Conflicts of interest and pressure from game publishers
Publications reviewing a game often receive advertising revenue and entertainment from the game's publishers, which can lead to perceived conflicts of interest.
[35] Reviews by 'official' platform-specific magazines such as
Nintendo Power,
Official PlayStation Magazine or the
Official Xbox Magazine typically have direct financial ties to their respective platform holders.[
citation needed]
In 2001,
The 3DO Company's president sent an email to
GamePro threatening to reduce their advertising spend following a negative review.
[36]
In 2007,
Jeff Gerstmann was fired from
GameSpot after posting a review on
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men that was deemed too negative by its publisher, which also advertised heavily on the website.
[36][37] Due to
non-disclosure agreements, Gerstmann was not able to talk about the topic publicly until 2012.
[38]
In a 2012 article for
Eurogamer, Robert Florence criticised the relationship between the video games press and publishers, characterising it as "almost indistinguishable from PR", and questioned the integrity of a games journalist, Lauren Wainwright.
[33][37][39] In the controversy that followed, dubbed "Doritogate" (after a video of
Geoff Keighley emerged of him sitting in front of bottles of Mountain Dew, bags of Doritos and an ad banner for Halo 4), the threat of legal action—the result of broad libel laws in the UK—caused Eurogamer to self-censor.
[40] Florence was forced to amend his article, and he consequently retired from games journalism.
[37][41][42]
According to a July 2014 survey by Mike Rose in
Gamasutra, approximately a quarter of high-profile YouTube gaming channels receive pay from the game publishers or developers for their coverage, especially those in the form of
Let's Play videos.
[43]
Following the
Gamergate controversy that started in August 2014, both
Destructoid and
The Escapist tightened their disclosure and conflict of interest policies.
[44] Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo said writers were no longer allowed to donate to Patreon campaigns of developers.
[45] Kotaku later disclosed that journalist Patricia Hernandez, who had written for them, was friends with developers
Anna Anthropy and
Christine Love, as well as being Anthropy's former housemate.
[46][47] Polygon announced that they would disclose previous and future Patreon contributions.
[48]
Review scores and aggregate ratings
Reviews performed by major video game print sources, websites, and mainstream newspapers that sometimes carry video game such as
The New York Times and
The Washington Post are generally collected for consumers at sites like
Metacritic,
Game Rankings, and
Rotten Tomatoes. If the reviews are scored or graded, these sites will convert that to a numerical score and use a calculation to come out with an aggregate score. In the case of Metacritic, these scores are further weighted by an importance factor associated with the publication. Metacritic also is known to evaluate unscored reviews and assign a numeric score for this as well based on the impression the site editors get about the review.
[49]
Within the industry, Metacritic has become a measure of the critical success of a game by game publishers, frequently used in its financial reports to impress investors. The video game industry typically does not pay on
residuals but instead on critical performance.
[50] Prior to release, a publisher may include contractual bonuses to a developer if they achieve a minimum Metacritic score. In one of the more recognized examples, members of
Obsidian Entertainment were to have gotten bonuses from
Bethesda Softworks for their work on
Fallout: New Vegas if they obtained a Metacritic score of 85 or better out of 100. After release, the game only obtained an 84 aggregate score from Metacritic, one point away, and Bethesda refused to pay them.
[49][51]
Video game reviewers are aware of their impact on the Metacritic score and subsequent effect on bonus payment schemes.
Eurogamer, prior 2014, were aware that they generally graded games on a scoring scale lower than other websites, and would pull down the overall Metacritic score. For this reason, the site dropped review scores in 2014, and their scores are no longer included in these aggregate scores.
Kotaku also dropped review scores for the same reason.
[49]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video...of_interest_and_pressure_from_game_publishers