The State of Game Journalism

[DANGERMAN]

This is a topic I've moaned about to a few people recently, I don't like games 'journalism'. Don't get me wrong I'd love to do it, I'm not sure it's something I'd want to spend my entire life doing, but getting paid to write about games would be great, and it's why I'm a bit annoyed you lot haven't set up a paypal donate button to keep me here.

My problem with the journalism side of the games industry is that it's too nepotistic, too circular, and oddly insular considering it now exists almost exclusively on the net. Before I start moaning, Rab Florence of Consolvania fame, has written an article on Eurogamer today about the relationship between journalists and PR http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos

Just today, as I sat down to write this piece, I saw that there were games journalists winning PS3s on Twitter. There was a competition at those GMAs - tweet about our game and win a PS3. One of those stupid, crass things. And some games journos took part. All piling in, opening a sharing bag of Doritos, tweeting the hashtag as instructed. And today the winners were announced. Then a whole big argument happened, and other people who claim to be journalists claimed to see nothing wrong with what those so-called journalists had done. I think the winners are now giving away their PS3s, but it's too late. It's too late. Let me show you an example.

One games journalist, Lauren Wainwright, tweeted: "Urm... Trion were giving away PS3s to journalists at the GMAs. Not sure why that's a bad thing?"

Now, a few tweets earlier, she also tweeted this: "Lara header, two TR pix in the gallery and a very subtle TR background. #obsessed @tombraider pic.twitter.com/VOWDSavZ"

And instantly I am suspicious. I am suspicious of this journalist's apparent love for Tomb Raider. I am asking myself whether she's in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team. I'm sure she isn't, but the doubt is there. After all, she sees nothing wrong with journalists promoting a game to win a PS3, right?

My issue is less with journalists being bought or influenced by pr, we know it happens, we've always known it happens, and it is a problem. Mine is more that they all know each other. The industry is so heavily influenced by america that it's a massive detriment, their entire games journalism industry is located around San Francisco and LA, so much so the likes of EA, Sega (who may have since moved), and Nintendo set up shop there. We have a similar problem here with our gaming press being located either in Bath or Brighton.

What it means is, imo, everything becomes a bit homogeneous. A few of us moaned about Giant Bomb the other week, how they're quite closed to a lot of genres and styles, and they're far from the only people guilty of it. But it's not really a surprise, the core group have been working together since before this generation started, and when Patrick was added they already knew him. If Joystiq need a new writer chances are it'll be someone who's left 1up, or Gamespot

In theory there's a balance to this, if everyone sounds the same then the person who breaks out will end up doing fairly well, I guess that's where someone like RockPaperShotgun comes in. Personally I think the industry needs a kick up the arse, a shakeup, something that forced through new voices.

But that's only part of the problem, the incestuous nature of the games industry spreads out of journalism and in to developers and PR. To use Giant Bomb as an example again, I know who Brad Muir and Dave Lang are, and what their last games were. I know which episodes of The Walking Dead Gary Witta worked on, and thanks to his perennial appearances I could recognise that guy from Harmonix on the street.

Giant Bomb do sometimes have the decency to not review games their friends worked on, although they do still give them plenty of coverage (and will vote them as games of the year - Bastion and Dance Central for example). And I have to give respect here to Garnett Lee here too. For those that don't know he presents Weekend Confirmed (the best gaming podcast imo), his girlfriend used to regularly appear, however since she got a job at Sony she hasn't, and he doesn't offer an opinion on Playstation All Stars (the game she's working on).

While mentioning Garnett Lee though it would be a good point to mention the old 1up Yours podcast he used to do. On that there was Shane Bettenhausen, he was known as a Sony fanboy, slightly unfair he just seemed to like Japanese games, and as such when he was made redundant he went to Ignition as pr, thanks to his links El Shaddai got more coverage than it otherwise would have. Since then he's joined Sony, unsurprising maybe

Worse though was David Ellis, his name alone should have saved me writing everything above. Part of my problem with David Ellis is that he's the sort of targeted-cynical bellsniff that should not be reviewing anything, he'd fall over himself to write games off. The exception was the Halo series, he loved Halo, he now works at 343 making and promoting Halo. Every podcast I've listened to talk about Halo his name has been mentioned, and even in some of the videos promoting it he's appeared (fair enough the latter, that's his job after all), it's all a bit too close.

I was going to mention Idle Thumbs here, I think a couple of them worked as reviewers prior to getting developer jobs, so they'd fit my point entirely. They also heavily promote their own stuff on the podcast, but they aren't really journalists any more so maybe it's harsh to damn them for it. That and I know a few people really really like them, and I don't want my point to get lost

Mainly I'm disappointed that all the things you suspected about the journalism side of the games industry are true. I'm not sure there's an out and out Sony or Microsoft bias (outside of the official sites obviously), I think it's subtler than that, more to do with narrow tastes, but there's certainly a narrative people follow (Vita lol). That said I've seen and heard a number of journalists sneer about playing a Wii game, or even playing a big handheld game, so it definitely happens

[DANGERMAN]

'scuse the double post, but the original post is long enough without me adding an edit.

