@Willy105: every single preview and review is controlled by the publishers. If you write something they don't like they will revoke your access.
That's false and has never been true. When a publisher blacklists a publication (like Gamespot) because they wrote something they didn't like, you know what they do? They go to the store, and buy the game themselves. Jeff Gerstmann and other people on Gamespot and other publications did that all the time. Game publications have budgets that allow for that.
You know who doesn't enjoy that freedom? Independent creators on places like Youtube or Twitch. They are significantly more influenced by the publishers, because they don't have the protections a publication affords them.
How you gonna get a review out the door that generates clicks within launch window when you are barred from the publisher and have to run out to the store like every other sucker?
How are you gonna get access to previews?
@Willy105: every single preview and review is controlled by the publishers. If you write something they don't like they will revoke your access.
I wonder what the solution is.
You could have "independent" press, where you have a subscription-based outlet (like a lot of newspapers), but I'm not sure there are enough gamers willing to pay for their gaming news.
They can't stop you from buying their games to cover them for reviews. The issue then becomes previews I suppose, as you pointed out. Which is kind of sad because really you should want corporations courting the media, since we'd value their opinions in an ideal world and corporations would want the press to publicize their product (and thus their quality would increase since the previews would be more objective...again, ideally). It would be a sort of built-in "checks and balances" system for gaming journalism.
It's not entirely the corporations fault; media sort of let us down in the first place by proving themselves untrustworthy, overly opinionated, swayed by social issues unrelated to the product, and more. I mean, a lot of us still remember the Kane and Lynch debacle.
Corporations owning the narrative is layered deeply into much more of society.
There are plenty of say "independent" youtubers that will be watched dilligently because they published a negative review, so reviewers in general I feel are always very tactful about this sort of stuff. not to piss off companies, but not to piss off consumers either.
The way it worked was if a publication made a negative review for a game that people were excited for, readers said "this review is biased." If the publication gave a positive review for a game that people wanted to fail (because of fanboyism, or more recently, weird culture wars), then it was a sign that the review "was paid for". Reality never mattered; publications couldn't solve the issue because the issue was never real. The Kane and Lynch fiasco was so big and influential because it was exception that proved the rule.
The media didn't let you down, because there's nothing to let down. The media's job was to cover games and its related stories, not to meet the whims of publishers/fanboys. And that is why the gaming media has generally collapsed and died: the majority of the audience for them never truly existed in the first place, they were just used as fodder for fanboy/culture wars that have since been replaced by social media posts and Youtube videos.
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