Glu denies score-fixing after leaked email creates controversy

Here's one. Yesterday, mobile games blog Mobile Games Blog published a rather incriminating email sent by an unidentified Glu territory manager to an unidentified journalist. It reads.

Ahoj xxxx,

I'm territory manager for XXX at Glu Mobile and YYY is Marketing Manager for the same region. We will be happy to support you with Race Driver Grid and all other hits we have, however I need to admit we need to accept any reviews you made. I mean we will not review every word or give you any advise what to write, but we will not allow publishing these reviews with low points given to our titles (for example less than 8/10).

Hope you are fine with this only one restriction and can understand it. Anyway just let us know which materials you need exactly and we will provide you with it (phone model for testing games, screens, promo text?).

Many greetings,
XXX
territory manager XXX
glu mobile
mob: XXX
http://www.glu.com
get glu'd to mobile entertainment.

Wow.

This kind of thing isn't entirely new, of course. In the wider console world Eidos and Gamespot both received criticism last year after editor Jeff Gerstmann was apparently sacked for giving a negative review to Kane & Lynch, a game that Eidos was paying Gamespot to advertise.

Controversy over relationships between publishers and journalists is never far from the blogosphere, as our own The Bee explored in his column about a bizarre press trip in which Konami paid for several journalists to preview PS3 game Metal Gear Solid 4 at a luxury retreat in Japan. Konami labelled them 'consultants' to keep the stink off.

It's inevitable. Publishers need to make money, and to them a website or magazine is a viable marketing channel. Nobody blames them for that. However, publishers also recognise that integrity is important – if a publication loses integrity, it loses its potency as an advertising platform, along with its readers and any writers worth their salt.

That's why this is news: it's very unusual. Publishers - Glu included - simply never make demands like that, at least not to us. If they did, it would be the emails we received that we'd be running news stories about, rather than ones written by misguided operatives in what we assume is the Czech Republic (the clues are there).

We contacted Glu for comment.

"It is not Glu's practice to manipulate review scores of our games. We respect the editorial integrity of the media, and we value the objectivity they bring to the industry and our games."