That section of Rab's article I quoted has since been removed from the article, as has the mention of another journalist (who is fairly prominent in the comments section if you want to know who he is), and as such Rab wont be writing for Eurogamer any more

Original article

There is an image doing the rounds on the internet this week. It is an image of Geoff Keighley, a Canadian games journalist, sitting dead-eyed beside a garish Halo 4 poster and a table of Mountain Dew and Doritos. It is a tragic, vulgar image. But I think that it is the most important image in games journalism today. I think we should all find it and study it. It is important.

Geoff Keighley is often described as an industry leader. A games expert. He is one of the most prominent games journalists in the world. And there he sits, right there, beside a table of snacks. He will be sitting there forever, in our minds. That's what he is now. And in a sense, it is what he always was. As Executive Producer of the mindless, horrifying spectacle that is the Spike TV Video Game Awards he oversees the delivery of a televisual table full of junk, an entire festival of cultural Doritos.

How many games journalists are sitting beside that table?

Recently, the Games Media Awards rolled around again, and games journos turned up to a thing to party with their friends in games PR. Games PR people and games journos voted for their favourite friends, and friends gave awards to friends, and everyone had a good night out. Eurogamer won an award. Kieron Gillen was named an industry legend (and if anyone is a legend in games writing, he is) but he deserves a better platform for recognition than those GMAs. The GMAs shouldn't exist. By rights, that room should be full of people who feel uncomfortable in each other's company. PR people should be looking at games journos and thinking, "That person makes my job very challenging." Why are they all best buddies? What the hell is going on?

Whenever you criticise the GMAs, as I've done in the past, you face the accusation of being "bitter". I've removed myself from those accusations somewhat by consistently making it clear that I'm not a games journalist. I'm a writer who regularly writes about games, that's all. And I've been happy for people who have been nominated for GMAs in the past, because I've known how much they wanted to be accepted by that circle. There is nothing wrong with wanting to belong, or wanting to be recognised by your peers. But it's important to ask yourself who your peers are, and exactly what it is you feel a need to belong to.

2

Just today, as I sat down to write this piece, I saw that there were games journalists winning PS3s on Twitter. There was a competition at those GMAs - tweet about our game and win a PS3. One of those stupid, crass things. And some games journos took part. All piling in, opening a sharing bag of Doritos, tweeting the hashtag as instructed. And today the winners were announced. Then a whole big argument happened, and other people who claim to be journalists claimed to see nothing wrong with what those so-called journalists had done. I think the winners are now giving away their PS3s, but it's too late. It's too late. Let me show you an example.

One games journalist, Lauren Wainwright, tweeted: "Urm... Trion were giving away PS3s to journalists at the GMAs. Not sure why that's a bad thing?"

Now, a few tweets earlier, she also tweeted this: "Lara header, two TR pix in the gallery and a very subtle TR background. #obsessed @tombraider pic.twitter.com/VOWDSavZ"

And instantly I am suspicious. I am suspicious of this journalist's apparent love for Tomb Raider. I am asking myself whether she's in the pocket of the Tomb Raider PR team. I'm sure she isn't, but the doubt is there. After all, she sees nothing wrong with journalists promoting a game to win a PS3, right?

Another journalist, one of the winners of the PS3 competition, tweeted this at disgusted RPS writer John Walker: "It was a hashtag, not an advert. Get off the pedestal." Now, this was Dave Cook, a guy I've met before. A good guy, as far as I could tell. But I don't believe for one second that Dave doesn't understand that in this time of social media madness a hashtag is just as powerful as an advert. Either he's on the defensive or he doesn't get what being a journalist is actually about.

I want to make a confession. I stalk games journalists. It's something I've always done. I keep an eye on people. I have a mental list of games journos who are the very worst of the bunch. The ones who are at every PR launch event, the ones who tweet about all the freebies they get. I am fascinated by them. I won't name them here, because it's a horrible thing to do, but I'm sure some of you will know who they are. I'm fascinated by these creatures because they are living one of the most strange existences - they are playing at being a thing that they don't understand. And if they don't understand it, how can they love it? And if they don't love it, why are they playing at being it?

