The stupidest PR person in history

We all know that PR people want to do everything within their power to secure good reviews for the games they represent. And we know that Metacritic scores have an unduly, almost ridiculously, important meaning for videogame publishers and developers. We also know that some fan pubications websites are, shall we say, easily influenced by videogame companies and their PR people who hold the keys to the screenshots, interviews, etc. they so desperately need.

Nonetheless, you can't blatantly admit what your goals are. That's rule no. 1 of PR flackery. Which is why it's amazing that someone at Eidos' British PR firm Barringon Harvey said the following to Videogaming247 after one journalist Twittered that they were being instructed not to post a review of "Tomb Raider: Underworld" with a score lower than 8 before Monday:

Just that we’re trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that’s handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don’t put people off buying the game, basically.

I've got to assume this "spokesperson" didn't realize they were speaking to a journalist on-the-record. But still, unless you're in some closed door meeting with marketing folks, this is the kind of thing you just don't want to discuss. Anyone who knows anything about the videogame press could have predicted what happened next: A Kotaku post with the somewhat inflammatory headline "Eidos trying to fix Tomb Raider: Underworld scores" and a sh*tstorm of comments all over the web. And there's a chance this could become the thing people remember about "Tomb Raider: Underworld," much like people still talk about the GameSpot debacle whenever the unfairly maligned "Kane and Lynch" comes up.

One of Barrington Harvey's director later issued a statement to VG247 stating that the embargo was Wednesday for everyone and they never would try to change a reviewer's score. But I suspect that's not going to be the headline people are finding in Google, or the topic thread for many message board conversations.