Judging by the preview version and trailers, gamers and reviewers alike had high hopes for Duke Nukem Forever. Those hopes were crushed with the game's release and its failure to reach even a meta critic score of 50 (out of 100).
Adding insult to injury, the PR firm employed by 2K Games to promote the game, The Redner Group, tweeted that reviewers who had "gone too far" with their criticism of DNF will be banned forever from the company's mailing list.
"Too many went too far with their reviews," the tweets that have been removed read. "We are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom… Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews... that's completely different."
2K was quick to denounce Redner's behavior and to terminate its contract.
"2K Games does not endorse or condone the comments made by @TheRednerGroup and confirm they no longer represent our products," an official announcement by 2K reads.
The company's senior director of global PR, Markus Wilding, issued another statement to affirm the first one. "I'd like to point out that 2K Games does not endorse the comments made by Jim Redner and we can confirm that The Redner Group no longer represents our products," he said. "We have always maintained a mutually-respectful working relationship with the press and do not condone his actions in any way."
Unfortunately for 2K and its damage control attempts, Eurogamer decided to confirm publicly that they have been blacklisted by 2K games because of their reviews and that it wasn't Redner's mistake as they simply followed a standard 2K Games practice.
"I feel sorry for @TheRednerGroup today. We are blacklisted by @2KGames and it seems to be standard practice," Eurogamer operations director Tom Bramwell tweeted.
2K Games stated that they have no further comments regarding the matter following Eurogamer's accusation.