A person who buys a game has been "giving money to the developer"! That's what people who like games do: Give money to the people who make them. And sure, paying money for a product tends to indicate you like (or expect to like) that product. A positive review indicates the same; there is no conflict of interest, because your financial interest and interest in honesty are in agreement. If you never gave money to the developer, you would still say their work was good (because if you didn't honestly think that, why would you give them money?).
And, again: If someone subscribed to WoW, would they have been ineligible to review Diablo 3? If so, that's a bizarre standard. If not, how is a subscription to receive Blizzard's latest work different from a subscription to receive an independent developer's latest work?
An easy mistake to make. The repeated occurrences of "games," "journalist," and "ethical" really could have been referring to either topic.

When you buy a game, you are buying a game. Does the developer profit? Sure, but you are doing it for the game. With Patreon, when one contributes, you are becoming a patron; you are taking a role in helping this individual develop their art. You are inherently a supporter of that person, thus the perceived conflict of interest. Patreon's are not generally a "subscription service" as you claim. And furthermore, most of the Patreon issues involve both Patreon contributions as well as an association in real life.

Now lets take your WoW example. Simply playing like an average person, probably does not require disclosure. But let's say you've been playing since it started, you run one of the most successful guilds in WoW history. You've been writing a WoW blog with an associated forum. That goes beyond the ordinary and ought to at least be disclosed. And if you've been quoted as saying Blizzard is the best developer the world's ever created, you probably shouldn't be the one reviewing Diablo 3...

And be careful of the strawman arguments, no one made the claims you seem to be attributing to them

I don't think I attributed any claims to anyone in that post?

I really don't understand your distinctions between Patreon and other consumer activity. Patreon subscriptions come with benefits: If we're talking about Zoe Quinn's (And why would we ever not be talking about Zoe Quinn here), it offers early access to her upcoming games and a discount on anything she sells. Early access to games by (whatever one thinks of her) a talked-about developer and community figure is a real, concrete thing that a games fan (particularly one who works for a news platform) might reasonably want.
This is, to be sure, "taking a role in helping this individual develop their art." So is buying their games, in exactly the same way: Exchanging money for access to their work. One is ongoing, the other one-time, and one is for a specified item while the other is for whatever happens to be created during the subscription. The Patreon model certainly requires an interest in a creator rather than a given work, but again, we're talking about consumer decisions here. Most game fans have some developers whose games they're almost always interested in. If I could blindly sign up for new French Bread or Almost Human games every month, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
On "Patreon issues" involving things outside of Patreon, what are the outside associations that make a Patreon subscription problematic? Are there examples of "Patreon issues" without complicating outside associations?

So specifically Zoe Quinn, what "Early-access" games and discounts has such a Patreon provided?

And let's be frank here. At the time in question, how many people do you think were really supporting her Patreon for these game discounts and how many were supporting it just to show their support? I mean Depression Quest was a PWYW/free game. What else has she produced? I would suggest there were far more just to support her hence the perceived "conflict of interest" if one would then be writing about her.

And for the record, your whole argument about having a WoW subscription and this being a "bizarre" conflict of interest was clearly a strawman. No one made any claim close to what you were countering...

I think the phrase here is "Not sure if serious or troll."

There's no way that people can be so stupid that they don't understand why supporting somebody via Patreon, receiving a review copy or having an interest in the person's success is different from buying a copy to review or wearing shoes.

You wouldn't disclose the brand of shoes you're wearing because virtually everybody wears shoes and nobody expects that to affect the reporting. Owning stock in a shoe company would be different, you have to disclose that or you get in serious trouble. Working at Nike or Adidas would likewise be something that should be disclosed even if the connection is no longer current.

Supporting somebody on Patreon may not be required, but it sure as hell looks bad. People don't generally just give money to random Patreon requests, it implies a certain amount of connection and a certain bias in the reporting. It should be disclosed so that readers can consider the possibility when reading the report. The same way that they woudl consider that a copy is a review copy rather than purchased by the magazine. In either case the critic probably didn't pay for the game, but which one it is can have an impact on what gets into the review and what the reviewer thinks at the start of the process.

