Gaming Journalist's Code of Ethics

[marurder]

Its been a bit of a subject recently in the gaming world of "less-than-ethical" practices by both game makers and games journalists. Everything from accepting bribes for reviews (ME3, DA2, Modern Warfare 3 etc.) to free trips, gifts and other things that can/would color their opinions of the games being reviewed/discussed.

Just looking at a website, even such as the Escapist, you see ads for particular games EVERYWHERE - even ones they're reviewing or about to review. For most this would be a pretty blatant conflict of interest or source of bias. But we seem content to let reviewers and developers get away with it without too much trouble. There certainly seems to be no unified code or standard we hold them to - we'll praise one group for something and then damn another with equal furor for the same thing.

So I thought - why don't we hold reviewers and game commentators to ethical standard like we do other businesses? Why not come up with an agreement/code that we want them to agree to and hold in order for us to trust them and believe what they say?

I agree with the sentiment that 'reviewers' and 'critics' and their editors need some kind of code. I disagree that they need to sign or uphold the list you made. Not because I disagree the concepts. Just because it isn't practical in the way the (journalism) industry works.

And then I started thinking about what that kind of code would look like. Though this is just an idea, here is what I came up with for a sample:

"I [Name/Organization/Group etc.] understand that my duty as a games journalist is to provide my customers and fellow gamers with timely, accurate and useful information in order to enhance their gaming experience and provide them with information that will be useful in making gaming related decisions such as what games to purchase, accessories to improve their enjoyment of said games and help inform them of important developments and news in the world of gaming.

Without wading into and point out the obvious holes. I agree with the sentiment.

As such, I will endeavor to ensure my utmost neutrality and avoid bias or things that could be perceived to bias me for/against certain games, topics etc. In pursuit of this goal I promise the following:

Easier said than done. Companies make a lot of money from ad revenue. It isn't a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you in the ever competing world. We see this with print media now. They shy away from reporting articles that hurt their large advertisers. This often occurs at the editorial levels though.

- I will NEVER accepted any gifts, items or extraneous items related or unrelated to games or gaming from ANY developer, publisher or related source. I will politely refuse or return ANY such items unopened and unused to the person/group that provided them.

- I will accept ONLY things needed to provide review/commentary on the game/topic at hand, such as a copy of the game.

This is stupid and naive. If a company invites a group of journalists to review a product and pays for the trip of course the journalist should go. If there were things paid for or given the journalist would need to clearly state it in their review for the related products/company dealings.

- While acting in ANY capacity where I would be viewed as a journalist, reviewer or commentator I will conduct myself in a professional, respectful and journalistic fashion.

But mud-slinging and acting like an arse gets more page views. Though I applaud the attempt at raising the bar.

- If I receive ANY convenience (food, travel etc.) granted to me in the process of reviewing/commentating on gaming I WILL make clear note of it in the associated article/comment/video.

I wrote the above before I read this one clearly. Agreed.

- While I am free to come up with my own review style/system, I WILL ensure that it is clear, concise and easily explained with clear explanations for the good and bad of a particular topic.

I assume *I* refers to the company in question rather than each individual.

- I WILL ensure that before reviewing a game etc. I have spent enough time with in ALL facets in order to be able to provide a comprehensive overview and understanding of the game. I will CLEARLY note in the article/comment/video how much time/what I did with the subject in question by the time of posting.

- I WILL ensure that I put the utmost effort in clarifying when I am discussing facts vs. opinions.

I, the undersigned do understand and acknowledge that as a person/group of integrity and honesty that failure to abide by this agreement is a failure in my duty to my customers to provide the services they seek from and a violation of their trust.

Signed,
[Name/Group/Organization etc.]
[Date]"


Obviously its a rough draft, but I think having something like this and forcing gaming journalists to follow it would dramatically improve the quality of content we receive in regards to information and reviews for gaming.
[/quote]

At the end of the day any code of practice would need to be enforced otherwise it isn't worth the disk-space it is held on. Who would be the organization to enforce it? Since many journalists/contributors are internationally based - who would have jurisdiction? For example - A company based in America, a breach caused by an employee in England. When there is a breach, what consequences should be appropriate? A retraction? Apology? Where would such a article be published? How prominent should it be? For me it isn't what is right or wrong, but how those who cross a clear line are or aren't punished. It seems the same people make noise because there are no mechanisms in place to deal with them.

The poster above also makes a good point. Real journalism (becoming increasingly rare) is hard work. Most of the people writing about games do it because they think it is an easy thing - a get rich/famous quick tool as it were.

 

[TK421]

This again?
*sigh*

Look: you give me solid, unquestionable, irrefutable PROOF that bribes were ACTUALLY accepted for those games you listed, and maybe I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say. People are quick to throw around accusations when a review goes up that they disagree with, but that's all they do: throw them. They never back them up. Do that for me, and I'll read through the rest of what you have to say.