3

This club, this weird club of pals and buddies that make up a fair proportion of games media, needs to be broken up somehow. They have a powerful bond, though - held together by the pressures of playing to the same audience. Games publishers and games press sources are all trying to keep you happy, and it's much easier to do that if they work together. Publishers are well aware that some of you go crazy if a new AAA title gets a crappy review score on a website, and they use that knowledge to keep the boat from rocking. Everyone has a nice easy ride if the review scores stay decent and the content of the games are never challenged. Websites get their exclusives. Ad revenue keeps rolling in. The information is controlled. Everyone stays friendly. It's a steady flow of Mountain Dew pouring from the hills of the money men, down through the fingers of the weary journos, down into your mouths. At some point you will have to stop drinking that stuff and demand something better.

Standards are important. They are hard to live up to, sure, but that's the point of them. The trouble with games journalism is that there are no standards. We expect to see Geoff Keighley sitting beside a table of s***. We expect to see the flurry of excitement when the GMAs get announced, instead of a chuckle and a roll of the eyes. We expect to see our games journos failing to get what journalistic integrity means. The brilliant writers, like John Walker for example, don't get the credit they deserve simply because they don't play the game. Indeed, John Walker gets told to get off his pedestal because he has high standards and is pointing out a worrying problem.

Geoff Keighley, meanwhile, is sitting beside a table of snacks. A table of delicious Doritos and refreshing Mountain Dew. He is, as you'll see on Wikipedia, "only one of two journalists, the other being 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace, profiled in the Harvard Business School press book 'Geeks and Geezers' by noted leadership expert Warren Bennis." Geoff Keighley is important. He is a leader in his field. He once said, "There's such a lack of investigative journalism. I wish I had more time to do more, sort of, investigation." And yet there he sits, glassy-eyed, beside a table heaving with sickly Doritos and Mountain Dew.

It's an important image. Study it.

[wholehole]

As much as I enjoy listening to the Bombcast and reading their output, along with a variety of other sources such as Kotaku, Joystiq, and Polygon, I always take anything I read with a pinch of salt. Journalism in general, not just the gaming press, still suffers from the same problems it always has and probably always will.

My main problem with games journos is the startling lack of knowledge from certain people. When listening to the Chet and Jon podcast, for example, it's startling to hear how little they actually know about games in general and I'm then supposed to read an opinion piece or review they've written? Not a chance.

[EDIT]

I noticed the section you posted didn't appear in the article when I read it. I guess it kind of highlights some of the problems.

[DANGERMAN]

it's appalling, although a nice way of proving his (and more importantly my) point

edit: oh and apparently the woman in question has written for Square Enix, publisher of... that's right, Tomb Raider!

[Sambob]

What is Florence's agenda?

[illdog]

As always, i read and applaud people's well thought out threads and replies but have nothing constructive to add myself.

I would like to say 'Fuck Ms Wainwright' though. And Rab's article seems like it should be a Jerry Maguire. Great article.

[Hendo]

For those that don't know he presents Weekend Confirmed (the best gaming podcast imo), his girlfriend used to regularly appear, however since she got a job at Sony she hasn't, and he doesn't offer an opinion on Playstation All Stars (the game she's working on).

While mentioning Garnett Lee though it would be a good point to mention the old 1up Yours podcast he used to do. On that there was Shane Bettenhausen, he was known as a Sony fanboy, slightly unfair he just seemed to like Japanese games, and as such when he was made redundant he went to Ignition as pr, thanks to his links El Shaddai got more coverage than it otherwise would have. Since then he's joined Sony, unsurprising maybe.

Both points there I would fight over. Weekend Confirmed has been terrible for a long time, it was brilliant but I really found it trying too hard to try and drum up discussions and so I've unsubscribed.

Also Bettenhausen was very clearly a Sony man, there's many many audio clips I could find to back this up if I could be arsed but it was either an immature fanboy at work, or a very clever parody at work. I always favoured the former.

Also, Idle Thumbs mention games they work on from time to time, but you get the impression that they don't especially like doing it, especially Jake Rodkin who finds it a bit distasteful.

But yeah, I've thought a lot about this subject recently and I can tell you that if that mythical Euro lottery win came in, I'd be perfectly happy paying a bunch of people here to write articles full time, on the understanding that they act entirely outside the industry. We need some kind of decent "made by gamers, for gamers" site - maybe that is RPS, I don't know, I haven't read it much.

[wholehole]

Fuck her indeed. As a journalist especially, if you can't stand by something you've said or done without getting annoyed when someone else calls you on it, you should possibly have a career rethink.

[HandsomeDead]

It's really disappointing to hear this kind of stuff happen. I'm just glad it's none of the outlets I use. I don't follow the GMAs and knew next to nothing about them so the first I heard of this was through Rab's column yesterday.

The GMAs are stupid. An award ceremony put on by publishers for the games media? That just doesn't happen anywhere else as far as I know.

