Why do some think gaming journalism is corrupt?

[Saucycarpdog]

Having read a 20 pages of the Zoe quin thread(I count that an achievement), I have seen many accuse gaming journalism of being corrupt with shady backroom bribes and deals. But why?

Apart from that Doritos gate thing a while back(which I thought was just a shitty ad campaign) I have seen no evidence that verifies these accusations. The only thing I have seen is people disagreeing with reviews of certain games or that game previews are bribery and using that as "evidence" of corruption. That sounds more like opinions than evidence.

I have met a couple gaming journalists before and all of them were cool dudes who took their job very seriously. Maybe you've seen one bad egg, but that doesn't mean the whole network of journalists are corrupt.

Captcha: Who's there?

Damn it captcha I didn't say knock knock yet. Now I have to start over.

 

[tippy2k2]

Let me start this off by saying that I don't believe game journalism is corrupt. Taking a stack of cash for a good review on a website doesn't make sense for either the Publisher (bribing everyone is going to get expensive) or the Reviewer (credibility will sink your site and you'd have to find a Publisher willing to play ball; see 3 words earlier).

With that said, I can see why people might think it and it is indirectly a problem.

Game Journalists get a LOT of free shit. Like....a LOT a lot of free shit. The games are free from the Publisher. They get flown out to "special events" where they get more free shit. Publisher PR crews send out free shit to journalists.

Along with that, the Publishers have all of the power in this relationship (It's similar to the movie theaters and the movie makers relationship). While a Reviewer could go independent and buy all their own stuff to be free of the "bribery-looking relationship" described above, most sites would die if that cut-off occurred. Also, unlike the normal press, the Publishers have no real "freedom of information" or anything like that. They tell you what they want to tell you and that's about it. Sometimes things get leaked but overall, the Publishers control the information while the Reviewers report it.

There is no direct bribery going on (or I'd like to think it's incredibly rare that you get a "Kane & Lynch" fiasco) but I can see why it begins to look shady to some people when the two parties are nuzzled so close to one another.

 

[Ironshroom]

People consider GJ's corrupt because they think that people should have no involvement with the people they work with. Simply talking to someone in your industry is a heinous crime. Having friends in your industry makes you corrupt. Simple as that.

Seriously, a lot of people don't appear to understand that the games industry isn't as separate as they believe it to be. People talk and when they have a mutual interest, they often become friends. Because that's how being social works.

Honestly, this is ridiculous. If the internet wants to decide who I can and cannot be friends with, I don't know what the hell I'm doing my job for.

 

[EternallyBored]

The general belief comes from a few places. The games review industry is very small and interconnected compared to other review industries, and has a number of very close connections to the actual developers, compared to movie or book critics critics whom, outside the most famous, generally aren't as close to writers and directors as their game counterparts.

It's a combination of other small events that produces this view, things like that Gamespot reviewer who was fired over the Kane & Lynch review, or the stories of major companies like Activision throwing lavish review parties for the major industry critics, where the newest Call of Duty game is seen, played and reviewed in a carefully constructed party like atmosphere.

The games critics themselves are also much more likely to be directly involved or close friends with the development studios themselves, many of the major site runners and editors have worked directly for video game developers in the past, and don't exactly hide their current friendships and relationships with current active developers.

I'd imagine some frustration comes from events like the Mass Effect 3 ending where the games journalists can often end up at odds with vocal sections of the community. It was especially bad with ME3, with many major site runners and games journalists writing articles or making videos defending Bioware and implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) telling their readers and audience to stop whining and that Bioware's artistic vision was sacrosanct. In the early days of that blow up, the biggest defender of the ending outcries was Forbes magazine, not exactly well known for its video game articles, but it did come out in defense of the ME3 fans unhappy with the ending, and called many of the actual sites harping on artistic integrity to task for setting a standard of critique that didn't exist in any other entertainment medium. Many gamers became antagonistic towards games commenters after that fiasco.

There are also points about how we are supposed to trust reviewers whose income often comes from putting ads on their site of the very games they are supposed to be telling us whether we should be buying or not.

