Future Publishing exclusive review copies to two of their magazines, Xbox World and PSM2, in return for giving the game a 9/10.

Upon Driv3r’s release and different magazines giving scores of 3-5/10, individuals who’d purchased the game and acknowledged how bad it was took it to Future’s Gamesradar forums to grumble and address why the two magazines gave such high scores. Future, in shock at seeing this kickback, began erasing all threads.

Amid this time, Atari themselves were confronting allegations from irate purchasers, thus contracted a PR/QA group called Babel Media to post counterfeit positive reviews on numerous sites just as make sock accounts on Future’s forums, defending the game. Upon the revelation by a moderator of two specific clients being fake accounts, they dubiously conceded working for Babel however denied being paid by Atari to defend the game. Future’s reaction this time was to totally wipe each thread referencing Driv3rgate.

Regardless of the underlying publicity on account of the early reviews, Driv3r sold 750,000 copies worldwide and turned into an immense money related misfortune that Atari could never recoup from.

Atari would inevitably sell both designer Reflections and the Driver establishment to Ubisoft in 2006 (while at long last conceding Driv3r was deliberately discharged incomplete) and in the long run having its backups Atari, Inc. and Atari Interactive declaring financial bankruptcy in 2013 in an attempt to sell off from the profit losing Atari SA, which didn’t work, and both companies emerged from bankruptcy a year later, still owned by Atari SA.

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Published by Who Cares?

Just a random individual among many others

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