Could be that his point-less (
) system can work for him here. But it wouldn't take more then a negative paragraph/conclusion/clip from him going viral to ending up in publishers bullseye. There's been many accusations of publishers being vindictive, but there hasn't been many who has actually brought receipts. So even if there has been many articles about how broken the publisher-media relationship is, we can't say with 100% certainty how widespread this is. Just another case of how this industry's hate for transparency sullies the trust with the consumers.
Just to clarify, when I talk about hobbyist reviewers I'm talking about people without large audiences. That don't need or want to earn money from it. But yeah, publishers has been targeting more mid sized reviewers/streamers over the years. I also don't necessarily hate sponsored content, as long as the reviewer/outlet/streamer refrain from reviewing said game.
100% agree, the best way to judge if a game is for you is to listen to a multitude of voices. Even professional written reviews might go into depth on a topic that interest you. So, as with all things in life, there is nuance. And when it comes to trusting a single source, I dont't think many of us enthusiasts does that no. Unless it's for some platform/brand warring.
I just wished we lived in a world where we could trust the industry we love.
But that's the thing, this industry isn't about trust, it's about enjoyment.
Same thing with movies, music, books, etc. Either the people gravitate towards something, or they don't. Either you yourself enjoy the product or you don't, that's how it is at the end of the day.
A lot of what you're stating in your post was the worry 15+ years ago back when journalists were the
gatekeepers of whether or not a person should check out content. The minute we entered the streaming era of twitch, tiktok, youtube, etc. where everyone had a voice, that all slowly faded away until only a few of them are left. That's why I understood the initial gamergate movement idea before things went out of control. However, the streaming generation took a big hammer to all of this and smashed it into a million pieces. That's why we don't
need that trust. There's no one specific entity (or handful) that we have to answer to anymore.
There is no more gatekeeping with magazine articles, websites, Cable TV, and pictures, because the streaming era killed all of them.
That's why today my worries lie with destructive content over constructive content. To elaborate, I don't mind people who have a harsher view of the industry (mainly the AAA side), as many here and elsewhere tend to. The issue I see is that if someone is going to spend time pointing out all of the bad aspects of everything, they should
at least recommend something else in exchange. Even the harshest of reviewers in history will still have their own top recommendations of the year or past years.
However, there's a new phenomenon where people simply aren't doing this, leaving the audience with...well, nothing. Or even worse, leaving them with an added dose of misery, distrust, or overall hatred. For an entertainment hobby with such a vast amount of different experiences, past and present, it is very saddening to see.
