gamejournos:

“To say Topware has been suffering from bad PR lately is to put it lightly. A number of anonymous sources have accused the publisher of attempting to influence review scores by threatening to blacklist any outlet that gives Two Worlds II less than a 7/10. If true, this paints a very grim picture of the company in an industry that already comes under fire for questionable PR practices. Topware has responded to, and denied, many of the accusations thrown its way, but there has been an increasing amount of these accusations from all corners of the business.”— NOT SHIT JOURNALISM - Destructoid, Jim Sterling: Allegations, sleaze, & treachery: A tale of Two Worlds [February 20th, 2011]

Fascinating read into the influence publishers have over the press and, if true, a sad indication of the nature of the industry’s grip, for want of a better word, on its press.

Although I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have something to complain about. In this article, Sterling writes:

Destructoid spoke to people within the industry, within Topware itself, and within the videogame press. Several of them preferred to remain anonymous; some of them I know personally. With that in mind, I’ve chosen to respect their request for continued anonymity, as much as I’d have loved for them to step forward.

It’s entirely possible that I’m reading too much into this, but this paragraph sounds like he’s chosen to maintain his source’s anonymity simply because they’re people he knows, suggesting that if he didn’t know his sources their identity could quite easily be up for grabs. It’s either very poor wording, which wouldn’t be new ground for Sterling, or it’s wobbly ethics, which (too easy - Ed.).

Jim Sterling’s not-so-great writing (has he ever worked for a newspaper?) aside, this whole thing is hardly a “fascinating read into the influence publishers have” — it’s a fucking banal one. It’s an open secret that we’ve all been aware of for years.

Secondly, if you’re not going to call out “wobbly ethics”, what are you going to do? It’s the reader’s — and rival publications’ — responsibility to call out the questionable ethics of news outlets; it holds everybody to a higher standard, and if you’re not going to do it, then why bother complaining about gaming journalism at all?

Source: gamejournos