Other events like Microsoft attempting to pay Youtube reviewers to talk positively about the Xbox 1 don't help either.

There is also a larger trend in American society to criticize journalism in general, as many people feel like the news and reporting have been hijacked by corporate interests. I'll let John Oliver give you the comedic overview of the basics:

Spoiler

There is a lot of paranoia and hyperbole being tossed around, some of it justified, and a lot of it not so much.

The games journalism industry is unfortunately not the most transparent out there, so that makes it hard to judge just how much corruption is in the industry. The actual incidences don't paint the rosiest picture, even if the conspiracy theories are probably kind of overblown, there is definitely still some degree of corruption, nepotism, and unethical practices going around in this industry.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Because it's easier than believing that games journalists are just as fallible as we are. They're just as susceptible to hype and have to quickly make impressions of a game to meet deadlines. They're not given the time most of us need for reflection and, lets be honest, there are plenty who just aren't terribly great at their jobs.

 

[alphamalet]

I'll take a crack at why I think game "journalism" is both incompetent and corrupt.

1) How many of these "journalists" actually have a degree in journalism? How many have been formally educated on the code of ethics and practices relevant to reporting fairly and accurately? Very few. How many actually have journalistic experience outside of these video game media outlets? Even fewer.

2) At what point does it become a conflict of interest to depend on ad revenue of material that you are supposed to be critiquing? We all know what happened to Jeff Gerttsman when he dared score a game advertising on his website poorly.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...urnalist-lost-his-job-over-a-negative-review/

3) The game publishers hold all of the cards. ALL OF THEM. You're going to write a bad review of our game? We're pulling back advertising! You're going to write a lot of bad reviews? We're blacklisting the site or the person writing them (which Konami did to Jim Sterling)! Want to publish a review? Agree to an embargo that potentially restricts your ability to inform the consumer of a poor product prior to its release. Want to come to our events? Play nice with us and don't ask us hard questions.

I have a test for all of you: find me three instances where a game "journalist" has sat down with a developer or a publisher representative and asked them a series of hardball questions. THAT NEVER HAPPENS! EVER! Ask yourself why that is. It's not too hard to find an actual journalist in the news media giving a politician a tough interview. All you get from the game media is bullshit like this:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/14/why-do-people-hate-ea

4) There is no fucking accountability when these "journalists" throw a basic vetting process out the window before they report on a story that proves to be absolutely false.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/06/09/the-last-guardian-an-apology
http://kotaku.com/5927645/rumor-final-fantasy-versus-xiii-is-dead The first few paragraphs were what was originally posted without the word "rumor".


So yeah, I'd say there are a hell of a lot of problems with "game journalism", and I haven't even touched on the special kickbacks that they receive for attending private conferences and reviewing certain games. If game journalism wants to actually be taken seriously, then they need to staff people with an actual education, hold publishers far more accountable for what they do, and divorce themselves from their dependence on publishers.

 

[T_ConX]

One of the most life-relevant things I remember from High School Drama was the importance of preserving the illusion. See, when you're watching a play, you want to believe that what your watching is real. You know it's all fake; that the actors are simply pretending to be these characters, that the setting is simply a facade, that the unfortunate murder victim is quite alive.

But there's also a part of you that needs to believe that what your watching is real, which means that the production has to maintain a certain level of illusion. If an actor suddenly goes out of character, or part of the set breaks, or the corpse suddenly sneezes, then the illusion, the whole illusion, is broken.

And that's what happens to the Game Journalism Community every time there's a scandal about 'paid reviews'. We get a brief glimpse of the man behind the curtain and we suddenly start to question everything. It certainly never ended with Jeff Gerstmann. Between events likeThe Redner Group threatening review sites over bad press for Duke Nukem Forever, or EA trying to screen BF3 reviewers, major publishers repetitively have demonstrated their desire to turn gaming's Fourth Estate into another arm of their marketing divisions.

Do I have to post the picture? I guess I'm posting the picture...



Journalism is supposed to be a check on power, but all that comes to mind when I see this picture is a cop being paid to look the other way, and I can't blame him. Between the game publishers buying ads, and me blocking those ads with an ad-blocker, it's kind of obvious where Geoff's loyalty should be.