I was countering the claim that supporting a Patreon is suspicious in a way that other gaming expenditures aren't. That is very much a claim that has been made; it is, actually, the exact claim we're discussing. My contention is that tossing Blizzard however-many dollars a month and tossing an indie developer however-many dollars a month, both with the understanding that you're paying for them to make games and that you'll get special consideration in playing those games, are ethically indistinguishable.
I'm well aware that no one claimed having a WoW subscription was a conflict of interest, and I think we agree that such a position would be bizarre. Since I think a gaming subscription is a gaming subscription is a gaming subscription, I also think it's bizarre to take issue with Patreon.

Virtually every games journalist buys games! If you buy someone's games, are you likely to falsify your reporting in their favor? If so, I don't see why you wouldn't do the same over shoes. We're talking, in both cases, about buying stuff. Giving to a Patreon is in no way related to owning stock in or being an employee of a company; it's exchanging money for goods and services. Sure, someone who supports a Patreon has an interest in the recipient's success, because they want more of the product they're paying for. I have an interest in the continued solvency of Adidas, because otherwise where will I get my Sambas?

I won't pretend to be familiar with MMOs because I have zero interest in the genre (don't know if you've noticed, but I don't exactly play well with others), but do people pay for them to fund the developer as they make the game? I had thought that you paid for access to the game, and then they kept it updated with new-ish content to keep people paying, but you make it sound like more of an early access deal. If that's the case, I was lucky to have dodged a number of bullets there.

And I'll readily admit that I hadn't considered the possibility of someone in the industry using it to get early versions of stuff and fund future games, but the fact remains that the readers have no way of differentiating between those who fund people on Patreon purely to support those they have some type of relationship with (unethical) and those who do it out of an interest in future games and discounts (probably not unethical?). If you feel disclosures that help people to make up their own minds about how objective the writer is aren't necessary, then how do you propose readers tell the two apart? It seems to me that even in the series of events most advantageous to your position, that uncertainty would still be there and necessitate being mentioned if one is striving to be ethical and transparent.

The difference is whether the object already exists or not when you pay. You're not paying Blizzard to make games directly, you're paying to play something. One of these reveals a stronger preference than the other. And although I'm not going to a argue much more with you * buying anything does indicate a preference, which is a reason why reviews are almost constantly positive, rather than half positive as would make statistical sense. That's regardless of the product - just check Amazon if you don't believe me. Hence the ethical principle of objectivity intended to compensate said bias and increase universality. You consider a reviewer's duty to be rather to his subjective opinions than to his readers' empowerment and knowledge gain about the object. That's a perfectly fine ethical opinion, just not shared by most here, and imo wholly antithetical to what journalism overall should be. The thing is, both are compatible, just several journalists for whatever reason have trended towards having no duty of objectivity to their readers. They actually make themselves a brand, interested in a loyal following of their personality rather than informing about objects. They become entertainers...

* Aug 15 account, straight to the GG thread, fishing with ZQ's name - found any misogyny yet?

...AND if they got a review copy from the publisher.
AND if they got the fancy doodad version as a review copy (which is the norm for the popular reviewers).
The list goes on and ends here:
http://www.pcgamesn.com/infinifactory/here-are-my-impressions-of-infinifactory-please-trust-them


Not that it's 'wrong' to disclose all that! It's just that it's hardly all necessary. We can put the dirt poorest journalists to the highest standards, all right, sure. But we all know it's not about that. It's not about "Wait... he even KICKSTARTED that game, really?". It is, was and will always be about "I'm uncomfortable with this Southern Jovial Wolf opinion so it has to be corrupt and an attempt to take my games away from me, he'd better really really be calling his review an opinion and let's see if I find dirt on the guy if I dig through his private life hard enough".

Airplay has made that abundantly clear, and I'm glad that Koretzky managed to achieve at least this, whatever his original intentions. His was an attempt to take away the SJW/p.c. culture/cultural marxist infiltration bollocks from gamergate, and sure enough, as a result, gamergate stood before people buck naked, as irate as ever.