There is another problem, too. It's going to be hard to root out a lot of this corruption as so many go into games journalism with the intent... well not so much intent, but with the hope of working on games themselves. It's been proven as a valid route as so many have done it. I mean, from what I gather getting into the games industry is about hiring friends so it's no surprise so much schmoozing goes on. Not not quite implying journalists are going against what they actually think of a game to impress someone at the next event, but there is some personal bias.

Take me for example. Let's say I make it big in games journalism and to get into the scene more and make my job easier I set off to live in San Francisco. I'm having a good time doing a job I love and one day I have to review Brutal Legend 2. I'd think "great, I love the original. I'll do it!" and while I'm doing that there's some press thing at Double Fine just down the road and I met Tim Schafer and shook is hand and did a joke and he laughed and he's probably gonna ask me to be the godfather of his next child, probably.

Now this isn't a bribe or anything but that probably will skewer my opinion of the game, and it's not really intentional, it's just an affect of my personal opinion of Double Fine games + a close proximity to Double Fine + me wishing Tim will turn around, grab my fat cheeks and demand I work for him.

And it does happen as that's pretty much what happened with Anthony Birch from Destructoid and Randy Pitchhford... or at least that's how I imagine it happened.

[DANGERMAN]

For those that don't know he presents Weekend Confirmed (the best gaming podcast imo), his girlfriend used to regularly appear, however since she got a job at Sony she hasn't, and he doesn't offer an opinion on Playstation All Stars (the game she's working on).

While mentioning Garnett Lee though it would be a good point to mention the old 1up Yours podcast he used to do. On that there was Shane Bettenhausen, he was known as a Sony fanboy, slightly unfair he just seemed to like Japanese games, and as such when he was made redundant he went to Ignition as pr, thanks to his links El Shaddai got more coverage than it otherwise would have. Since then he's joined Sony, unsurprising maybe.

Both points there I would fight over. Weekend Confirmed has been terrible for a long time, it was brilliant but I really found it trying too hard to try and drum up discussions and so I've unsubscribed.

Also Bettenhausen was very clearly a Sony man, there's many many audio clips I could find to back this up if I could be arsed but it was either an immature fanboy at work, or a very clever parody at work. I always favoured the former.

Also, Idle Thumbs mention games they work on from time to time, but you get the impression that they don't especially like doing it, especially Jake Rodkin who finds it a bit distasteful.

But yeah, I've thought a lot about this subject recently and I can tell you that if that mythical Euro lottery win came in, I'd be perfectly happy paying a bunch of people here to write articles full time, on the understanding that they act entirely outside the industry. We need some kind of decent "made by gamers, for gamers" site - maybe that is RPS, I don't know, I haven't read it much.

there's no doubt mangod liked Sony, but I meant it was a bit unfair when he was getting labelled as a fanboy because he didn't join in with them being doomed as the PS3 launched. Like I said unsurprising that he now works for them.

As for idle thumbs, that's why I didn't want to mention them really, while they look like the perfect example they're kind of exempt for a few reasons (more than I thought worth writing about). On Weekend Confirmed, at least they'll have a discussion, better that than label everyone who has an issue with something in the industry "entitled"

and I agree with you on the lottery thing, that's exactly what I'd do

[radiofloyd]

Interesting stuff, actually that video i posted a few weeks ago brought up the same issue (the relationship between developers, publishers, pr and journalists).

RPS and Eurogamer are my favourite gaming websites to read by a mile (hardly surprsing they are both UK based).

(It really is important to find a good gaming forum with like minded depressed people who share your views about games...)

I thought i had more to say but i don't. To be honest i can't even remember what the topic is about. Fuddy duddy...

[Sly Reflex]

A lot of the times these journalists are preaching to the converted. The converted dont want to hear anything but good stuff. The consumer gets what he/she wants. The journalist gets an audience that is faithful. This is quite prevalent. The top of the tree may be a PR thing or the writer may have certain ties to the subject they are brokering.

As it stands now, I do not think it is possible to be paid to write about something without gaining loyalties towards things that you write about, either through PR, payoffs or blackmail. Being a professional writer is the equivalent as being a professional musician in my eyes. You might sing about taking down the regime and be anti establishment and all that other anarchist bollocks, but as soon as you started taking money or favours from a man in a suit you are effectively part of the problem you are lambasting about.

Really the only peoples opinions you should be listening to are those of the people you trust that don't have ties to any particular branding. Even here that's impossible. We all have our preferences that skew our view on what something actually is.

Ed and Manicm are all over the Vita at the moment. Everyone else thinks they are crazy.

Ben's a massive PC zealot and an indie game lover.

Nag wont play anything that isn't deemed adult or cool.

DC has a massive hard on for all things Nintendo.

Grizzly will say no bad things about Sonic games.

Those are just what I can pull from the top of mny head.

