Koch and Square Enix clarify review code policy

Koch Media has denied reports that it is blacklisting media that give Square Enix games low scores.

Spanish website AreaJugones claimed that they would no-longer be sent review code from Square Enix because they reviewed Final Fantasy XV a 7.5/10. In a conversation with Kotaku, the website's editor Juan Alberto Linares said that he had been contacted by Koch - which handles PR and marketing for Square Enix in the region - and told that: "we had scored one point less than the current average of Metacritic and that this hurt their interests as a company.

"He told me that we also almost always scored his games with lower scores than the other Spanish magazines and other Metacritic media [...] and this is not really true. If we score lower, we hurt them, so we were erased from the list of media because we were going to continue hurting them."

However, Koch Media has issued a statement to GamesIndustry.biz insisting the situation is not true, and there is no policy at Koch or Square regarding blacklisting media for low scores.

The firm said: "Following recent statement by Spanish website AreaJugoneKoch Media would like to clarify the review policy that is worked globally by the company. Koch Media does not and would never impose a blacklist or ban on any media for a review score that is based on the factual opinion of a product. Our Partner Publishers, in this case Square Enix, are not involved with conversations between local PR and media outlets nor did Square Enix request the blacklist of any outlet."