YouTubers Taking Money For [Positive] Game Coverage

Saw this in the news today. Pretty interesting:
http://kotaku.com/the-messy-story-behind-youtubers-taking-money-for-game-1644092214

 

Lesson to learn: Make good games!

 

Kotaku is a bias site attempting to save face from recent allegations of major corruption in their industry. I wouldn't take their 'expose' on corruption in the video game ANYTHING industry as credible.

 

This isn't anything new unless you are new to gaming... the part that makes me sad is that the marketing department at Time Warner/Warner Bros/Monolith didn't have any faith that their own game Poor developers, I wonder what they feel like right now and what the morale at the studio is like.

The sad irony with the whole marketing disaster is that the game actually seem to perform well on its own and most importantly; people seem to enjoy the game from what I have heard so far.

I personally think that the lesson which marketing should have learned a while ago is that it isn't worth manipulating reviews because of the potential backlash. They got too many communication channels that are outside of their control and things like this will get revealed today by people that are left behind after being unfairly treated.

 

Kotaku may not be bias free, but they did present opposing points of view in the article. Jimquisition opposed the practice, but Boogie2988 mostly supported it, perhaps because he himself is one of those Youtubers.

 

As long as all YT channels are free this kind of S*** will happen more and more often, expect to be asked by youtuber to pay for his coverage.
Unless you missed here is an interesting talk on steam, they also talked marketing:

They mentioned some popular channels on yt that already ask to be paid for coverage.

 

Thank you for that major contribution. Oh useful moderator.

This article is written by someone implicated in reporting unethically, and not disclosing, positively on someone's work that they were sexually involved with. This is not the only case of an intimate relationship resulting in the same. A counter article could be written just on Nathan Grayson himself titled

The Messy Story Behind Gaming Journalists Receiving Favors For Positive Game Coverage

or maybe

The Messy Story Behind Gaming Journalist's Ethical Violations in Reporting Positively on Close Friends


But how could any of that be relevant to his reporting on supposed misdeeds by a media sector more relevant than he and several other corrupt 'journalism' websites are now.

 

One thing to remember: While it may seem like the media holds power over developers. Don't forget that *we* can make and sell our games without them. On the flipside, without us, they have no jobs.

So I personally don't give two craps about what the games media has to say and I certainly don't pull punches. There are good sites and good youtubers out there, far more worthy of your time and energy than sites like Kotaku and other clickbait sites with their own agendas and hidden motives.

Make good games, go to reddit, show them to people. The good sites will cover you anyway. Your game can be successful without relying on mainstream games media. There's a lot of sites out there where you can link up to gamers on your own. IndieDB, Reddit, gaming communities.

They also happen to be far friendlier than most press you'll ever meet and more welcoming of you.

 

I even saw aguy posting on the unity forum saying he's do three shill reviews to the highest bidder

 

They're losing money to youtubers. This is just a smear campaign by the websites, because they're losing sponsors.