No joke, I googled this title before I got through the paragraph. I want innovative path-tracking and routing!

Non sequitur much? Don't ignore the context please. We're not discussing the ethics of capitalism... nor DLC season passes... you compared specifically subscribing to MMOs with patreon subsidies. Did you understand the difference in kind? Commitment to a potential or an author and commitment to a specific product are different... this is independent of the recurring nature of the product by the way, same distinction applies to purchasing via pre-order or after release, it's called time preference and explains why the price goes down after release... those buying earlier care more about the product... imagine those paying before it even exists, how much more they care in comparison... ergo, larger potential conflict of interest.

If you disagree just say so...

In fact I don't understand the difference in kind. DLC passes are undoubtedly a "commitment to a potential" (if I follow your use of that phrase) in that they are an upfront payment for unrevealed products. At most, we have a difference in degree. Committing to a game's DLC requires trust that what made you like the base game will be present in the DLC, while supporting a Patreon requires trust that what made you like a person's other work will be present in the works funded by the Patreon; it's true that the latter is a greater leap of faith, but it's of exactly the same kind and entails exactly the same kind of emotional investment by the purchaser.

The relevant difference in kind here, as dragonbeast and babark point out, is between buying and being bought (something in which some Youtube personalities seem uninterested). That's a bright-line distinction: If a writer has received any special consideration from a subject, they're in dangerous territory, and if they don't reveal it then they've committed a major ethical breach. Everyone (minus, again, some Youtubers and their patrons) understands this. This equivocation of Patreon and actual graft does nothing but muddy the ethical waters.

I'm sorry, we're all out of misogyny. Can I interest you in some rather peevish comments about people that wear sandals?

Back OT, I'm pretty sure that the person you're responding to is either a troll or is mentally enfeebled to the point of being incapable of acknowledging the rather significant difference between buying a game and investing in somebody else's success. A Patreon contribution just requires a disclosure and chances are that nobody will really care if it's there. But if it's not there, then people are likely to actually care because it does indicate a potential bias in the coverage.

Fair enough. I still don't get why, but ok. However, your link also says: So it seems your link doesn't seem to cover game critics (as long as they are "aware" of all the relevant points of view, even if they don't follow them or mention them). Then again, I notice you're talking about some specific incident which I'm not following, so I'm not sure if you're talking about reviews or reporting on some video game related news story.

Not sure what you mean by strawman reviewer. I wasn't building up some imaginary reviewer to knock it down, I was giving examples of vocal reviewer opinions that are common, and have nothing wrong with them.

Hahah...I honestly have no idea what I said. MOBAs are games where you want to quickly go from one corner of the screen to the other, right? There's got to be innovative path-tracking and routing!

Actually kickstarters should be reported much more carefully. Professional journos have stricter liability to cover things fairly because they're pros who get paid for it. If the journo was reasonable and fair, and did not err by way of ignoring important matter, it is not the journo's fault. I agree.

People are requesting disclosure on donations because donating implies you want the product or service to grow (ie as your own personal interest or for your own benefit and this can be in addition to wanting everyone to know about a good game) and that the writer may exaggerate so that the writer's own interest can be fulfilled with the help of the audience. Its not applicable most of the time because journos rarely report on stuff they only would profit from; but having a sentence of disclosure can't hurt right? Other than that, I also agree with Dragonbeast that they should be free to donate to whatever they see fit, but just add a sentence of disclosure when covering it. IMO, its not near as serious as taking money and just a few words stating a donation amount is enough.

@fanlist
They can decide the split. No one trying to say what journalists can write and not write about. Just disclose that how they got it.
I don't quite understand the other one. IMO a journo can donate to a KS, disclose that and review it and won't have to disclose again that they donated to the company if they are reviewing another of the dev's games. Is that what you said?

Ghazi tries to dox anonymous AAA dev for being proGG ; https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3hp5yg/drama_gamerghazi_tries_to_doxx_xbro/
Where are all the anti-harassment speeches aGG?

It's rather ironic YOU calling other people "sloppy arguers". Your arguments hold very little water at all. Not once did you respond to my question of what Early-access games and games discounts one received from supporting Zoe Quinn. Because it's pretty clear no one received anything as she hasn't produced anything else.

