Last week I posted a topic on the GameSpot Live Union Board.

The allocation of media has always been a topic of interest for me over the years. Ever since discovering the hidden world of media buying and payola (one being acceptable, the other not), I began wondering how the resource of air time was allocated within various media companies.

For me, GameSpot has the distinction of being a reputable outlet. The staff and presentation tend to be top-notch. Other game-specific sites and publications can only dream of falling in a similar category.

Nevertheless, when I was watching one of the old episodes of On the Spot, I was baffled as to why Area-51 had been granted such an enormous amount of time. Live demonstrations are great and all, but the game ended up being a passable 7.2. Was this GameSpot's first look at the game? Was this part of the process of working the bugs out of a developing show? Was this really worth the bandwidth fees CNET was paying?

The editors seemed generally interested, but Tim Schafer was far and away the best part of that episode.

I am not intending to complain, just to understand. The obvious answer is to feature the games with the most people tracking. Other responses could even be that was all the games ready to be shown at the time. Heck, I'd be pretty content with a response from one of the editors that they thought [insert game] was the bomb at the time so it was thusly featured. That's cool.

Ultimately, my post is an excellent example of questions or comments made in a venue not noticed because nobody traffics it. Probably one of the reasons nobody sees any great billboards on Interstate 80 between Lovelock and Winnemucca.