None of us have been paid off to be like this, it's just preferences. I'm guessing if Nintendo suddenly wanted to buy Nag a new car and send him on a all expenses paid trip to Japan to play the WiiU He'd come back and no doubt have nice things to say about it, because he had a nice time about it whilst he was there. We'd all know the euphoria of getting free stuff would have tainted his view. That's why we'd take his opinions with a pinch of salt. That is why we take peoples opinions with a pinch of salt now, because you know, people have leniencies towards certain things.

[radiofloyd]

John Walker (Eurogame/RPS) has written his response to the issue:

I want to get some thoughts down on paperscreen, and then out in public, about the recent brouhaha over games journalists’ behaviour and integrity, and the conflicts I see with the Games Media Awards. I also want to still have some friends in this industry, but sometimes the two don’t go hand in hand.

I also want to be clear that I don’t think any of these matters are clear-cut or simple, and that I certainly don’t consider myself to be a paragon, above all the accusations of corruption, or the activities that some consider compromising. So I want to explain the compromises I experience, too.

And incredibly importantly, I want to point out that the vast majority of the time, no matter which site or magazine you read, the chances are what you’re reading is un-bought, uncorrupted opinion. That’s the norm. Issues are the exception. Frankly, anything else would require more organisation and effort than most editors have the time or energy for. And of the very many games journalists I know, I know of not one who’s ever done anything openly corrupt, or written an influenced review. Most people, and most content, is exactly as you’d hope it was.

The fuss today emerged after it was spotted that a bunch of journalists at this year’s Games Media Awards (GMAs) had been encouraged to tweet including a hashtag for a particular game, so one of them would win a PS3. This seemed an immediately and obviously not okay thing for a games journalist to do. Advertise a product on your personal Twitter stream and you could receive personal gain. That’s an obvious no. But even so, I can see how people at an industry piss-up could get carried away, send off a tweet without giving pause to think that it was a mistake, do a drunken thing. What shocked me today was the vociferous defence of this in the sobriety of a Wednesday morning the following week. In criticising this on Twitter, I was met with a combination of disdain, incredulity, and outright mocking, because I thought it an issue. Arguments ranged from being told that journalists deserve it because they’re so poorly paid, to it just being a bit of fun and hashtags aren’t advertising. But more than anything else, either directly to me, or on other journalists’ Twitter feeds, so many people rolled their eyes at the discussion, dismissing it as ridiculous. And that I find bewildering.

Games journalism has always had its problems. When I started in 1999, I was told stories of antics in the early 90s. Later I learned of antics in the late 90s. But the big examples are all very rare. However, compromise comes in many forms, and the constant battle between editorial and PRs leads to a convoluted and often concerning mix. That’s why I have such a keen and instinctive dislike of the GMAs. These are awards organised by PRs, for which PRs are eligible to vote, all sponsored by publishers. I think just going along to this event is a compromising act, not because I don’t think journalists should attend events funded by publishers, but because this is an event put on by publishers and PRs, funded by publishers, in order to vote for their favourite journalists. It’s a very specific event, its outward facing purpose to reward gaming hacks with perspex blocks, but its more insidious and yet overtly obvious purpose being to further blur the lines between what should be two distinct sides. It isn’t a civilised awards dinner, but rather a big advertising-packed booze-up, with free drinks and food while various sponsors advertise their wares. A comedian comes on and awkwardly tries to do games-related material, and then often extremely deserving writers get given not only their award, but also a big bag of expensive loot that doesn’t get talked about. I know this because via RPS I’ve won two of them.

(Hopefully just the stupid fact that I’ve won two of these awards can push aside any of the mindless, lazy responses from other industry figures, who instantly label me (and anyone who criticises the GMAs) as “bitter”.)

So I’m left bemused that there’s such strong objection to anyone who questions it all. I’m also delighted to see Eurogamer running a piece by Robert Florence, questioning the whole matter, and exploring this debate. But it’s now absolutely fascinating watching the industry whirr itself into action to condemn Rab for absolutely legitimately pointing out things people said in public. Critics are rarely good at taking criticism, but what’s happening amongst many PRs and writers now is a Roman legion-style tortoise defence, as they loudly decry the piece without providing a glimmer of an argument opposing it, and hide behind their collective shields. The people who should be say, “Shit, good grief, look at how we come across” are instead saying, “He is a bad man!” and then sending each other reassuring tweets that the article is inaccurate (although failing to point out where) and calling Rab “bitter”. It’s sadly pathetic. And it’s deeply concerning, about an industry that now not only believes itself not deserving of criticism, but that criticism is an outrage.

I deserve criticism.