Okay, then why do you feel that game journalists should get to follow looser ethical guidelines than "regular" journalists? Do you feel that it's cumbersome writing a little snippet at the beginning or end of a review stating whether they got a review copy or not? One sentence and a short disclaimer if you're giving someone money in a way that could be perceived as inappropriate involvement given your position really doesn't strike me as a lot to ask for, you know. Especially if you strive to avoid anything that would necessitate that kind of disclosure. Sure, we can go totally hyperbolic like babark and that link you posted did, but at that point we're no longer dealing with anything resembling reality. Great for mockery, bad if you want to actually have a discussion about how to adapt existing ethical guidelines to game journalism.

At least you're considering us equal-opportunity monsters looking to undermine a hypothetical male for unrelated reasons rather than being just the misogynist kind. The narrative is still completely off-base and little more than wishful thinking, but still. Progress!

My opinion in this is that if the journo is giving things, that doesn't really matter. If he likes a game and scores it 90% and supports its dev afterwards, thats just him being positive.

The journo giving away his money will not change his own opinion i think.

When the journo is on the receiving end its a different story. Then its downright bribery.

What ethics? You (or someone else, apologies if not you) mentioned something along the lines of "Journalists shouldn't even put up signs supporting a political candidate at home, because that is unethical!". I'm pretty sure that is nonsense. There is nothing unethical or unprofessional about a journalist having a certain viewpoint or supporting a certain cause. There is nothing wrong with the journalist writing through the prism of that particular viewpoint (as long as they disclose if they are getting paid by that cause. If they themselves are contributing to that cause, they could mention that, sure, but I don't see how it is unethical not to, if they are not getting any benefit from them).

Heck, as far as games go, I'd actually prefer reviews from someone who is passionate about what they're reviewing, definitely more so than someone who in an attempt to be "unbiased" just goes through a superficial list relating to the game.

I don't mind a reviewer who talks about how RTS games are a boring snoozefest and how all racing games are samey and how Morrowind had the greatest in-game world ever.

I also don't mind a reviewer who talks about how Defense of the Alchemists has the most innovative path-tracking and routing for mage builds, and Conquest of Warlands has the most awesome in-depth technology tree in the universe (sorry, I don't play a lot of MOBAs or RTSes :D), and adventure games are clunky and unfun relics of the past.

I'd certainly gravitate towards the first, and others would gravitate towards the second. Neither is worse than the other, and some hypothetical "unbiased" writer is in no way better than either.

I'm not sure your logic follows. Someone writing a positive review of a game is also basically entrusting their audience's money to the devs- It is irrelevant whether it is a kickstarter or a finished product. If after they buy the game the audience doesn't like it, is the writer suddenly unprofessional now because of that?

My point is again, basically what dragonbeast said. I can totally understand and support the need to disclose if the writer is GETTING money from the object of his article, but GIVING money, I don't see.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-atkins/stephanopoulos-incident-f_b_7346496.html
("When you become a journalist, you are required to give up certain rights, such as advocating for a political candidate by wearing a campaign button, sporting a political bumper sticker, or having a lawn sign favoring a candidate.")

http://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-politics.asp
("For political reporters, yard signs, bumper stickers and even campaign buttons should be considered off-limits.")

So no, you're patently and provably wrong. As for the rest of your post, you're just creating a strawman reviewer and trying to use them to prove that ethics and a lack of bias don't matter, which is honestly the most bizarre angle I've seen anyone take in this thread so far. I don't even know where to start replying to that.

DLC season passes: Unethical financial entanglement?

And I'm not fishing with anything: This Patreon complaint seems to have started with Kuchera's support of Quinn's Patreon, and that's the one that was mentioned in the thread when I jumped in. I'm not calling anyone misogynists; at worst, I'm calling them sloppy arguers.
1. When journalists buy a Humble Bundle, are they required to pay the minimum price and give all of their payment ot charity? On itch.io, can they pay the suggested price, or only download for free?

4. Kickstarter is fully distinct from Patreon, and I agree that reporting on in-progress Kickstarters requires more delicacy. That's because a writer who has pledged has something concrete to gain by the Kickstarter's (discrete, yes/no) success: Whatever they pledged for. I wouldn't expect that to affect a review of something else made by the Kickstarter's principals, because why would it? There's no payoff for slanted coverage, so whatever "slant" shows up is the result of a writer who likes what this producer makes.