Post by Morreion on Feb 19, 2016 9:36:13 GMT -5
Advertising, blacklisting, and critique – The broken incentives of gaming media (MOP)
The article goes on to propose some solutions to this problem- worth reading.
Gaming media is broken. “Honest reviews” can come off like a sarcastic jab, especially with massive site-spanning advertisements mere pixels from the reviews themselves. Add in the lure of exclusives, and “fair and unbiased” sounds like a joke to many.
But gaming media and the industry it covers aren’t broken from some form of malevolent hatred and a greedy desire to part gamers from their money. Regrettably, three things combine to create an environment where criticism can destroy a media outlet entirely, even when criticism is a vital part of journalism itself.
Overt advertising
Take a look at your average gaming website these days without AdBlock on, and it’s clear that displaying advertisements is what’s paying a good portion of the bills. Some sites even ask you to turn AdBlock off. Small, wonder, with marketing budgets covering everything from banner ads to TV ads to publicity stunts.
And that’s not a problem, really. Ads are a business reality, and they do help pay the bills. Plastering banner ads of the latest blockbuster to ship is par for the course.
Covert advertising
The best place to put game ads is on game websites: the very same place those games are reviewed. From a publisher perspective, having spent a bunch of money advertising a game only to have the review be anything less than glowing feels like a bad return on investment.
Many gamers know this, and it can be easy to assume that reviews are carefully veiled advertorial pieces themselves. Ads have to be bought, so angering the buyers by panning their games is a bad idea. Gaming websites have to toe a line between being honest and proper journalists and not alienating their chief revenue source.
Blacklisting the ‘bad apples’
Gaming websites are also, unsurprisingly, the best place for exclusive content related to upcoming games. Previews, interviews, early review copies for day-one reviews — the list goes on. Gamers go to gaming websites to find out the latest, hype themselves up on their favorites, and potentially read reviews to decide what they’ll buy. Publishers know this; marketers know this.
But all these things are given because the publisher chose to give them. Chaining back to that return on investment perspective, if gaming websites don’t use all of these exclusives “properly,” marketing departments can decide to pull the plug. Or to be more direct, blacklist.
This happened to Kotaku recently. Though the precise causes are unknown, two publishers decided to blacklist the site (in fact, reading that story is what got me to thinking in depth about this topic). Kotaku didn’t “properly” toe the line and was punished by being denied the same sorts of exclusives that other, competing sites got.
But gaming media and the industry it covers aren’t broken from some form of malevolent hatred and a greedy desire to part gamers from their money. Regrettably, three things combine to create an environment where criticism can destroy a media outlet entirely, even when criticism is a vital part of journalism itself.
Overt advertising
Take a look at your average gaming website these days without AdBlock on, and it’s clear that displaying advertisements is what’s paying a good portion of the bills. Some sites even ask you to turn AdBlock off. Small, wonder, with marketing budgets covering everything from banner ads to TV ads to publicity stunts.
And that’s not a problem, really. Ads are a business reality, and they do help pay the bills. Plastering banner ads of the latest blockbuster to ship is par for the course.
Covert advertising
The best place to put game ads is on game websites: the very same place those games are reviewed. From a publisher perspective, having spent a bunch of money advertising a game only to have the review be anything less than glowing feels like a bad return on investment.
Many gamers know this, and it can be easy to assume that reviews are carefully veiled advertorial pieces themselves. Ads have to be bought, so angering the buyers by panning their games is a bad idea. Gaming websites have to toe a line between being honest and proper journalists and not alienating their chief revenue source.
Blacklisting the ‘bad apples’
Gaming websites are also, unsurprisingly, the best place for exclusive content related to upcoming games. Previews, interviews, early review copies for day-one reviews — the list goes on. Gamers go to gaming websites to find out the latest, hype themselves up on their favorites, and potentially read reviews to decide what they’ll buy. Publishers know this; marketers know this.
But all these things are given because the publisher chose to give them. Chaining back to that return on investment perspective, if gaming websites don’t use all of these exclusives “properly,” marketing departments can decide to pull the plug. Or to be more direct, blacklist.
This happened to Kotaku recently. Though the precise causes are unknown, two publishers decided to blacklist the site (in fact, reading that story is what got me to thinking in depth about this topic). Kotaku didn’t “properly” toe the line and was punished by being denied the same sorts of exclusives that other, competing sites got.
The article goes on to propose some solutions to this problem- worth reading.
