Did that last bit void the warranty?
All jokes aside, I have to respectfully disagree here. A lot of the critics of the gaming media, myself included, view it as being institutionally corrupt, with the exceptions standing out from the crowd, rather than being the rule. It *IS* a valid point that a games reviewer who puts out a regular feature is likely to not be able to afford all the latest games and hardware out of what they are paid. However that in of itself is a part of why it's become institutionally corrupt, games reviewers, and arguably the people who hire them, are not independent of the industry they are supposed to critique. The publishers tend to rely on advertising from the companies they are supposed to be watchdogging in order to stay afloat, leading to things like the Gerstman "Kane and Lynch" scandal, and the reviewers themselves are dependent on the industry to do their thing. Something which arguably means that the industry can control the narrative by deciding who does and does not get the materials to be a reviewer, as well as effectively bankrolling the people who are paying them.
At the end of the day being a games reviewer is a relatively cushy job. Games reviewers will go off about schedules, and not simply sitting around paying games for fun. It's true that once your given a time limit and requirements it can suck a lot of the fun out of everything, but at the same time a professional game reviewer gets to work outside of their own home, generally does not have to commute, and while there is stress it is nothing compared to what an ordinary person deals with on the job, not to mention the complete lack of physical risk. To put it comparatively having worked 10 years as Casino security which was an okay job (especially in the beginning) and having worked as an EVS attendant before that (basically a Janitor) and then done jobs working fast food, panning doughnuts for a bake shop, as a clerk at Toys R Us, and similar things, a game reviewer has it bloody good, that is how life is for most normal people. What's more professional games reviewers on the level we're talking about get trotted out once or twice a year, and pretty much get to be part of a global celebration, as gaming companies come out and try and wow them at things like E3 and the like, which is something us plebes aren't likely to even attend. Do you think I ever got anything like that working Casino security? Nope, instead I got to sit around and basically help run/secure that kind of event for people (albeit not gaming related, but various kind of shows for various industries), critics and the like might say attending such show is not "fun" and is still "working" but as someone who actually worked and got to see the whole thing, all I can do is laugh.
Now do NOT misunderstand this, the point isn't bitterness over someone having it better than I did (where I am now is pretty pathetic, so I won't go into that), it's a matter of putting this into perspective, and where a lot of the hatred is coming from. The entire gaming media system is effectively broken in being able to do what it does. The game reviewers and publishers are both basically beholden to the industry in their own way. Whether it's a tool or not, the bottom line is your looking at a cushy perk viewed with envy by people who can't drop $400 right now, and even if they could might not even be able to find console to buy, combined with some over the top grandstanding.
Now, I would be remiss in writing a post this size without pointing out the problems with the gaming media without pointing to the solution as I see it. I believe publishers should ultimately only accept advertising from products outside the sphere of what they are providing reviews of. A site related to internet gaming should not be advertising or accepting money from companies producing video games. Related products are of course okay, hardware manufacturers, snack food producers, and similar things are the kinds of advertising that should be accepted and would be okay. What's more the producers should be the ones to provide the review materials, which might very well mean having say a company PS-4 or two and then having the reviewers come in and punch a clock like a normal person and play a game in a cubicle. Media events and the attendance thereof pretty much shouldn't happen. Rather a company should release their games to the public and then the reviewers go to work. This would of course mean gaming companies would not see their profits a few days after release, or even beforehand, they would also become more dependent on the quality of the actual release, not a demo or "press copy" released ahead of time so reviews could drum up hype for a product.
Speaking for myself there are only a scant handful of fairly well known reviewers and game critics I trust and take seriously. I still frequent The Escapist so you can make a guess where some of them are. For the most part when I look to reviews I increasingly look at not-for-profit micro reviewers that give their take on a game after it's release. Either that or user criticisms, which frankly are becoming harder to take seriously due to the number of message board shills being used nowadays (some of which have admitted having been in that "profession")
Such are my thoughts, and I think they are similar to a lot of the people that are so upset about this. The thing is that your seeing a situation where game reviewers are becoming less watchdogs, and more very minor celebrities, seeing someone who is already E-famous being handed swag bags full of gaming stuff, whether they need it "professionally" or not, and going to these events, makes people VERY, VERY, wary when their comfort, and success is directly tied to the good graces of the people they are supposed to be critical of.
