The reviews were honest. They were just about a different version

Cyberpunk 2077 released on 10 December 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia. Days earlier CD Projekt had sent reviewers the PC build — the PC build only — and required them to use publisher-supplied video rather than their own capture.

What followed was predictable. On PC the game ran and scored highly. On last-generation consoles, where millions of people were waiting for it, it ran badly enough that on 18 December Sony removed it from the PlayStation Store — for half a year, until June 2021, when it returned carrying a warning about performance. The studio apologised and offered refunds. Then came the lawsuits, consolidated into one, and a settlement of 1.85 million dollars.

Not one reviewer lied in December 2020. Every one of them honestly described the product in their hands. It simply was not the product on the shop shelf.

What interests me here is not the publisher's behaviour, which is comprehensible enough. It is the mechanics of access. The publisher decides which build the press sees, on what hardware, how many days in advance and with whose footage. Those four parameters alone are enough to steer the tone of the entire discussion without asking anyone for anything.

Hence a simple working rule I try to keep. If material arrived on special terms, the terms belong in the text: which build, which device, how much time, whose video. That is no guarantee of a good review. It is the only way to let a reader know what it is they are reading about.