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Douglas Lowenstein's final speech as ESA president was a take no prisoners articulation that took aim at "Cut and Run" developers

"If you want to be controversial, that’s great. But then don’t duck and cover when the shit hits the fan. Stand up and defend what you make."

and the enthusiast media.

"Great other forms of media have a very very powerful forms of critical components,” he continued. “Look at the film and music industries. The quality of the nature of the criticism is very deep, it’s very thoughtful. The game industry press has the ability to push this industry to greater heights of creative success. People in this room care a lot more about what the games press say about what they create than what anyone else will say. And I hope that that platform is used in a way that is more empowering and more ambitious. I just don’t think the games press has asked enough of itself, and I hope that it does."

As much as I attempt to keep humour as an ingredient that is found throughout the network I have to agree with Mr. Lowenstein. There should be more investigative reporting. I don't mean the which girl did big name developer A have under his desk last night reporting. I mean true, proven criticism of the games and the process of making them.

For instance, we recently turned down an advertising contract because the company that was going to pony up the money wanted to 'approve' our preview of the game. By approve I mean edit out any criticisms that we might have about the title. I now see previews of that game on our competitor's sites. They bent over. We didn't. Who got the traffic and the ad money?

Most developers and publishers like to check for accuracy. Because we are often interviewing via e-mail on projects in production they like to make sure that the developer isn't letting information out of the bag that should still be firmly tied up. The gaming community being what it is, an enormous cloud of millions in which only thousands of inhabitants speak out, the developers have to be careful when it comes to injecting information into the cloud. If they make a claim or a promise and can't deliver upon it there will be thousands of gamers pointing it out. It is much easier for them not to make any promises at all.

Segue to having our hands tied. We can ask all the hard questions in the world, but if the publisher demands that we don't print the answer then we are put in a sticky situation. If we print it, the relationship with the publisher is damaged, possibly to the point that you won't see any more information out of them on our network.

This is where events like the Game Developers Conference, E3 (hopefully the new intimate E3 is as fruitful as the previous version) and the Austin Game Conference shine. The public relations staff aren't stuck between the developer and the editor, filtering what can and cannot be published. There is no cleansing of the article. Readers get the good stuff.
You can read more at Gamasutra. Scott Jennings has a short and sweet commentary as well.

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