Journalism, Video Game Marketing, Integrity - Conflicts of Interest?

Yesterday I blogged about a brewing controversy involving an employee termination that appeared to be a result of an unfavorable video game review of a highly touted and heavily marketed release. There has been plenty of additional feedback across the net since then from developers and former gaming journalists. I found a very insightful piece on a blog called Level Up part of the newsweek.com website.

While there is no new news here about the firing, there is a very thoughtful article about the apparent conflict of interest between sites like Gamespot, video game publisher PR and marketing reps and game reviewers for sites like Gamespot. This is definitely worth a read. What follows is a summary cribbed from Digg:


"The Gerstmann issue is simply a symptom of a pervasive malaise: the uneven relationship between the gaming press and game publishers. Simply put: unless the gaming community as a whole takes mass and decisive action, this problem will arise again and again. Trouble is: are we willing to sacrifice our shiny previews and features? "