The way exclusive reviews work is.....
These guys do the reviews FIRST. In order to grant an exclusive review, a company evaluates a number of things: The review scores (of the publications), and the coverage offered by the review outlet.
For example, if IGN gives a 10 and EGM (1up.com) gives a 9, IGN gets the exclusive.
If IGN gives a 9, but does all the other stuff: a 7 page review, the awesome review video, a podcast devoted to the game, etc., and EGM gives a 10, IGN once again gets the exclusive- much more coverage, and great descriptions.
If EGM said, however, we'll give GTA our cover (instead of say Socom or Splatterhouse), and we'll do tons of online stuff (like IGN), then they will get the exclusive.
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