That's all I want, really: this is the internet. If there were shady, underhanded dealings going on between the people criticizing games, and the companies publishing them, there would be proof somewhere. I've never seen any.

You don't honestly believe that no bribes were taken for the scores some of the more recent (<5yrs) games have been given? Because, proof or not, it's freaking obvious. There have been no perfect games made, yet we keep seeing scores of "10." And I also find it very interesting that the only games that receive scores above about an "8" or "8.5" are triple-A games that are backed by a bunch of money.

You're still correct, I have no proof, but all of the signs point to bribes being a fact, not a theory.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

here is my code

if the reviewer likes games i like and has the same tastes as me then i listen to them. if they seem to adore game i find distasteful, boring, or just not my cup of tea for an extended period of time i find another individual to listen to. these people are striving for our attention and viewership and the only way we can really say anything to them. if you think a reviewer/ website/ company is being bribed or giving false information/ inflating scores then you should stop watching them.

i kind of feel bribery didnt take place in the cases suggested because i can see why people would like those games (i loved the gameplay of DA2 but hated the level design, story, and dialogue and ME3 was pretty dam good up until the ending). if a company or individual boosts a score then their reputation is tainted and their viewership, which is where they make their money, drops due to dissatisfied consumers. these sites/ people/ companies work for our viewership and to accept bribes only provides a very short term gain but a very long term potential pitfall

i can see gifts being sent to influence but outright bribery with cash is hard to believe

 

[Lieju]

This again?
*sigh*

Look: you give me solid, unquestionable, irrefutable PROOF that bribes were ACTUALLY accepted for those games you listed, and maybe I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say. People are quick to throw around accusations when a review goes up that they disagree with, but that's all they do: throw them. They never back them up. Do that for me, and I'll read through the rest of what you have to say.

That's all I want, really: this is the internet. If there were shady, underhanded dealings going on between the people criticizing games, and the companies publishing them, there would be proof somewhere. I've never seen any.

You don't honestly believe that no bribes were taken for the scores some of the more recent (<5yrs) games have been given? Because, proof or not, it's freaking obvious. There have been no perfect games made, yet we keep seeing scores of "10."

No, it's not obvious. Are you saying ALL of them are paying them off? Or maybe the score-system has naturally slided towards higher scores because that what people started to give them? Technology has gone forward, and as new innovations were made the new games were seen as 'better', so they received better scores. And as more games got better scores those scores were devalued and so it became easier to get them.

Try giving an average game a '5' and you have people comparing your score to people giving it 8 or 9 but who have the same opinion, and they think your score is too low and/or the game is bad.

EDIT: I thought of some other possible reasons. A lot of those AAA games are sequels. If you loved a game and gave it a good score and then the sequel is basically the same game, you might feel oblicated to give it a good score as well.

Or the case might be that people who are big fans of the franchise or the type of game it is end up playing and reviewing them, especially for the weirder titles, and so will enjoy them more and already know how to play them. So they might not notice for example how it's incomprehensible for most people or people not used to the games.
And since they're niche titles, they might want to give them good scores to get other people play these games they think are awesome.

You're still correct, I have no proof, but all of the signs point to bribes being a fact, not a theory.

Nope.

 

[PBMcNair]

As such, I will endeavor to ensure my utmost neutrality and avoid bias or things that could be perceived to bias me for/against certain games, topics etc.

Some people will always percieve bias, if they dislike a reviewers opinions

- I will NEVER accepted any gifts, items or extraneous items related or unrelated to games or gaming from ANY developer, publisher or related source. I will politely refuse or return ANY such items unopened and unused to the person/group that provided them.

Really ? That would, to me, be one of the only perks to a job like this. The entire internet potentially viewing, judging and (considering how these things can go) hating your work(and you). But at least you might get some loot.

- I will accept ONLY things needed to provide review/commentary on the game/topic at hand, such as a copy of the game.

Same as above. Not an issue, provided you can remain nuetral. EA could buy me all the swag they wanted, but I still wouldn't like Dragon Age 2 any more/less.

- While acting in ANY capacity where I would be viewed as a journalist, reviewer or commentator I will conduct myself in a professional, respectful and journalistic fashion.

I'm actually pretty ok with that. Professionalism is always a good thing.

- If I receive ANY convenience (food, travel etc.) granted to me in the process of reviewing/commentating on gaming I WILL make clear note of it in the associated article/comment/video.

I suppose that's reasonable enough, but the ANY bit seems a bit much. If I were interviewing someone in their office, and they gave me a coffee, would I have to make note of it ?

