Shadowstalker16: The game has some indie game award nomination as well. But what's the controversy, if there is one? And wasn't Patricia a room mate of some other developer? I recall a stereotypical tumblerina from somewhere.
WBGhiro: The controversy is Christina Love is an Indie Clique Darling.
All those asshole didn't give a single shit when games like Nekopara, the Grisaia series and countless other VN's got refused or butchered by Steam. And they Didn't care when Steam finally released uncensored VN such as If My Heart Had Wings or Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning.
And there are a lot of people who actually care about those games especially compared to that game., but those devs sadly didn't have the name of a worn out porn star.
Yeah reviews or any coverage for VNs is rare, and even rarer serious. I would question the sudden interest of so many hitherto uninterested journalists in this particular one, but I don't think this is a breach of ethics that is very serious. I think it can be argued that it had something that interested the journos enough to make them cover it, even if that was that it was made by their friend. Its partly a problem of lack of coverage of this genre in general.
Shadowstalker16: The game has some indie game award nomination as well. But what's the controversy, if there is one? And wasn't Patricia a room mate of some other developer? I recall a stereotypical tumblerina from somewhere.
RWarehall: Yeah, Anna Antrophy too. Patricia Hernandez is shameless when it comes to writing reviews for her friends....
http://www.deepfreeze.it/journo.php?j=patricia_hernandez At least I didn't see Patricia review this one this time, but Katherine Cross did...
http://www.deepfreeze.it/journo.php?j=katherine_cross But really, the issue isn't about disclosure as much as it's about how certain individuals get favorable press coverage from all the major players despite their games being typical bundleware crap. The fact they are friends, former roommates and/or lovers of gaming journos just shows how corrupt and incestuous the game journo industry is. It's not like this game got reviewed in just one or two mags, but all of them. This as a small time indie title.
Yes, it can matter heavily in genres of relative obsolescence but there is also the part that games in this genre are rarely covered in the first place and even though this coverage is probably the result of friendship, following a developer one knows is legitimate as a practice, IMO, as long as relations are disclosed where it extends to friendship.