The Demise of Gaming Reviews
Could lead to more space for gaming criticism?
James Wagner Au neatly summarises the commercial trends and scandals currently rocking online gaming communities
Now that such a prominent figure as Gertsmann has been removed, and for what many believe are dubious reasons, this essential chain in the promotion cycle is broken. Why? Because from this point forward, gamers will doubt the word of any reviewer on a site heavy with publisher ads, and reviewers will begin self-censoring, fearful of being too forthright and potentially suffering Gerstmann’s fate. Publishers will no longer be able to rely on the implicit pressure of their advertising dollars for good reviews, so they’ll have to earn a profit the old-fashioned way: by making good games. But that’s an inherently risky enterprise, especially when your potential audience is so small.
Your Comments
John writes:
(Coming late to this) So why, when the editorial/advertisement divide has been negotiated (for better or worse) by most other industries, is the gaming industry still struggling with these issues?
Surely the taint of commercial sponsorship is always a threat to impartiality: have the gamer sites only just realised this?
Posted: 9 12 2007 - 19:18 | Permanent link to this comment
Nick Caldwell writes:
Part of the problem is that gaming journalism largely doesn’t come out of existing journalistic institutions, so the fundamental principle of a marketing/editorial firewall has never really taken hold. The interesting gaming sites these days are ones like Kotaku, from the Gawker Media stable — consciously “bloggy”, independent and not editorially beholden to their advertisers. (Ok, that’s an optimistic and simplified take, but I’d hope more right than not).
Posted: 11 12 2007 - 08:33 | Permanent link to this comment
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