11 ms·

This is really par for the course with anything involving games media. The studios who can afford work their butts off to control the narrative, and reviewers w

This is really par for the course with anything involving games media. The studios who can afford work their butts off to control the narrative, and reviewers who go against the grain quickly lose preview access. The bribes aren't cash. They'll fly you to a hotel to play, carter the whole weekend, give speeches about the game. And send you home with a lot of swag. Also these function as industry events since so many reviewers are there. You also sign an NDA about the event because it would be trouble some if the public got word how this systems works. I guess we should be shocked it was a raw cash deal, but that's just the next logical step. Generally you can't assume a game review is fair unless it was produced post release.

k-mcgrady 10y ago
The problem is integrity. None of these reviewers have it. In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion. Unfortunately if these one man YouTube reviewers did give an honest review the company wouldn't work with them again and some other YouTube star enjoying their 15 mins of fame would do it instead.
- valarauca1 10y ago
  >The problem is integrity Not really. The issue is market size. So many wanna be reviewers will happily sell out for 15minutes of fame. Changing/discarding people is commonly done by the audience AND reviewers at a whim. Furthermore game sales are done as impulse buys on the strength of a franchise, or studio. Look at the market for pre-orders. People don't purchase escapism rationally, as escapism isn't a rational experience. Demanding integrity out of this system is the battle cry of naive. Studio's don't allow, profit motive doesn't push for it, and those demanding it are a minority. The only choice is to stop buying games by large publishers period. If you don't have the integrity to do this, you aren't in a position to demand it from others.
  - Angostura 10y ago
    So ... the problem integrity. No one ever said that the problem was easy
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  But how many of these people really pass as journalists? I don't see people like PewDiePie as a journalist anymore than I see Quill18 as a journalist. I just want their LPs and enjoy their silly antics. I don't buy the game based on their opinions but more on my opinion of how much fun it seems from my POV. If there's no fun IMO I just skip the game or only get it while it's on sale on Steam. Hell, I'll go as far as to say these sorts of "reviewers" saved me more money than the old fashioned magazine/TV show reviewers have on games. So I don't even bother with traditional reviews as is since LPs tell me more about a game than a review ever could. It's why I stopped going to Polygon for reviews because honestly reviews just don't cover enough to give me an idea what the game is about or how it plays. When I watch say Quill18 play HoI4 or Civ5 I get more information on the game than he can ever give me if he was tasked with writing a review of the game post-LP. Edit [Major addition, lol]: Also where the heck do you folks get the idea that PewDiePie is a 'reviewer' from? I'm like sorta floored by this still. And after watching a video response by him it seems he's in the legal right here. Before the FTC even had regulations for this, he was disclosing in the description of the video but it wasn't at the top of the description. Now he does both the description disclosure AND a mention of sponsorship BEFORE the LP. And it's not uncommon for the same thing to happen in the Paradox LP community (Arumba has mentioned at least one time in an LP that he was flown out and/or sponsored for the LP of a Paradox game which I think was HoI4). So, I'm not really keen to bite this click bait crap. Frankly, I think the Verge should edit this article with a major correction at the top of the article stating the promotional videos were done prior to FTC and YT/Google regulations existed on the matter.
  - qbrass 10y ago
    >Also where the heck do you folks get the idea that PewDiePie is a 'reviewer' from? I'm like sorta floored by this still. "You folks" are the millions of teenagers who don't know any better. The people who expect youtubers to be corporate shills aren't normally the people who actually watch them.
    - norea-armozel 10y ago
      You clearly don't know PewDiePie's audience otherwise you wouldn't talk that way. Can you show me what actual harm is done by a sponsored LP does to kids who wind up being out of a few bucks from renting it at Redbox for their PS4/XB1? I'm all ears.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  > In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion I don't know if this is now or has ever been the case.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion. Certainly, in the past, doing this for reviewers of other commercial products (as well as outright tying of ad purchases to favorable reviews) has been distressingly common; the general corruption of the entire system of commercially-published reviews of commercially-significant products is the reason things like Consumer Reports exist as an alternative to traditional commercially-published reviews.
  - Fej 10y ago
    Does Consumer Reports have any biases? I know about all of their claims of objectivity. Wondering if they work completely in practice.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Does Consumer Reports have any biases? Since its made of people, obviously. What it doesn't have is biases from people either buying stuff for reviewers or using advertising dollars as leverage to encourage better reviews.

