I don't feel like going into a whole "ethics" policy, nor am I sure I particularly care.
I just find it amazing that games journalism would have to aspire to anything higher than any other entertainment journalism. If anyone wants to put themselves to a higher standard, wonderful. But even guys with ethics policies in Hollywood and music and other entertainment fields report on friends' works, and they're often sponsored by the industries, and all that stuff people are complaining about, without the conspiracy theory that there is a massive, endemic form of corruption. Hell, we've got people in Hollywood and the tech sector sounding off on game journalism while being relatively silent on the same issues in their own fields.
And I just want to say that this is really fucking stupid. Facepalming, headdesking, mind-numbingly, pants-on-head stupid.
Then again, I see games journalism as exceedingly irrelevant in the first place. They exist in a world where Lets Plays are a thing, where full video reviews exist, where you can evaluate things. The only media I think could possibly challenge them on relevance is music, with more albums being streamable on a regular basis, releases on YouTube from the band or label, often even before the album drops.
A guy--who, in the interest of disclosure, is a friend of a friend who I know a little--just released an album for free and is simply asking for donations if you like it. I've seen a few bits like this in gaming, but it's another way in which maybe music outstrips games in terms of the irrelevance of journalism. But I doubt we'll see video games go that route any time soon, so perhaps journalism is the second least relevant form of journalism.
It just doesn't strike me as something worth worrying about.
I just find it amazing that games journalism would have to aspire to anything higher than any other entertainment journalism. If anyone wants to put themselves to a higher standard, wonderful. But even guys with ethics policies in Hollywood and music and other entertainment fields report on friends' works, and they're often sponsored by the industries, and all that stuff people are complaining about, without the conspiracy theory that there is a massive, endemic form of corruption. Hell, we've got people in Hollywood and the tech sector sounding off on game journalism while being relatively silent on the same issues in their own fields.
And I just want to say that this is really fucking stupid. Facepalming, headdesking, mind-numbingly, pants-on-head stupid.
Then again, I see games journalism as exceedingly irrelevant in the first place. They exist in a world where Lets Plays are a thing, where full video reviews exist, where you can evaluate things. The only media I think could possibly challenge them on relevance is music, with more albums being streamable on a regular basis, releases on YouTube from the band or label, often even before the album drops.
A guy--who, in the interest of disclosure, is a friend of a friend who I know a little--just released an album for free and is simply asking for donations if you like it. I've seen a few bits like this in gaming, but it's another way in which maybe music outstrips games in terms of the irrelevance of journalism. But I doubt we'll see video games go that route any time soon, so perhaps journalism is the second least relevant form of journalism.
It just doesn't strike me as something worth worrying about.