companies go to great efforts to increase metacritic points, as highly reviewed games get more attention. cutting out a reviewer who has the ability to drop games scores by actually using the full scale and not bowing to manufactured prestige is probably much cheaper than throwing fancy events and buttering them up with pr or buying them a vanity documentary
Sure, but ignoring him in regards to embargo's isnt really going to change that. Seems like they are "letting him know what's up", from the outside looking in. Kind of like a play ball or else.