And now we have Zoe Quinn...

Zoe Quinn cheated on her boyfriend...

That's just her own moral failing. I'm certainly allowed to judge her as a person based on this, but I can't see how this affects her games.

...with five guys (hence her new nickname, Burgers and Fries)...

Ok, so she's a serial cheater with no sense of shame. Still not affecting the games.

...one of whom is her boss, who is married...

That's just unprofessional, but that's their drama to deal with. Also, shame on that guy for cheating on his wife.

...and another was a games journalist...

And this is where it becomes a problem. Game Journalists are supposed to be a check on the industry. They are supposed to call out the failings, shortcomings, and deceptions of the industry, whether they be major publishers or indie developers. To discover that one of them was LITERALLY in bed with a developer forces me to question the journalistic integrity of both Nathan Grayson and Kotaku (I'm partially kidding here. Kotaku? Integrity? HAHAHA!).

And the worst part is that the rest of Gaming Journalism is either regarding this as a non-issue, or just outright ignoring it. MovieBob doesn't care. Neither does Daniel Floyd. I'm seriously starting to think it might be a lot more than just five guys. Imagine if we found out that EA sent some prostitutes to Jim Sterling's hotel room during E3, and the entire world of game journalism just brushed it off as a non-issue. Nothing to see here folks. No conflict of interest here!


Nearly half a million people have watched this video. Someone in a position of power is going to have to answer for this, preferably with more than a shrug off.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

More often than not, the corruption I see comes from fans screaming about a game's score--be it too low or too high. That stuff gets toxic quick.

Of course there are reviewers and journalists out there who tend to go a bit higher on a review score because of being friends with a developer, or they got a free something or another, but as for the entire field being like that? No, I don't think so.

 

[SoranMBane]

I don't think game journalists are necessarily corrupt, but they do tend to be very unprofessional. Most of them are barely even "journalists"; more decent pundits and pop culture commentators at best, or an unofficial and unwitting arm of the publisher's marketing division at worst. None of them (that I'm aware of) have any real journalistic training or experience. They only ask the most meaningless, non-challenging questions when "interviewing" developers. They write "news articles" as if they were personal blog posts. They regularly take free gifts and ad revenue from the very people they're supposed to be holding accountable and whose products they're supposed to be critiquing.

Again, I don't think they're necessarily corrupt. I'm sure some are, but the genuinely corrupt game journalists are almost certainly in a minority to the people who just really like games and thought it would be great to write about them for a living, but wound up getting in over their heads because they didn't have the knowledge, experience, or discipline to properly do the job that a journalist is supposed to do. They're simply untrustworthy, whether they're malicious or not.

 

[TheGamerElite33]

Absolutely they are. most of journalist are corrupt and promote casual mainstream games instead of quality games.

 

[mrdude2010]

Well, Jeff Gerstmann was fired from Gamespot because he gave a bad review to a terrible game(seriously, his review score was high at around 6 compared to other reviewers) because that game publisher purchased a lot of advertising from that site. That's pretty corrupt if you ask me. You'll notice that a lot of the time, the score has absolutely nothing to do with the reviewer comments, but rather how popular a particular franchise or publisher is. You'll hear a reviewer sing the praises of "Call of Juarez: Gunslinger," which got a 7.5 from IGN despite the only problem with it really being that ridiculous duel mechanic, then read about how CoD: MW3 has a "muddled narrative," and "at times frustrating design," yet it still somehow managed to receive a 9. Since few people tend to take the time to actually thoroughly read a selection of interviews, that score may be all they ever see of it, and it may be enough to convince them not to pick it up. Pretty corrupt if you ask me.

 

[nevarran]

Because they depend too much on the good will of publishers/developers.
Do you want an invite to the next preview event? Do you want an interview with the devs during E3? Do you want permission to do reviews before everyone else? Do you want free games and other goodies? Do you want some juicy ads on your site? Well, you know what to do...

