Well where else are gaming review sites supposed to get their revenue? I keep reading indignant responses to the state of gaming reviews, but how else apart from advertising revenue are they supposed to carry on a business?
You might say that they could keep making revenue even while staying objective, being content with less revenue and less traffic because more objective reviews would inevitably lead to less sneak-peaks, less 'premiere' reviews and so forth, but they'd still be able to keep alive while gaining a kind of core audience; and that might be true, but I doubt any major operation revolving around games and their reviewing is going to survive let alone thrive with such a market plan. Simply put, I fear there either is only a very small market for actual gaming journalism, or this market has as of yet gone unnoticed.
The same phenomenon is happening in the news sector. The amount of people who actually want to pay for news is dwindling rapidly. Newspapers aren't just shrinking because a news-'paper' is a somewhat outmoded model of communication, but because people don't want to have to pay for something they can just as well get on the internet for free, or as a matter of fact from free newspapers. Without anyone wanting to pay for news standards are lowered, revenue needs to be gained by advertising, and actual good papers become what amounts to a niche-market.
The best-selling UK newspaper is The Sun; the best-selling German newspaper is Bild; the best-selling Dutch newspaper is De Telegraaf. Each one of them follows the same simplistic model: big headlines, big pictures, lots of colours, simple words, filled with 'vox populi' and 'human interest' stories that make any sane man vomit, look back in despair, and vomit again. This, sadly, is what sells, so this is what you're getting. As news is, luckily, a rather big industry, people who still want to pay for actual news can do so.
The comparison with the gaming journalism industry doesn't run along this example very nicely, but the disease and its cause are the same. As consumers we don't want to pay a gaming journalism site for its information. There isn't a lot of data on game magazine circulation, but a quick review of some numbers available shows a downwards trend. (though I don't wish to exclude the recession as an important factor either)
Edge
29,007 (Jan 09 - Dec 09)
28,898 (Jul 08 - Dec 08)
31,304 (Jul 07 - Dec 07)
35,145 (Jul 06 - Dec 06)
Play UK
21,735 (Jan 10 - Dec 10)
24,062 (Jan 09 - Dec 09)
26,464 (Jan 08 - Dec 08)
24,007 (Jan 07 - Dec 07)
PC Gamer UK
26,487 (Jan 09 - Dec 09)
32,619 (Jan 08 - Dec 08)
38,654 ABC (July - December 2007)
If we don't want to pay for something, someone else has to. And who else to pay for a review, *ahum* advertising spot but the producer of the products under review? One reviewer might get the idea in his head to publish an actual review, and suddenly either his company sends him a memo or the publisher/developer he reviewed suddenly no longer sends him free game copies, and most certainly no advance copies. And that's what a lot of people want. We want flashy, early, premium; we even want to pay for stuff like that. We look forward to ME3, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Half Life x and gaming journalism feeds on that anticipation and thus has to get 'the scoop', the proverbial big flashy colourful 'The Sun'-esque headlines about why Jenny (26) is so awfully fat and how Prince Whatever just broke his ankle.
We don't care about these 'events' a week after they happened, nor do we care about a well-written review of a game months after we bought it and formed our own opinion. The gaming journalism market right now isn't concerned with itself forming an opinion because it isn't paid to do so; it is, in effect, concerned with forming your opinion about a game before the game is there. Thát is when you can change bearable anticipation to an unbearable need to buy, to play. Who looks at reviews of Dragon Age 1 these days? Dragon Age 2? ME1? ME2? People aren't interested in that, they want DA3, ME3, the scoop, the pictures, the cinematics, the sneak-peaks. People want to believe their glass bulb is a diamond because diamonds are so much better; they want to believe they can get rich quick, they want to believe that ME3 is going to be great, that Modern Warfare X is going to be amazing, and they want to be told that it IS great, and WILL amaze. So that's what journalists tell them.
And then they buy, and play, and since nobody paid a gaming journalist for his opinion, who is he accountable to? And who remembers a review when, out there, on the horizon, is DA4, the new Modern Warfare, a new Valve game, Diablo III? Look! It's shiny! Want to know what's new? Course you do! Want some pictures? We got them, nobody else does! We even got moving pictures! Think it'll be great? We'll tell you just HOW great!
Come on in ladies and gentlemen! Be amazed by the three-headed woman, the strongman bending steel, the astounding Asian twins! Pay to see the Egress!
