A weird thought after giving out more than a thousand free copies of one of our titles to reviewers recently, a retail value of $20,000 gross. If food critics pay for their meals, why don't game reviewers pay for their games? Obviously not talking about micro-outlets here.
@matthewmwhite A few things: One, I'll purchase a game to review it but I'm the owner of a small outlet and have the money to spend when we don't get a title - this is rare. Two, I'd love to review everything I get sent but that's not possible. So I'll cover the ones that pique my interest.
@matthewmwhite I would love to have the budgets of IGN, Kotaku or Polygon but that is impossible. You'll find smaller outlets trying their best to stay afloat when it's a herculean task to even do that.
@matthewmwhite But word of mouth is real, I've been very lucky to have my reviews help many decide what to buy, what to play, and even that takes all my free time. I understand there is a shady area where PR deals with ghosts but the genuine smaller outlets enjoy talking games and helping out.
@bpashalidis I also wish there was a better way for us to meaningfully attribute content to clicks so our developers had a clearer understanding of where keys "went" so to speak
@matthewmwhite For sure. That’s something I feel needs to be addressed within the industry. I try my best to email coverage or content back to my rep whenever I can to let them know yes, I covered it and here’s what we did.
@bpashalidis We *massively* appreciate those little touches from our side. Publishers in particular have to make sure the devs are happy, so being able to point to content is an amazing plus.