Interesting news about bloggers/review sites

I found this bit that may be interesting for some...
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/60734

Frankly, they need to look at some of the mainstream review sites also, like Gamespot and so forth. But at least it's a step forward, even though it seems a bit vague.

This almost sounds as if established media pushed them to make life harder for blogs.

Apart from that I think it's quite normal that reasonably well known blogs and sites get their games for free. It's copletely harmless. Just divide the 40-60$ value of the game by the number of hours until needed to compile the review.

Be nice if we got more free games!!

Gorath said:

This almost sounds as if established media pushed them to make life harder for blogs.

Apart from that I think it's quite normal that reasonably well known blogs and sites get their games for free. It's copletely harmless. Just divide the 40-60$ value of the game by the number of hours until needed to compile the review.

Click to expand...

It wasn't really a level playing field. Forcing blogs into basic disclosure isn't unreasonable if they're going to parade themselves as legitimate reviewers. The goal isn't to limit the freebies received by blogs, but just to force them to disclose the freebie so the consumer can decide if there's a conflict of interest (which, as you say, probably isn't the case) that would invalidate the review.

Gorath said:

This almost sounds as if established media pushed them to make life harder for blogs.

Apart from that I think it's quite normal that reasonably well known blogs and sites get their games for free. It's copletely harmless. Just divide the 40-60$ value of the game by the number of hours until needed to compile the review.

Click to expand...

But how much is 'reasonable'...
The cost of the game? Sure
The cost of a limited edition 'reviewers only' version of the game? hmm... Sure I guess
The cost of a trip to the headquarters so the blogger can talk about the game being developed? hmm...
Trip to headquarters with 5 star hotel accomodation with $1000/day per-diem and first class plane tickets? Hey, wait a minute!

I agree these things should definitely be released, but why only bloggers? I think magazines and other publications online or offline should include this information too.

wolfing said:

I agree these things should definitely be released, but why only bloggers? I think magazines and other publications online or offline should include this information too.

Click to expand...

As I read the article, the other media forms are already under disclosure rules and this ruling just caught the bloggers up. Did I misread it?

dteowner said:

As I read the article, the other media forms are already under disclosure rules and this ruling just caught the bloggers up. Did I misread it?

Click to expand...

No, you're right, I was the one who misread that part.

Is this a "must" or a "should" disclose for the old media? I don't have the impression they disclose it very often.

For the US, it's generally not directly disclosed to the consumer. The pinch comes within the media corporation itself, since they have to document those freebies (if the value is over $50 or some such amount) and it eventually gets reviewed by various auditors. If the auditor saw wolfing's wild boondoggle on the books for a game they reviewed, that would lead to a conflict of interest investigation against the employee which would eventually lead to a corruption investigation of the media company by corporate regulators which would end up getting settled out of court for some ridiculously large fine. The theory is that, since nobody's going to jail and no fines are being handed out, the consumer can trust the reviews haven't been bought. Of course, there's plenty of holes in that system, but overall it does OK.

I have no idea if the Euro system is similar.

I don't know the Euro rules for normal press.

Games mags usually mention the general context. For example if they traveled to Seattle (but not who paid!), the review conditions if they were not allowed to test in their own office on their own PCs. Free press copies are known to be standard.