You consider yourself a journalist yet you’re trying to tell us astroturfers don’t exist? Or that brand ambassadors don’t exist?
People who don’t get paid money get paid in goodies. And those who can’t get paid in either money or goodies, still have the option of getting paid in access.
Making yourself sound like you don’t know shit about the industry.
I own a company with employees and run my own business on top of doing freelancing and social media advertising for a variety of small/medium people. What is your point you are trying to prove here? You are a random internet web forum user that is trying to tell someone who they are? Sounds like super insecurity and self projection. Drop the passive aggressive act because you are not very good at hiding it.
Brand ambassadors do exist, but those are usually labeled and you have to legally declare that you are an ambassador and that you get commission if someone purchases something off an affiliate link.
Our company is an Amazon affiliate we have people who support us and buy both physical and digital games via our online store. That is the closest thing we do to making money via sales and the only thing we may promote in our written reviews and also writren pre-order guides. Sometimes, we shove the links into a top 10 list for an upcoming month of game releases. It is a smart tactic and usually gets people to purchase the product. The commission is very small and relies heavily on quantity sales rather than a one time purchase.
Other than that, we've never done any paid ads or been approached for any kind of marketing web poster or a banner ad from any video game companies. But that might be because our social media following is not as big as someone like IGN or Gamespot.
The most common paid advertising you'll see from video companies are usually in a form of a sponsored youtube videos such as Raid Shadow Legends or some other big know mobile games.
Obviously, it's up to you to decide if you want to agree to it and make a video on it. I don't know exactly how much they pay but I did hear it's a couple of grand a month and you'd have to be an idiot not to take it. At the end of the day, any kind of company company that exists is simply existing for the sole purpose of making some sort of an income.
Also, I would appericiate if you'd drop down your condescending attitude. I am willing to talk, but if you keep up with sarcastic responses and mr know it all attitude then I am afraid I won't have any interest in speaking with you.