The MMO Gaming Review Industry and Spunkify's Career Change

[ThePrinceofMillAve]

Online gaming is a multi-million dollar segment of the billion-dollar gaming industry and there's been some fun shake-ups recently in the review community element of our industry. Mainly, Spunkify (editor-in-chief of MMOHut) found himself ousted from his job and was picked up by another site (MMOBomb).

As a result, I figured it was a good time to describe to cultural insiders (gamers) and outsiders about how media cultures function and why the shift of an editor between review sites can have impact. Especially in light of why Spunkify claims he needed to move -- which is essentially that his current job was selling out and no longer looking after the concerns of the community.

Let me know: Does anyone here consider journalism and review of books, movies, games, and etc. to have more integrity if there's less of a commercial aspect and less obvious marketing/moneymaking involved in the production of reviews?

 

[Consolex]

I myself keep my distance away from the online MMO market. But I found your video really awesome. I hope that review sites don't fall into the game companies pockets due to their affect on consumers. A game site known for that is IGN. It always favors xbox over ps3 and gives platform comparisons favoring the xbox for games. Why I cant be sure but people suspect that its because xbox is its major sponsor. Not that I have any proof but fans do suspect that they are biased.

 

[ThePrinceofMillAve]

I myself keep my distance away from the online MMO market. But I found your video really awesome. I hope that review sites don't fall into the game companies pockets due to their affect on consumers. A game site known for that is IGN. It always favors xbox over ps3 and gives platform comparisons favoring the xbox for games. Why I cant be sure but people suspect that its because xbox is its major sponsor. Not that I have any proof but fans do suspect that they are biased.

I think that's a very astute comparison.

Right now MMO gaming is niche to the entire video game market (multi-million rather than multi-billion) so this favors indie sites, and small outfits, and the big magazine-style review sites haven't locked on yet. However, as the free-to-play market begins to make headway this is going to change. No longer will there be one big-momma (WoW) but a lot of big venues like LoL and others attracting attention and money.

We'll see where it goes.

I'm just reminded of when GameSpot canned one of their editors for giving some video game a bad review (for his bad review for fear of getting blacklisted by the publisher.) It engenders a sort of dishonesty that I don't want to see in the game review industry. When a site or a magazine gets blackballed by a publisher I want them to use it as a badge of honor so that players know that reviews of their games cannot be trusted. I want blackballing of major and even minor review sites to have social and monetary repercussions more significant than poor reviews.

 

[Consolex]

Its a reminder that money talks.