 

[Comocat]

I'm not sure if corrupt is the best word. Gaming journalism is more or less tabloid journalism. By that I mean the journalists write about what developers/publishers tell them. If you make a developer mad they are not going to invite you to there press events and you subsequently are not going to have anything to write about. In the real world if you piss someone off they leak that your wife is a spy (Bush) or they try to arrest you to reveal whistle blowers (Obama).

Unlike real journalism, the FOIA (freedom of information act) does not really apply to private game companies about why certain games have dlc or whether they will go f2p, so conjecture is the best we can do. Companies have all the power because they control the information. The link below does a good job outlining how Maxis did damage control on the SimCity launch through the control of information.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/22/the-power-of-silence-why-the-simcity-story-went-away/

One of the most recent "news" posts on the Escapist this morning is about "Pathfinder" and how "they don't care about numbers, just players." You honestly expect me to believe a company has no concern for the money they make? That's not journalism, it's a press release for the company.

I can think of a few other instances, like providing access early review copies and interviews, but I think this post is long enough.

 

[josemlopes]

I dont feel that it is exactly corrupt, like some sort of big plan by the publisher to have them on their leash, but I do feel that it is incredibly immature and unprofessional. There have been a lot of example in these posts, stuff that once in a while makes me wonder why the fuck do I even bother coming to gaming news websites.

One of the most recent "news" posts on the Escapist this morning is about "Pathfinder" and how "they don't care about numbers, just players." You honestly expect me to believe a company has no concern for the money they make? That's not journalism, it's a press release for the company.

Remember that one article that the writter was bashing other MMOs and praising this new one because it did things differently and right this time, etc, etc... only for the last final lines be him saying that he is part of the development team of that new MMO. The article showed up as if it was written by some random Escapist staff member without any indication that it wasnt with the exception of the last lines.

I dont remember the name of the article but a lot of people didnt like it and they never pulled anything as bad as that if I remember correctly.

 

[ThreeName]

Because it obviously is, and to think anything else is intolerably naive?

You have to dance in line if you want access to anything that people want.

Also have you forgotten about the Kane and Lynch/Gamespot fiasco already?

 

[Megalodon]

What about stuff such as what Greg Tito said in the Zoe Quinn thread?

The Escapist ran a story about Quinn's harassment in late 2013 with little evidence other than her word. We will always default towards helping out people who are the subject of harassment on the internet. I do not support behavior of that kind and will strive to protect those who are feeling the effects of it. We will signal-boost those incidents because I think it's important to create change, and will only choose not to post such stories if I decide they will do more harm to the situation.

Here we have solid confirmation that the site's agenda is more important than the truth. Admittedly not exactly corruption, but it has a similar outcome. Extremely poor journalism.

For the record, I'm not saying that supporting those who are the subject of legitimate harassment is bad/wrong, only that the truth of such claims should be established before being they are reported as accurate.

 

[Cronenberg1]

One of the most life-relevant things I remember from High School Drama was the importance of preserving the illusion. See, when you're watching a play, you want to believe that what your watching is real. You know it's all fake; that the actors are simply pretending to be these characters, that the setting is simply a facade, that the unfortunate murder victim is quite alive.

But there's also a part of you that needs to believe that what your watching is real, which means that the production has to maintain a certain level of illusion. If an actor suddenly goes out of character, or part of the set breaks, or the corpse suddenly sneezes, then the illusion, the whole illusion, is broken.

And that's what happens to the Game Journalism Community every time there's a scandal about 'paid reviews'. We get a brief glimpse of the man behind the curtain and we suddenly start to question everything. It certainly never ended with Jeff Gerstmann. Between events likeThe Redner Group threatening review sites over bad press for Duke Nukem Forever, or EA trying to screen BF3 reviewers, major publishers repetitively have demonstrated their desire to turn gaming's Fourth Estate into another arm of their marketing divisions.

Do I have to post the picture? I guess I'm posting the picture...



Journalism is supposed to be a check on power, but all that comes to mind when I see this picture is a cop being paid to look the other way, and I can't blame him. Between the game publishers buying ads, and me blocking those ads with an ad-blocker, it's kind of obvious where Geoff's loyalty should be.