Being a games journalist is a confusing collection of compromises. For instance, we get games for free. I have a Steam account that automatically has most games appear in my list. If a game isn’t in there, I contact its representative and ask for a copy. You could argue that this compromises me. You could claim that I have a skewed perspective of the value of games because of this. I’d argue against it somewhat – I still buy games, mostly on console. I’m very conscious of how much they cost, and always consider this when reviewing. And as a freelancer if I had to buy every game I played, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. I think that the belief that getting a game for free is a bribe in and of itself comes from the perspective of someone who thinks, “I wish I could get games for free!”, and I completely understand that. However, from the inside, getting the basic tools you need to be able to start doing your job really doesn’t feel like a benefit, nor does it – in all of my experience – make me favourable toward that game. But there’s room for debate here.

Press trips are the other big issue. I haven’t been on one for years now (and in the last few years they’ve only been with Valve, who are quite exceptional in their doing absolutely no PR whatsoever – a driver collects you from the airport, drops you at a hotel, and then you get yourself to their office and back, and figure out food, entertainment, etc for yourself). Edit: It’s been pointed out to me that I recently went to a two-day, no-frills event in London to play SWTOR ahead of release, that involved an overnight stay. I’d quite forgotten. But let’s take the norm, for let’s say a trip to San Francisco to visit a developer and look at their game at some point during its development. In my experience (and I’m intrigued to learn this is not the norm for many American mags/sites) the trip is paid for by the publisher behind the game. This includes flights (absolutely always in Economy in my experience, with the exception of Valve), a hotel room, and meals during the trip. You are looked after by a PR, whose job is to ensure journalists go where they’re supposed to go and see what they’re supposed to see, and then take them out for dinner in the evening. And yes, obviously here there is lots of room for criticism.

Every aspect of that could be considered an attempt to influence my opinion of the game I’m seeing (although I’d argue flying twelve hours in Economy doesn’t quite fit that bill), and you can obviously see how it’s in the PR’s interests to keep the journalists content. Again, from the perspective of the writer, it’s hard to perceive any of it as a bribe. You need a plane to get to the developer, you need a bed to sleep in, and you need to eat. And since you can’t afford any of those things, it’s useful that someone else is paying. Whether that’s your employer/magazine/website, or the publisher, in the end is immaterial to you as a writer. Where things get more tricky is in the entertaining that might surround the trip.

I remember spending one day going to Universal Studios in LA. It was an absolutely brilliant day, not least because it was so far removed from what a press trip would usually try to do. At the time, the theme park was like something out of a Scooby Doo episode, run down and depressing, and I was with a group of hilarious writers – we had the best day laughing at the dilapidated ruin of a 1980s hangover, and then got to go down the road where Buffy lived. I couldn’t tell you what game it was for, and I can assure you that it didn’t influence whatever I wrote about whichever game it was when I got back. But if you want to criticise me, I absolutely got given entry to Universal Studios by a PR. That merits criticism.

However, I also made personal choices on such trips. Most journalists want to spend the evenings in bars, drinking lots. I can think of little I’d like to do less, and quickly learned to politely opt out of post-dinner activities, and head back to my hotel room. I’d get funny looks, but I’m comfortable enough with myself to ignore that. In the morning I’d not have any disturbing anecdotes, but I’d also not have a debilitating hangover. I’m also extremely fortunate that I’ve only once had to turn down an offer to go to a strip club. I’ve never been to one, have no desire to go to one, but have often heard about their being offered on such trips. That’s deserving of criticism.

One time I was sent to London for a preview event for the game Auto Assault. What I didn’t know was that I’d spend the day riding on quad bikes and hovercraft. I had a great day, by coincidence with a few good friends, and at the end of it we were shown the average-looking game. That I’d wasted a day pratting around on bikes didn’t make me want to like the game more – if anything it puts the mediocrity of a game in perspective – and the game went on to be a disastrous flop that few journalists sought to defend because they’d had a nice day going on a quad bike. But that day is definitely deserving of criticism – it had nothing to do with the game, and had no purpose other than to try to entertain us. And the publishers had no reason to want to entertain us other than to have us like their game more. It didn’t work, it’s damned stupid. But I was a part of it, and you’d be right to criticise it. (Although at least I didn’t write about the day for any press – I’m concerned to see today people on some jaunt in Paris where Microsoft pay for a bunch of journos to race cars, who are then writing about it.)

Heck, I’ve written content for a game! I wrote a bunch of material for the remake of Broken Sword, by Revolution Software. As such I have said that I will never review any of their games again. But when they recently had a Kickstarter for Broken Sword 5, in my role as a writer for RPS I posted about it. I don’t think I should have. While I wasn’t encouraged to post about that particular Kickstarter because I’d worked with the developers, but rather because it was a news story our readers cared about, it could appear as corrupt. Criticise me for that – call me out. I declared my interests in the posts – that’s a good thing to do in such circumstances. But such circumstances probably shouldn’t come about.

