Another reprint from Sore Thumbs Blog, which I used to run with former EGM Senior Editor, Crispin Boyer.

A while back, an industry contact of ours who has worked for several big publishers asked if he could write an article for our blog to show the other side of gaming journalism, from "their" perspective. He asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons (wait until you read it). He reveals some of the uglier things that go on in our business and shares some insights over why game publishers do the things that they do. It's still a very good read today.

Also, don't miss a developer's take on related issues: Professionalism in the Gaming Press.

By Anonymous Guy from Big Publisher

As someone who has worked on the marketing and PR for game publishers for many years, it’s fascinating to read Shoe and Crispin’s perspective on PR for games, and how publishers try to manipulate them to get big previews and good reviews.

I have been one of those people, doing everything I can to get try game journalists to place my games on the cover of their magazines, extended previews, assets posted online, and the scores as high as possible. I have pulled ad buys in protest of what I felt were unfair review scores.

I have spoken to the “boss” of publications before and complained about certain journalists. I have “banned” certain media outlets from getting pre-release access to games, because of previous unfavorable coverage.

OK, I can already hear the people posting in comments below. “Typical publisher scumbag! How dare you try to interfere with truth!” they will cry. And they have a point.

But the strategy behind a publisher’s efforts to pressure publications in the interest of a game does make sense in certain instances. Sometimes the efforts to control the message of a game come from the most hardcore of gamers -- the developers.

Right off the bat, it needs to be remembered that most serious games are projects that have involved dozens, if not hundreds of people for years (not talking about the licensed crap). The developer, in most cases, kills itself to get a game completed.

Any good PR people working for a game publisher understand what a developer goes through and should fight hard to get the game looked at by journalists fairly. This is not to say a bad game should get a free pass, but every game should be given a fair appraisal, with considerations made for target market and price.

What many gamers don’t understand is how busy journalists can be -- and also how lazy. Let's say you have a game that takes 30 hours to complete, and reviewer plays two hours of it and gives it mediocre review based on the first few levels, just because he has 10 other games to review and can’t put in the hours.

Or when seeing a game pre-release, the journalist complains about things in the game that are obviously works in progress. Or when an editor of a big gaming website gives his FPS guy a sim racing game to review.

Or when someone looks at all the other reviews online for a game, and just follows the crowd by posting a similar review (look at what’s happening to Too Human right now...does that game deserve scores that bad?). These things happen all the time.

Now, good game journalists don’t do any of these things, but truth be told, there aren’t that many good game journalists. The most reputable ones (like Shoe and Crispin) are so inundated with requests from game publishers, that it's inevitable that a publisher/developer will have to deal with the B (or C) team. And if they don’t act professionally, who can blame a publisher for fighting back with any means necessary?

Wouldn’t you try to protect a game you care about and feel is being slighted unfairly? The game journalist’s word means more than anything in terms of a game’s chance of success.

I think many developers believe that most game journalists know little about games (though to be fair, most PR people in games know even less). But people at game developers constantly complain about game journalists offering “ideas” in previews and reviews for how games should be improved, when they have no sense of how that is done.

A great unspoken truth is that those involved in games development and publishing feel that many journalists feel a sense of entitlement -- that they deserve to have their asses kissed because of the power they wield over the sell-in (convincing retail buyer to take a game) and the final sell-through of games to gamers.

The fact is game journalists -- of which there are hundreds at the moment -- are living off the blood sweat and tears of creative people who love games and regularly work 100-hour weeks. The fact that they can casually rip on a game gives others involved in the development and marketing process good reason to get pissed.

The industry has been crying out for “real” journalism for a long time now. What this means to me is not harsher reviews, but thoughtful analysis about games, real knowledge of game development, and a deep history of playing games -- and ultimately, gauging who the game would be fun for, and scoring it accordingly.

I think today it requires a specialty -- if you are a hardcore RTS player, look at only those kinds of games. If you are an editor-in-chief, find the right journalists and manage them properly.

But no one expects this to happen any times soon -- there is no journalism school for video games, and the Internet will breed more and more amateurs. So the battles will rage on!