k-mcgrady 10y ago

The problem is integrity. None of these reviewers have it. In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion. Unfortunately if these one man YouTube reviewers did give an honest review the company wouldn't work with them again and some other YouTube star enjoying their 15 mins of fame would do it instead.

valarauca1 10y ago
>The problem is integrity Not really. The issue is market size. So many wanna be reviewers will happily sell out for 15minutes of fame. Changing/discarding people is commonly done by the audience AND reviewers at a whim. Furthermore game sales are done as impulse buys on the strength of a franchise, or studio. Look at the market for pre-orders. People don't purchase escapism rationally, as escapism isn't a rational experience. Demanding integrity out of this system is the battle cry of naive. Studio's don't allow, profit motive doesn't push for it, and those demanding it are a minority. The only choice is to stop buying games by large publishers period. If you don't have the integrity to do this, you aren't in a position to demand it from others.
- Angostura 10y ago
  So ... the problem integrity. No one ever said that the problem was easy
norea-armozel 10y ago
But how many of these people really pass as journalists? I don't see people like PewDiePie as a journalist anymore than I see Quill18 as a journalist. I just want their LPs and enjoy their silly antics. I don't buy the game based on their opinions but more on my opinion of how much fun it seems from my POV. If there's no fun IMO I just skip the game or only get it while it's on sale on Steam. Hell, I'll go as far as to say these sorts of "reviewers" saved me more money than the old fashioned magazine/TV show reviewers have on games. So I don't even bother with traditional reviews as is since LPs tell me more about a game than a review ever could. It's why I stopped going to Polygon for reviews because honestly reviews just don't cover enough to give me an idea what the game is about or how it plays. When I watch say Quill18 play HoI4 or Civ5 I get more information on the game than he can ever give me if he was tasked with writing a review of the game post-LP. Edit [Major addition, lol]: Also where the heck do you folks get the idea that PewDiePie is a 'reviewer' from? I'm like sorta floored by this still. And after watching a video response by him it seems he's in the legal right here. Before the FTC even had regulations for this, he was disclosing in the description of the video but it wasn't at the top of the description. Now he does both the description disclosure AND a mention of sponsorship BEFORE the LP. And it's not uncommon for the same thing to happen in the Paradox LP community (Arumba has mentioned at least one time in an LP that he was flown out and/or sponsored for the LP of a Paradox game which I think was HoI4). So, I'm not really keen to bite this click bait crap. Frankly, I think the Verge should edit this article with a major correction at the top of the article stating the promotional videos were done prior to FTC and YT/Google regulations existed on the matter.
- qbrass 10y ago
  >Also where the heck do you folks get the idea that PewDiePie is a 'reviewer' from? I'm like sorta floored by this still. "You folks" are the millions of teenagers who don't know any better. The people who expect youtubers to be corporate shills aren't normally the people who actually watch them.
  - norea-armozel 10y ago
    You clearly don't know PewDiePie's audience otherwise you wouldn't talk that way. Can you show me what actual harm is done by a sponsored LP does to kids who wind up being out of a few bucks from renting it at Redbox for their PS4/XB1? I'm all ears.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion I don't know if this is now or has ever been the case.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> In the past journalists either would not have accepted that kind of treatment from the companies they were reviewing or they would not let it sway their opinion. Certainly, in the past, doing this for reviewers of other commercial products (as well as outright tying of ad purchases to favorable reviews) has been distressingly common; the general corruption of the entire system of commercially-published reviews of commercially-significant products is the reason things like Consumer Reports exist as an alternative to traditional commercially-published reviews.
- Fej 10y ago
  Does Consumer Reports have any biases? I know about all of their claims of objectivity. Wondering if they work completely in practice.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Does Consumer Reports have any biases? Since its made of people, obviously. What it doesn't have is biases from people either buying stuff for reviewers or using advertising dollars as leverage to encourage better reviews.