as far as video game media magazines or websites existing mostly as extra advertising space for big publishers, it's all true. publishers reward video game magazines that provide good coverage and/or good reviews with insider scoops, access to early review copies, etc... which is an invaluable resource for any news outlet competing with other news outlets. but i think gamers have a diffuse idea of how profit motive works so they tack on whatever ad-hoc theory they can imagine into why IGN is "corrupt" (their words), the most popular just happened to be some baffling story of sexual bartering you happen to know as gamergate.
i think game reviews with a score are a thing of the past though, consumers are too savvy now and either they'll trust their own instinct or follow individual curators whose opinion they trust before buying a game, so early access is becoming less of a valuable resource, which means some outlets can now start to skirt the line drawn by publishers, which is good and i hope this keeps up.
A complete misunderstanding of the profit incentive does seem to do wacky things to a person's brain. They end up coming to the conclusion there must be some organized group effort to do things simply out of a desire to make g*mer types miserable.
as far as video game media magazines or websites existing mostly as extra advertising space for big publishers, it's all true. publishers reward video game magazines that provide good coverage and/or good reviews with insider scoops, access to early review copies, etc... which is an invaluable resource for any news outlet competing with other news outlets. but i think gamers have a diffuse idea of how profit motive works so they tack on whatever ad-hoc theory they can imagine into why IGN is "corrupt" (their words), the most popular just happened to be some baffling story of sexual bartering you happen to know as gamergate.
i think game reviews with a score are a thing of the past though, consumers are too savvy now and either they'll trust their own instinct or follow individual curators whose opinion they trust before buying a game, so early access is becoming less of a valuable resource, which means some outlets can now start to skirt the line drawn by publishers, which is good and i hope this keeps up.
A complete misunderstanding of the profit incentive does seem to do wacky things to a person's brain. They end up coming to the conclusion there must be some organized group effort to do things simply out of a desire to make g*mer types miserable.
If they have any brains at all they coordinate on slack or discord servers privately to make content that pisses misogynist incel gamers off.