And now we have Zoe Quinn...

Zoe Quinn cheated on her boyfriend...

That's just her own moral failing. I'm certainly allowed to judge her as a person based on this, but I can't see how this affects her games.

...with five guys (hence her new nickname, Burgers and Fries)...

Ok, so she's a serial cheater with no sense of shame. Still not affecting the games.

...one of whom is her boss, who is married...

That's just unprofessional, but that's their drama to deal with. Also, shame on that guy for cheating on his wife.

...and another was a games journalist...

And this is where it becomes a problem. Game Journalists are supposed to be a check on the industry. They are supposed to call out the failings, shortcomings, and deceptions of the industry, whether they be major publishers or indie developers. To discover that one of them was LITERALLY in bed with a developer forces me to question the journalistic integrity of both Nathan Grayson and Kotaku (I'm partially kidding here. Kotaku? Integrity? HAHAHA!).

And the worst part is that the rest of Gaming Journalism is either regarding this as a non-issue, or just outright ignoring it. MovieBob doesn't care. Neither does Daniel Floyd. I'm seriously starting to think it might be a lot more than just five guys. Imagine if we found out that EA sent some prostitutes to Jim Sterling's hotel room during E3, and the entire world of game journalism just brushed it off as a non-issue. Nothing to see here folks. No conflict of interest here!


Nearly half a million people have watched this video. Someone in a position of power is going to have to answer for this, preferably with more than a shrug off.

Nathan Grayson never reviewed her game. What people do in there private life is none of my business and it would take much more then this in order to justify the violation of privacy Quinn has suffered at the hands of the internet.

 

[Nazulu]

Well most of the biggest publishers are corrupt or just against creativity. I don't even have to name them. And that kind of scum can bring many people down, even to denial, and so the whole thing is just fucked.

You're absolutely right though. No one should be assuming such things unless there is strong evidence. Unfortunately, what ThreeName appears to be true, sometimes. You're usually more popular when you agree with the mob.

 

[Kingjackl]

In light of what's been going on with the Quinn scandal, I feel like what games journalism really needs is it's own answer to Media Watch. [http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/] An independent body of professional games journos that focus on exposing media shenanigans like cover-ups, back-door deals, conflicts of interest and general lazy reporting. So long as the only ones calling journalists out on dodgy behaviour are angry forum posters and bloggers who can only get their message across through sheer numbers, journalists will be able to claim the high ground and dismiss away relevant criticism. With a regulatory body of their own peers scrutinising them, that wouldn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with the more common lazy arguments against game journalism, such as the idea of reviewers being 'paid' for good scores, or that being sent review copies is somehow bribing a reviewer as opposed to enabling them to do their job. In my ideal world, Super Media Watch Bros. would be basically a classier version of the Jimquisition, though that doesn't mean it wouldn't turn it's eye on Jim Sterling if he got caught with his trousers down, so to speak. It will strive toward agenda-free reporting of media issues and will not be beholden to any large publishers or media outlets. And, if the writer-presenter ever uttered the term "social justice warrior" on air, he would be removed from the studio, dragged before a live audience and shot.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So your basis for rebuttal is remembering only the most prominent event, and that meeting some journalists was cool... well then you certainly have all the information on the subject. If you don't want to see things then you never will, and there is no point in even talking about it.

For people who aren't religiously ignorant however there are some basics to understand, gaming press houses are a business first and foremost, their income primarily depends on game publishers and surrounding advertisers, their writers have never been trained in journalism and have no idea what a code of ethics might be, and the writers pay check will hinge on how many views they bring in, and publishers will only invite writers to special pampering events they find favourable, anyone not playing ball with publishers is blacklisted.
This of course is all a very vague circumstance that in perfect conditions wouldn't be an issue, but anyone who had their job hanging by a thread will understand that you do whatever it takes to make that money for rent, sticking to ethics is nice but they won't pay the bills.
There is also enthusiast press that just writes by mood, completely ignorant of what is going on around them and when they are being manipulated, while marketing people are expertly trained to entice that exact frame of mind.