I think it's safe to say it has happened. I doubt it's all that common though, the majority of reviewers seem quite happy to do it for free copies. And given the state of game journalism in general, I'm not sure that paid reviews would be any less reliable or meaningful. Mind you, I don't think -any- of this is anything new...it dates back at least as far as the 80s, when dead-tree reviewers were pretty much assumed to be biased by the advertising dollars paid to the mag in question.

As always with reviews, the best approach is to play a demo when possible, and when it's not available, find a reviewer with similar taste to your own and take the rest with a big grain of salt.

Ugh, misogyny.

huh I missed it. Part of being immune I guess.

I really shouldn't bite, but okay, where exactly is the misogyny here? (It feels like some twisted version of Where's Waldo)

@Stormsinger

Indeed, I doubt it's ever explicit cash, just the promise of being rejected from early review events and being snubbed for previews. Being late to review or not getting any exclusive information can be a big deal for a mag or game site.

Yeah, I'm sure being rejected early access to review code has a far bigger impact than cash. It takes time to review a product and get content generated and ready to go, which is why early review code is necessary so you can launch your review as soon as that review embargo ends... as those are the ones that will generate the click revenue, which is probably exceeds whatever studios may pay directly.

Hey, I've been offered review code (never of AAA titles, biggest I got offered was The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut and Sword Coast Legend) on occasion from a PR firm that somehow I got on their list (I do have a blog that is gaming focused, got a very small Twitch channel and YouTube channel that largely focuses on games). I personally only accept ones that I genuinely have an interest in... of course this perhaps clogs judgement all the more. I wanted to like the title... so I may be more forgiving. When I founded and ran Mortyr.net (it's long since been taken over) I admit my preview of the game was clouded a bit, though I've tried to apply lessons learned from that forward. Then again, it's perhaps easier to apply those lessons to myself as I'm too small to matter (and the offers for review code are very few and far between), a big publishing site who's reviews count on the Metacritic analysis, and rely on click through revenue has less room to be apply such lessons and almost needs to ignore impartiality in favor of making sure you keep in the publisher's good graces. A PR firm handing me a review code that doesn't work out well isn't as bad if Game Informer or somebody like that doesn't give it a positive review.

TLDR: Exactly what RedSky and Stormsinger said.

I'm not allowed to accept gifts etc at work... and I don't even work in anything close to journalism

Honestly tho, you got on a site, or youtubes or w/e for game reviews...and you don't pay a dime, hell, you might not even see any ads... hmm. Wonder how they make a living!

I'd love to know how much people are actually influenced by reviews. I tend to stick to developers who have delivered in the past. For everything else there is always a lets play or twitch stream shortly after release. Most of the time I read reviews after I've bought a game just to see what other people think about it...

When the woman appeared onscreen, the reviewer was saying "dog"?

Weird, I wonder why he chose Far Cry Primal for this particular rant. The game received mixed reviews and has an average Metacritic score of 76 (across all three platforms). I seriously doubt Ubisoft would pay for such reviews.

As others have mentioned, publishers don't offer explicit bribes. They offer access. Preview copies, preview events, interviews, footage, screenshots, etc. In the long run, that's far more valuable than straight up cash.

Pretty much all of those Conan gamer clips you see are paid for - he doesn't do that for free!

Many of the top youtube let's players (pewdiepie) will do reviews for 10's of thousands (50k I think I heard). That's not for all reviews, just for games that they weren't planning on reviewing. There's no guarantee they'll give a positive review, so I guess that's how they don't feel icky for that?