James Del, LTD

ronworkman:

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday took steps to make product information and online reviews more accurate for consumers, regulating blogging for the first time and mandating that testimonials reflect typical results.

The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren’t typical. (Read more)

This includes flights, cocktail parties, free games, etc. The videogame blogosphere is going to be turned upside down. Why? Because it is filled with nothing but asshole fanboys that like one site and hate another. Therefore, the trolls will have a great time turning these sites in. On the other end, most gaming sites are finan… wait, let me rephrase that… All gaming sites of any size are financial nightmares and many are ran by con artists that pay shit already and refuse to share any of the business with the staff. I know a few sites that do this.

So now you will have the added burden of bloggers having an about front on what journalism is. It will be much harder to review a game and have your entire website skinned in the theme of that game now won’t it? Yes, that shit happens in the gaming world and people think nothing of it. I personally think it is laughable seeing that Gawker especially is one of the groups calling out Julia Allison btw. They accept free shit like everyone one else. I’m not saying that they allow people to push them around or they feel a burden because of free items, just pointing out that maybe they dont understand Julia’s point of view either.

(Thanks SoupSoup)

Not entirely sure how this affects Gawker or—in this example, Kotaku—at all. Our editorial staff isn’t allowed to go on junkets, and there is a very large basket in our office of free books, games, food, clothing, and more. Our editors don’t look at that shit…they don’t care. As for advertiser relationships, I think our position is pretty crystal clear. If you spend money with us, you’re not talking to editorial. I wish I could list all the times we’ve LOST money because of what our editors have said about products or companies that advertise with us. Let me repeat that.

Gawker Media only LOSES money because of what edit writes about our advertisers. It is utterly INFURIATING when we spend months (or years) building a relationship with a brand, only to have an editor hate that brand’s newest product. When we get the inevitable phone call to “take it down” or “hide it,” we’re the ones who have to shrug and say, “Sorry. That’s not how we work around here.”

I applaud the FTC’s decision and think it honestly will make my life easier. It almost codifies what we’ve done all along.

And as for reviews, I don’t really see how this applies to review copies of games, books, movies, etc. We’re a news outlet, you can’t expect us to go out and purchase every single book, movie, and game ever published. If a company wants to send us a copy for review they are welcome to, but their spending money with us will NEVER impact if that game/book/movie ever gets written up. Chances are it’ll wind up in the basket, or in rare cases in my personal book/movie collection.

An example: Would you expect the New York Times to disclose if a movie is advertising in their paper when a review of said movie is slated to run? One will never impact the other, and you know that reviewer did not pay for the movie. Common sense.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: STFU. Again.