There was some controversy around the reviewer of Civ 7 at the Norwegian site Gamer.no - maybe worth keeping in mind with Civ scores that there may be something going on between publisher and reviewers directly. As in the case with gamer.no site and they pulled their review of the game.
«This is why we are pulling our review of Civ 7»
www.gamer.no
Translation:
«Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed today that Gamer.no's review of Civilization VII is no longer available. As acting editor-in-chief, I made the decision on Friday to remove it – after we were made aware of a possible conflict of interest.
After our own evaluation, it became clear that our reviewer had – without our knowledge – entered into a separate cooperation agreement with the publisher of Civilization VII. The agreement, which went through a third party, concerned the production of sponsored content outside the website Gamer.no.
There is nothing to indicate that this separate agreement – and the content that was produced in connection with it – was connected to, or in any way influenced, the review that was published on Gamer.no. We also do not believe that the agreement was deliberately kept secret, but believe that the incident is instead about negligence.
Nevertheless, we recognize that the situation potentially violates three points of the Be Careful poster (2.2, 2.3 and 2.4).
2.2. The editor and the individual editorial staff must protect their independence, integrity and credibility. Avoid dual roles, positions, assignments or ties that may create conflicts of interest or lead to speculation about disqualification.
2.3. Show openness about underlying circumstances that may be relevant to the public's perception of the journalistic content.
2.4. Editorial staff must not exploit their position to obtain private benefits, including receiving money, goods or services, which may be perceived as compensation from outsiders for editorial services.
Our review was in no way included in the third-party agreement. The fact that it could potentially be perceived as such is the reason why we are removing it anyway. Trust from our readers and credibility remain very important to Gamer.no. That is also why we have chosen to be open about this process.
Again, I would like to emphasize that our writer has, by all accounts, only been careless here. To avoid suspicions of foul play, both now and in the future, we choose to be extra cautious.
We will also review our procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.»