Similarly, there are a couple of developers whose games I won’t review, because I feel I’ve become too friendly with them. That’s an interesting peril of this job – you see someone often enough in a work context, and you might get on with them, want to be friends. It’s happened to me twice in 14 years, but it’s happened. And for me, that means it’s absolutely inappropriate to review their games – but you could criticise me for not having boundaries in place to prevent this.

I want to add here, however, that a mistake an awful lot of people make is the belief that advertising regularly influences editorial. Again, yes, it has in various generally well known cases. But again, that’s very unusual. For example, PC Gamer is written each month with the writers mostly not having a clue which ads will appear between the articles, and more significantly, not caring. A part of an editor’s job is to keep the idiotic ideas an ad department come up with at bay, and also ensure his/her writers never have to hear about any of it. That’s normal. And at RPS, we have absolutely no idea who will be advertising on our site. That’s all done by the ad staff at Eurogamer, with whom we partner for advertising content. The only influence we have over advertising is to have them changed or removed when we object to them, either because they objectify men or women, or contravene our rules on intrusiveness. What they’re advertising – well generally I don’t even notice they’ve changed since the previous week until around Wednesday, because my brain ignores them. And they certainly don’t influence our content – as is regularly demonstrated by our slagging off names currently shouted down the sides of the site. And we, personally, couldn’t give a flying fuck if a company’s ads people wanted to have a strop because they didn’t like what we said about their game. We’d likely never hear about it anyway.

I am deeply disturbed that this UK games industry is behaving as if it’s above criticism. Everything I’ve described above is normal, and its normality is such that it just happens without anyone giving it any thought. And most of it isn’t corrupt, no matter how it may appear. Most of it is practical and pragmatic, along with a PR with a corporate credit card who quite fancies a nice dinner himself. Everyone experiences biases and influences, in every field, and no one is free from it. Journalists who last, without being called out as shills, tend to do a good job of not letting it affect their writing or opinions. I like to think I have. But then I’m a grumpy old sod, and don’t really have trouble distinguishing a comfy hotel room from a game.

In response to the fuss from the morning, and Rab’s piece from this afternoon, a lot of incredibly lazy parodying and exaggeration is being used by those who don’t want to confront these matters. And that’s ridiculous. Crying out that it’s a fuss about nothing, or decrying Eurogamer and Robert Florence for having pointed out things people said in public, is cowardly. Inventing straw man arguments that people are suggesting that journalists should always be antagonistic and confrontational to PRs, rather than asking questions about the appopriateness of their relationships with PRs, is far easier. And it ensures that the industry continues to be perceived as corrupt, despite the paucity of actual corruption taking place. Today is an opportunity to ask questions of yourself, and wonder what you do that you could improve. Not a day to rally around each other and pretend those who criticise are just mean bullies.

I really hope today leads to at least a few more journalists considering whether they wish to continue endorsing the GMAs in their current form. But more I hope it has journalists challenge themselves, think where they merit criticism, and attempt to improve. It has for me.

http://botherer.org/2012/10/24/games-journalists-and-the-perception-of-corruption/

Worth reading the comments too, several from journalists. For example:

Very well written, sir.

However, as an ex-games journalist working in the 2000s, I’m pleased, but surprised, that you don’t feel that there is a significant problem with advertising or PR activity greatly affecting content. I say this because, in the eighteen months or so that I worked on a games mag, I felt it was rife – and several of my colleagues would openly agree that this was the case. We didn’t like it and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve almost all left (many into PR it should be noted), but it honestly felt like part of the process.

Yes, not everything was as blatant as people might imagine, but some of it was. I distinctly remember my Editor, on a number of occasions, agreeing to ‘exclusive’ or early reviews on strict condition that the review score was at least an 8/10. We hadn’t played the game at all and yet this was promised. Needless to say, the pressure placed on the team to write up an 8/10 review was immense. If everyone refused, which was rare, the editor would simply review the game himself or offer it to freelance upon that understanding.

It was also common practice for magazines to contact games companies looking for decent front covers. The company I worked for couldn’t afford special foil treatments, spot UV and the like, but publishers would often shell out for a pretty front page. Of course, the price for this was always guaranteed positive coverage – clearly the company would never fund such a thing ever again if you failed to write what they’d expect.

My review scores were frequently rounded up and always for the big titles – if anyone submitted a score for a AAA Ubisoft title that was less than a 7/10, it would almost always be bumped up for so-called ‘editorial’ reasons. Reasons that were never satisfactorily explained and often led to scores and text not matching up. Did this happen for low-budget Eastern European titles? Never, because such firms barely advertised. And were scores ever knocked down? Only once, in my very first week. And believe me, the advertising department would make it very clear to editors what was required in order to secure the big money.

And yes, there were occasions when writers would bluntly be told to change their reviews as ‘we couldn’t risk upsetting’ certain big companies. Not all of us would be furious – some had worked there so long they’d just become used to it.

