Video Game Journalism - Ethics

Ethics

The computer and video game media industry is criticised for holding lax journalistic standards. Reviews are the most controversial area, with issues in the following areas:

Conflicts of interest

A publication reviewing a game when it has received advertising revenue from the game's publishers or has been invited to lavish 'press day' parties is often held in suspicion. Reviews by 'official' console magazines such as Nintendo Power, Official PlayStation Magazine or the Official Xbox Magazine, all of which have direct financial ties to their respective platform holders, usually find themselves in similar positions. Publishers have been known to withhold material and/or advertising money from publications that do not adhere to their wishes (e.g. making the game in question the cover story) or do not show the game in a positive light.

Time spent on the game

Unlike linear media, getting a complete sense of a game can require far longer than the time it takes to play it from start to end. Further to this, games such as role-playing video games can last for hundreds of hours. Computer and video game reviewers therefore tread a fine line between producing timely copy and playing enough of a game to be able to reliably critique it.

A famous exposé of underplaying was published by Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik in September 2006: he dissected a review of Enchanted Arms and among other findings concluded that the reviewer had barely played three hours of the game's fifty before forming his opinion. This conclusion was later refuted by the review's assigning editor, citing proof of the reviewer's completion of the game.

A counterpoint to this is that time spent on a game in regards to a review is of itself a subjective concept. In an evaluative review where exhaustiveness and thoroughness of the criticism is paramount, only someone who has fully completed the game could essentially provide a full "definitive" review. However, reviews can also be experiential - a documentation of the experience from a subjective viewpoint. In this sense, time spent doesn't matter: it is all about the experience, which is fully disclosed as part of the review. In an experiential review, it's perfectly acceptable for a reviewer to state that, for example, after 20 minutes of play, he or she was too bored or frustrated to continue, and stopped playing. While it may be true that the game improves after that, that is irrelevant to an experiential review, which evaluates the reality and experience of playing, and not necessarily the full game regardless of experience. Essentially, both reviews are as relevant as one another, and ultimately represent two different styles. Most reviewers use a combination of both to help balance the challenge of finishing or experiencing everything a game has to offer, with the timely publication of the review.