- While I am free to come up with my own review style/system, I WILL ensure that it is clear, concise and easily explained with clear explanations for the good and bad of a particular topic.

Thats a style thing, and its up to the people writing/recording it. If its confusing, people will stop using it/complain.

- I WILL ensure that before reviewing a game etc. I have spent enough time with in ALL facets in order to be able to provide a comprehensive overview and understanding of the game. I will CLEARLY note in the article/comment/video how much time/what I did with the subject in question by the time of posting.

About 95% with you on this. Sometimes things get tight, and there may not be time to give a game enough of a go. But as long as its noted clearly, I don't mind a "first impressions" or mini review.

- I WILL ensure that I put the utmost effort in clarifying when I am discussing facts vs. opinions.

By now I'm sure you've plenty of "reviews are all opinions" comments, which I agree with. But I do think there should be a certain seperation of technical facts from reviewer opinion. e.g. Game crashing on certain graphics cards = technical fact. Game looks dated/crap = reviewer opinion.

I, the undersigned do understand and acknowledge that as a person/group of integrity and honesty that failure to abide by this agreement is a failure in my duty to my customers to provide the services they seek from and a violation of their trust.

Signed,
[Name/Group/Organization etc.]
[Date]"


Obviously its a rough draft, but I think having something like this and forcing gaming journalists to follow it would dramatically improve the quality of content we receive in regards to information and reviews for gaming.

As others have said, not a whole lot of use without some group to crack heads if rules get broken. And its been said that games journalism is a comparitively new branch of journalism.

However, I think that may be a good thing. Game journalism's practices don't come with the decades of tradition that other fields have. It's still fairly young and that (hopefully) means its still malleable. Maybe with enough work ethics can become part of how games journalism works, not because of fear of penalties, but because its just how its done.

The main stumbling block to this is, somewhat ironically, the internet. The same thing that allows us to get instant info and feedback on games, means that some people will always cut corners to be first.

 

[Bruce]

- I WILL ensure that before reviewing a game etc. I have spent enough time with in ALL facets in order to be able to provide a comprehensive overview and understanding of the game. I will CLEARLY note in the article/comment/video how much time/what I did with the subject in question by the time of posting.

- I WILL ensure that I put the utmost effort in clarifying when I am discussing facts vs. opinions.

Some of us have word limits. Noting how much time I spent with the game is not going to be as useful to my reader as noting any issues with bugs or even voice acting.

In an ideal world a review is always going to be 90% opinion, because if it isn't there is something terribly wrong with the game. I have a review scale which essentially takes objective measures as the first two hurdles a game must pass before I get to whether I actually like it or not.

This is why two games I loved, Fallout New Vegas and Xcom Enemy Unknown got 2s. Neverdead got a 4 because while it was by far the inferior game, it at least was reasonably stable and playable on release.

Fortunately I haven't had to give a 1 yet, because that would entail replacing my hardware.

Anyway, I would actually include:
- I will keep my journalism separate from my reviewing. Reviewing is an editorial function at heart, while journalism should be a reporting function. They require quite different skill sets to do right, and doing both can generate a few conflicts of interest.

 

[franticfarken]

I think the main thing is about Bias.
It would be like getting someone who absolutely despises Call Of Duty to review the next game,
why it got 1/10 you ask? Well because the guy who reviewed it was incredibly biased.

 

[Nick Nikolov]

Reviewers are by definition biast - every one has a diffrent type of taste on which games they prefer and while one reviewer could give an excelent review on an rts another might ignore the genre all together (for example Yahtzee who does not enjoy rts games), so it really comes down to which game journalist shares your taste and general opinion on most games, there is no objectivety here you will pick the one whose taste comes the closest to your own - not because he/she is moral, objective and an excelent professional.

But okay let's say that we establish some objective factors that make a game journalist good, and we create a code of etics - which would contain a set of rules any game reviewer has to follow. Here begin the real troubles, how exacly are you going to enforse these rules? Because normally people follow the rules not because they are morally obliged to do so, they follow them because there are consequences to violating the rules set by society - i.e. organizations that sanction the ones that violate them - such as the various kinds of goverment entities. To create an entity that governs game journalism is impossible, given the international nature of the main medium that serves as a provider of pieces of game journalism - the web in the form of blogs, vlogs etc. Also if let us say that does happen, and such an organization is created and presented with the power to sanction behavior that goes against the code, I for one am against it. This would mean that every journalist will follow these rules (which can be changed) and would in essence be censored, and his opinion would seaze to be his own, and ironically all of them would be biast (since they have to follow a specific set of the same rules in fear of them being punished for not doing so).

