It all started when website IGN US posted a Football Manager 2009 review and awarder it a score of 2 out of 10, even though their UK siblings awarded the game a more understandable 9.1/10. Apparently the US reviewer didn’t know too much about FM or the management sim genre either – or just played the game for25 seconds, since he wrote: “I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.” Which is like saying “you should not play Diablo 2 because in Starcraft you can control more little units at the same time and order them to destroy buildings, too!”
However, the shocker came today when I went to IGN’s website to check the US reviews of FM2009: the review simply disappeared and there was no note announcing that. I can understand that IGN probably understood that the problem review was a big, huge error, but that’s not how you should deal with your mistakes. And this will probably hurt IGN big time – or most likely just the reviewer who posted.
Meanwhile, you can go check our own Football Manager 2009 review.
Update: IGN US has posted an “excuse message” instead of the removed review. “We missed the mark — that’s the only way to explain why we’ve pulled the U.S. review of Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 off our site,” writes Jeremy Dunham, Games Editorial Manager and promises that a “more accurate” review will be posted soon. So… what’s your opinion on the matter?