I already address this. Normal gamers buy DLC, yes? So not that much of a deal. Do normal gamers support Zoe Quinn's Patreon in order to receive all the great early-access games and discounts she's offering? That answer is NO. While I could imagine a Patreon could be set-up as sort of a "Kickstarter" store. Most of them are not. The vast majority are about asking for money to support their art. And if someone has already supported a Patreon, it's clear they have favoritism to the subject prior to the article they wrote.

Let's also nto forget what patreon stand for, not a direct exchange of goods in a free market. But direct financial support; in essence a Patron, a supporter of that artist/person.


It's very hard to call someone unbiased if that person is giving a monthly donation to someone hes covering.

"Normal gamers" don't write for games sites. "Normal gamers" almost certainly don't have opinions worth reading about the games they play (because normal consumers of anything usually don't have interesting opinions; that's why critics have jobs). I don't care what "normal gamers" do, because I don't have any idea what one is.
I expect that someone whose thoughts about gaming I'm supposed to respect will consumer a lot of games and games-related media, from the mainstream to the obscure, and that they will pay for those things. Some of those things are paid for through Patreon.
I honestly have no clue what anyone's Patreon has produced, because I'm not funding any. That's neither here nor there, though: The deal with Patreon is that you sign up to be the first in line for new stuff, whenever that may come out. It's part of the expectation that sometimes you'll get a lot and sometimes you'll get nothing, and you should sign up for one when you think the average will be worth your money. Maybe it won't be and you'll be out your funding dollars. Who knows! Maybe next season's DLC will be game-breaking crap.
I just don't see any convincing reasons to hold Patreon as sui generis rather than another kind of purchase. If buying something from someone means you can't report on them, say that. If buying something from someone on an ongoing basis means you can't report on them, say that. But on just this page I've seen Patreon called problematic because

1) It's not strictly required to gain access to a product
2) It's paying for something that doesn't alrady exist
3) It's "commitment to a potential or an author" rather than "commitment to a specific product"
4) "Normal gamers" don't do it

This looks a whole lot like ad hoc justification, not a general principle. It's that general principle I'm after; something that doesn't include the word "Patreon" or reference to specific people or incidents. Something like, "Don't accept money from people you write about," or, "Don't report on your family and friends (without saying you are)".

Guys we need to step up our game. We haven't been very sexist towards women in a while. If anyone needs help on how to do this. Ernest Adams founder of the IGDA and self described "Social Justice ICBM" shows us how to completely erase a woman's existance.

https://archive.is/cZnYr

For an added bonus this was Ernest in October.

https://archive.is/OM5aw

Exactly.
Donating to a Patreon or Kickstarter account is more or less like investing money on a project. And any form of investment leads to bias.

Actual investments lead to bias because they yield returns. If a developer's game does well, their investors will get more money; they have a vested interest in the game's success and aren't trustworthy sources. The developer's Kickstarter and Patreon backers, in contrast, get nothing but the knowledge that a game they (presumably) like has done well. This same payoff accrues even if they don't back the Kickstarter or Patreon, so how are those expenditures affecting their reporting?

So there's the general rule: "Disclose any investments you have in subjects you report on." Everyone agrees with that; having money riding on the success of a venture is the very model of a conflict of interest. Kickstarter and Patreon backers don't have money riding on the success of the projects or people they back, so that reason to demand disclosure doesn't apply.

It's like I told Brasas, we're all out of misogyny, but I think we could probably fix you up with some ethnic jokes directed at the Irish or Polish. I don't think we're going to be running low on those any time soon.
No, the yields are just the most obvious result. Just investing yourself emotionally in something or buying it can yield just as strong a reaction. Just look at all those fanbois out there. Most of them don't own any stock or receive any monetary benefit from shilling. They do it because they've emotionally invested in the product and don't want to have that challenged.

Only if we assume that editorials are an ethical free-for-all where impartiality isn't something worth striving toward and the entirety of game journalism is comprised of opinions rather than reporting on things that happen. Neither are particularly accurate, though your inability to tell the two apart does bring up just how muddied the wall between editorials and news is in game journalism.

And the specific incident that people keep returning to isn't an editorial piece or a review (it's labeled under "news"), so it falls under and falls short of the precepts mentioned in the links. We're talking about a lot of different things at once, though, so it's not surprising that someone who just jumped in is lost. I do think there's a conversation to be had about how editorials factor into news in general (the "Fox News conversation," basically) and which rules still apply given the inseparable nature of opinion and fact in game journalism in particular.