Lets spice things up a little

Well, I've left this blog unupdated for a long time now. A little shameful, but I've been a little busy and honestly haven't felt a need nor drive to write neither anything of essence nor any ranting. I guess the regular way of getting back for a new season like this would be to philosophise over things that have happened just recently, or summarise the last few weeks experiences. But that's boring and you probably wouldn't give a bloody damn anyway. So I'll serve you some eyestinging and provoking little mass of text instead.

I have been a gamesjournalist/writer for what now? A year and a half? It depends on how you count I guess, and really the time is irrelevant. The point is it's been a bumpy journey that has given a whole lot of good useful experiences and insights. But through the journey I have also peeked over my shoulder every now and then to see the dark side of games journalism. The things everyone knows about, but noone utters a word about. What I am about to speculate around here is one of those deeper shadows that do affect the gamejournalism trade somewhat. The speculation is based on things I've overheard, seen while lurking on different forums, boards and blogs throughout the Internet, as well as personal observations and derivations. The dark side of game reviewing.

I'll start by setting the tone with an anecdote.

Spel2 was a small independent site, and our competition in swedish game media was heavy. And although we focused on original content mainly (articles, chronicles and creative writing) to keep up with this competition and keep a personal profile, game reviewing always stayed equally important. A gamesite without newsreporting or game coverage will always have a hard time luring visitors into it's fold. Unless you have some really heavy funding to cover an extensive marketing campaign that is. We didn't. Thus, getting out reviews on hot games was essential inevitably. The distributors on many occasions didn't make it easy for us though. Although we generally had great relationships with them, sometimes their marketing policies clashed with our needs. Naturally. One memorable occasion was when a new hot game was going to be released for one of the handheld formats and we knew other sites and publications had gotten their copies in time. We hadn't, even though we had contacted that particular distributor in time. We were told that there were no review copies left anyway. Something that I still today find puzzling. Giving away an extra copy of that game will cost them more or less nothing, compared to pr-events, media advertising and banners etc etc. It's free coverage more or less, as they will reach out to even more possible buyers. We decided (as was our policy unless someone already had decided to buy the game for personal reasons) to keep our journalistic integrity and not cover that particular product. No tears shed. That was the beauty of Spel2 and our indepence, but not every site or publication out there are lucky enough to be able to ignore problems of this kind.

Competition between magazines and sites out there is hard, not only in a small country like Sweden, but globally. The large, well known and already established publications can reap more benefits through well rooted networks and contacts, getting exclusive content and review and beta copies months before release sometimes. This while the large majority of smaller publications struggle with each others getting their hands on that last review copy, that they sometimes get handed weeks after release at worst. This all because marketing and nepotism. That's how things have always worked of course, and I wouldn't expect different really, however as the smaller sites suffer, this also creates consequences. Every action has a reaction.

Against their will, gamepublishers in this way indirectly feeds piracy. I would be so bold as to claim that they create their own dilemma. I know some will deny it to the last drop of blood but it is an undisputable fact that writers, for small and large publications alike sometimes are forced to get hands on copies out there, in a less legal way. You may protest, but that's just putting on the blindfolds. It might not be true for most of us of course, but I'd claim that it's widespread enough to be a potential problem.

Publishers and distributors keep their strategies for certain reasons. They give out review copies to certain publications following certain marketing strategies and theories. But when a reviewer can't get the hands on reviewcode, he and his site/magazine has a problem. Therefore some fall for the temptation to get their hands on the code through other means. For PC-users this obviously means filesharing, but they are far from the worst sinners. Console owners somteimes import games already released in Japan, or they buy a chipped machine so they also can download gamerips through filesharing services. There's networks out there solely created for this purpose.

While game companies themselves of course aren't responsible for this, neither are the publications. Needs within both trades has created a problem within the industry that I personally find most troubling. And I don't even know if there really is a solution to it either. But it's something that do deserve attention, because as I see it everyone in the industry suffers from this more or less.

Now, before I leave this open for debate I'd point out that this is not attack on any particular publisher, distributor, publication or writer. It is merely a concern I've pondered on a lot, and that troubles me. So keep it clean people.