Again this is very far fetched, but just sharing my two cents

 

[CloudAtlas]

This again?
*sigh*

Look: you give me solid, unquestionable, irrefutable PROOF that bribes were ACTUALLY accepted for those games you listed, and maybe I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say. People are quick to throw around accusations when a review goes up that they disagree with, but that's all they do: throw them. They never back them up. Do that for me, and I'll read through the rest of what you have to say.

That's all I want, really: this is the internet. If there were shady, underhanded dealings going on between the people criticizing games, and the companies publishing them, there would be proof somewhere. I've never seen any.

No evidence is no proof for bribery not happening, but as long as there is none, the presumption of innocence has to apply to reviewers too. Sure, ad revenue and the balance of power will have an influence, but bribery or other shady dealings? I'm not convinced.

Sometimes some reviewers give a game particularly high scores. Sometimes you dislike a game that got a high metascore. Sometimes games don't live up to the expectations created by previews. There are perfectly natural explanations for all of that, some is statistically almost inevitable, no need for donning a tinfoil hat.

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

This again?
*sigh*

Look: you give me solid, unquestionable, irrefutable PROOF that bribes were ACTUALLY accepted for those games you listed, and maybe I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say. People are quick to throw around accusations when a review goes up that they disagree with, but that's all they do: throw them. They never back them up. Do that for me, and I'll read through the rest of what you have to say.

That's all I want, really: this is the internet. If there were shady, underhanded dealings going on between the people criticizing games, and the companies publishing them, there would be proof somewhere. I've never seen any.

You don't honestly believe that no bribes were taken for the scores some of the more recent (<5yrs) games have been given? Because, proof or not, it's freaking obvious. There have been no perfect games made, yet we keep seeing scores of "10." And I also find it very interesting that the only games that receive scores above about an "8" or "8.5" are triple-A games that are backed by a bunch of money.

You're still correct, I have no proof, but all of the signs point to bribes being a fact, not a theory.

If you read the review guide of any site that has one available, the very first thing that they state when describing whatever their highest score is inevitably "a game that earns this score is not a 'perfect' game." No one is going to argue that a game is "perfect," just of a high enough quality that the shortcomings cease to be any kind of detriment to the experience. A score of 10 means that the game does exactly what it sets out to do, and is a perfect experience, not a perfect product.

And your assertion that the only games that receive scores above 8 or 8.5 are backed by huge amounts of money is simply untrue, and suggests to me that you've got one wicked pair of blinders on.

This isn't a code being presented to try and avoid the loss and/or compromise of - for want of a better term - ethics. If it were, I would have no trouble with it. Accountability is never a bad thing. However, the OP is suggesting that such a loss/compromise has already occurred, and is thus attempting to provide a solution for the perceived problem: it's reactive, rather than proactive.

The thing is, I disagree with the notion that there is anything to react to. Given what I know about bloggers (which is quite a bit), I find it difficult to believe that the suggested problem is actually an issue to be dealt with, hence my asking for proof. The trouble with reacting to something you already believe is an issue is that, inevitably, you take a narrow-minded approach against the perceived slight.

Right, I guess I misinterpreted what you meant.

Spoiler: as far as the G+ example goes...

As far as the G+ example goes, I was using it as an example of online journalism as a whole presenting misleading information. They sold G+ as something revolutionary, yet you use it and it's not that great(rather pointless actually), which I found to be misleading at the time. I just expected them to be a little more objective, when they weren't.

Looking back on it now, it's not nearly as bad as what I remembered.

Here's what I'm talking about:

I couldn't get examples from gizmodo since they don't keep articles that long, but:

Computerworld went from being generally objective in early 2011:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9212178/Google_still_working_to_restore_Gmail_service
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9204882/Google_pays_record_bounty_for_Chrome_bug
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9208879/Bing_searches_more_accurate_than_Google_s_study_finds
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207939/Google_bets_20K_that_Chrome_can_t_be_hacked

To this at the G+ launch:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218348/Google_fervor_may_be_making_Facebook_nervous
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218068/Google_invites_shut_down_after_insane_demand_
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218027/First_look_Google_lets_you_hang_with_a_small_or_large_circle_of_friends

As I said, not as bad as I remembered.

Hmm... I suppose I can see where you're coming from, in a way. But I think the key here is you saying that it's "not as bad as you remembered." The only way to be able to really[\b] judge something is to be able to examine it in its entirety, and that's something that a lot of people can't or won't do if they've decided that there's some kind of issue that needs to be fixed.

 

[veloper]

Porn ads for revenue. Alternatively geeky movies and toys and comics, just anything that isn't videogame ads. Then just buy the games on pre-order for the game reviewers. That's the only solution, but it would be hard.

As long as the revenue is coming from the people making the products, there will always be a conflict of interests.

It's not the age of the medium. Car journalism has been around forever and is even worse than game journalism in this regard. Only a different source of revenue may allow true independence.