EA proper has never advertised with us and has no scheduled upcoming marketing campaigns that involve us on any level. http://toucharcade.com/toucharcade-advertising-and-editorial-policies/
Oh that's actually pretty good then, I figure lots of sites that do reviews get paid for them. Not many out there that go all out on their own at all.
The only sites that actually get paid for reviews are totally irrelevant sites you don't read and have likely never heard of and the only people actively paying these people for reviews are incredibly confused and misguided app developers who aren't releasing anything you'd be interested in anyway. If you were going to spend money promoting your game, attempting to buy reviews is about the worst way to do it- especially in the mobile scene where pay per download services exist. Even if you find someone to write you a review for $10, or something silly like that, that $10 will always be better spent on paid download services as it's chart position, not review scores, that truly drive App Store sales. And, for what it's worth, I've never even been approached to do a paid review for anything that we'd typically cover on TouchArcade. Ever. I feel like if the "paid review!!!" conspiracy theorists spent a week following industry news and business sites that follow where money goes and how it's spent in this scene they'd realize how silly accusing anyone in editorial of doing anything shady actually is.
Wowzers, what a question, but glad it got posted now, and not after the 28th. @Eli, Thanks for the link to TA's policy, it was interesting reading.
But the bitching will never end. All the 5 star AB games and other games people will still whine acting like TA gets paid for every review. I bet 2K paid great money for borderland legends lol
Not saying this sites doing paid reviews but lets face it there are goodies given out in the business, freebies, favours, gifts etc Not really saying a bribe as such but a case of if you want to get early review copies, gifts, previews you had better not have slated our last game. I really wouldn't put it past EA, Activision, Zynga and the like to offer outright cash.
"Goodies" are almost always limited to useless swag that initially seems cool when you first get started in that you're like "Oh wow a free t-shirt this is cool," but honestly at this point it's all just stuff I have absolutely no use for. I got a bunch of weird little corporate gifts for Christmas like chocolates and similar crap that I basically just re-gifted as it doesn't do anything for me. I've been taken out to dinner by developers, but I've also taken developers out to dinner myself. It's just something you do in the business world when you're at conventions or ever but even then it's more just socializing than "I am buying you food with the expectation that you do __________." Again, everyone involved realizes we keep our editorial totally separate from this sort of thing. There's absolutely nothing expected or implied when someone gives you a keychain with their game logo on it that you give them a favorable review, or coverage at all. And, again, no one that even vaguely matters offers cash for this kind of thing. I've been with TouchArcade for close to five years now and it has never happened once. Seriously you guys, behind the scenes really is nowhere near as interesting or dramatic as you guys seem to think it is. There's no bribes, intrigue, or other X-Files stuff at all. What's powering TouchArcade is a Campfire chat filled with your mom jokes and game talk. We post about things we like and news that seems relevant or otherwise interesting, and that's really as complicated as things get. You can ask the same question to Jeff at 148apps, Andrew at Slide to Play, Jon with Pocketgamer.biz, Kristian with Pocketgamer proper, Justin at IGN, James at The Appera, or really anyone else in a similar position as me and they'll tell you the exact same thing... Which only makes these sort of insinuations even more hilarious because literally every single one of my peers in the industry feels the exact same way.