This was typically avoided by selecting freelancers who never gave a bad score to anything. Maybe some of these freelancers were easily pleased, but certainly not all. I remember going on a press trip to Italy where one very experienced writer happily boasted that he’d reviewed several games without even installing the product.

The trick, he told me, was simply to give virtually every game a 7/10 – ‘ as long as you don’t upset the PRs and you keep things general you’ll have no problem’.

Of course, some people might think that this was the attitude of just a few ill-disciplined people, but it was pretty much companywide and part of the culture. A culture that is very easy to foster when most of the employees are 18-21 year old lads, blinded by the idea of working in their dream job and being paid minimum wage. On £11k basic salary you certainly couldn’t afford to be low down on the freelance list. And at 18 many people lack courage and/or wisdom and are very easily malleable by senior members of staff.

Again, I’m pleased that you haven’t encountered too much of the above John, but I know a hell of a lot of writers have. I just expect that most won’t admit it in the fear that if they do, it would completely undermine the industry that they love being a part of.

[HandsomeDead]

I've obviously heard rumours of that sort of thing happening with regards to scores but never paid it much heed as it never made much sense.

I listen to the Destructoid podcast from time to time and they are very open about the relationships they have with publishers and they've never altered a score as going by their stats a AAA game review will get a fuckton of hits whether it's positive, negative or anywhere in-between. The "you gave this a good score for money" or "you're giving this game shit for hits" is an absolute myth according to them at least, which makes sense to me. I suppose bribe type deals have gone on but it really is needless. Maybe back in the days when magazines were prominent some score manipulation was required, or they felt it was required but with the industry being more internet-centric now they realise they don't need to do it anymore. Any negative review will come with a load of defenders and apologists in the comments section showing that reviews don't need to be altered to still build up hype. I've already seen enough blogs countering Resident Evil 6 negative reviews with people going in-depth explaining how they're playing it wrong... that kind of discussion can get a lot of attention.

I know the average Joe doesn't care about that stuff, but they often don't care much about reviews, too.

I'm just saying those kind of practices from the early naughties may not be done now because of how far social networking has come since then.

[Hendo]

There's a very long and interesting thread on this on rllmuk and has thrown up some interesting stories and links.

For example -

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451221

Followed by -

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=497097

The thing is, Lauren Wainwright just keeps digging herself a massive hole. She hissed at threats of libel which got the piece edited, Rab left working on EG and she got way more attention than she would've done had she not.

She said she had not reviewed any Square-Enix games despite working for them, until someone found proof that this was not the case and then she deleted Square-Enix from her CV.

There's an article she wrote that someone dug up about her tips for getting free games and an old Giant Bomb blog post written by her about how she had a great old time being wined and dined by Remedy for going to see Alan Wake.

Looking at it, she's not long out of Uni and just seems incredibly naive.

I'd really love to have us as a proper gaming site, get taken to various PR events and then come back and write articles about the whole shady event and not mention the game at all and instead expose the crap that publishers try to push. It wouldn't take long to stop getting invited to these things but someone in the industry should start doing these under a pseudonym.

[Sambob]

I'd really love to have us as a proper gaming site, get taken to various PR events and then come back and write articles about the whole shady event and not mention the game at all and instead expose the crap that publishers try to push. It wouldn't take long to stop getting invited to these things but someone in the industry should start doing these under a pseudonym.

Isnt this exactly what happened to SOME PEOPLE WE USED TO KNOW that went off and got interviews with devs etc and went to that games thing that begins with L, Leipzig or something? So that shows you exactly how easy it is for that to happen, and sort of...how blurred the lines can be sometimes.

[Hendo]

Hmmm, as much as I'd like to be honest about that, I'd really rather not.

But I will say that, no, that's not the model I would want.

[DANGERMAN]

here's a video of Rab talking about games journalism ina 2009 episode of Videogaiden

[DANGERMAN]

this has made my piss boil, Stephen Tortilo (Editor in Chief at Kotaku) talking down to readers who think there might be an issue with integrity in games journalism. They aren't going to cover the story because it's not important, it's just the typical entitled gamers making fuss over nothing, there's absolutely no chance that the industry has gone so far up its own arse it can't see that they're doing promotional pieces as news

or in picture form

edit: love this post by Snowden's Secret on gaf

Microsoft PR literally bought that article: if they hadn't sent that to Kotaku the unboxing would have never happened. This piece is an infomercial.

This whole ordeal has revealed that the PR/journalist symbiosis is worse than we thought--the press doesn't even realize they are being manipulated. If Microsoft came to Totilo and said "Make a video advertising Halo 4" he would have been incensed. Instead they give him freebies knowing how he's going to react.

[Sly Reflex]

That is a mite hypocritical, isn't it?