Or…. “Dan Hsu’s beef with the industry”

Yesterday we introduced readers to Dan Hsu and Crispin Boyer’s new blog, Sore Thumbs. We asked viewers to add the blog to their bookmarks list, and for good reason - today the writings of Shoe have provided another critical look into the inside workings of the often flawed industry.

Shoe comments on the state of an industry in which game companies consistently pressure journalists to provide pleasing scores for their products, listing examples as he goes along. It’s fascinating, really, and runs the gamut from jostling for exclusive reviews via “promising” high review scores, doing “make up” stories for companies who have felt jilted by coverage in past articles so as to save advertising dollars, and even…. wait, even providing prostitutes for lonesome editors? (Note: This one’s just rumor, folks, although Shoe has reason to believe.)

One example provided in the piece:

For example, some companies will offer an outlet an exclusive first review with the understanding that the game gets a certain score or higher. I don’t feel this is necessarily inappropriate on the game publisher’s side — why put a poor review out there if you can avoid it? And I can certainly understand why the press would entertain such an offer. First review = high traffic or magazine sales. But my beef with this (and why we officially stopped doing exclusive reviews when I was at EGM): Just bringing up the offer alone taints the reviews process…something that should be as clean and innocent as the Virgin Mary.

As an example of the above, Shoe was kind enough to source two VGMWatch articles; we’ll do the same for the benefit of our readers. Peep the hubbub we exposed over IGN’s Prey review process here and here.

While these are “indirect” bribes, as Shoe points out, aren’t they bribes nonetheless, and subject to the same level of scrutiny? As we have put forth before here at the Watch, when any such activities proceed at a publication, there is an immediate conflict of interest and as such the journalist’s objectivity is immediately compromised on some level, whether they realize it or not.

Again, check Sore Thumbs for more examples, and don’t forget to view the other two installments of “Behind the Scenes: Game Journalism” here and here. And don’t think Shoe leaves EGM untouched - in fact, impropriety was one of the reasons he left 1UP/EGM (see part three).

Source: Sore Thumbs