On Thursday of last week, thesixthaxis.com posted a negative review for NBA 2K18. Shortly after, 2K asked them to remove it, and they did. Apparently, the negative score was in regards to Virtual Currency being too large a factor in the game and leading too heavily to microtransactions – a well known grievance by fans. However, that wasn’t the story that drew attention to NBA 2K18; it was the fact that a single request to take down a negative review was all it took to remove a single poor review.

We would like to state outright that thesixthaxis has stuck to their original score of 3/10, but we would like to also fairly point out that this was only after NeoGAF and Reddit had drawn considerable attention to the fact that they had removed the score. An editor for the site, Stefan L, addressed in a letter what had happened, but we still find it confusing that the review was taken down at all, no matter what 2K’s complaints may have been. While Stefan makes many valid points about poor wording, what seems the larger issue is that a critic – whose sole job is to criticize games – can be negated by a single call from a publisher.

We’re not sure that’s how a review works. A gaming experience isn’t something that can be explained and rationalized, and we aren’t sure what 2K could possibly say that would change a negative experience into a positive one. After all, the experience already happened. The complaints about microtransactions were and still are a part of the game. However, the larger issue is that this is one more example of something gamers are all too familiar with, which is a system that seems corrupt.

A few months ago, VideogameDunkey gave a scathing review of critics that touched on many valid points, the ability for the publisher to seemingly dictate a score a central issue. There just seems something inherently at issue with a publisher not only having the power of creation and distribution but of reception. Even if 2K did not pressure thesixthaxis – and they are quick to say they were not pressured – it says something that 2K saw no issue with asking for a negative review of NBA 2K18 to be removed, and then that it was complied with.

The only reason this incident was even noticed was because of the attentive gamers at NeoGAF and Reddit. It seems that gamers and voices can protest the broken system as much as they like, but until the community forces a reaction, we can expect more of the same.