Games Journalism Isn't Objective

So I've come out from hiding (and basically insanely busy work and personal life schedules) to comment on this:

Any of you that follow games journalism should recognize Justin McElroy in the video above embracing his beloved copy of Skyrim.  This video is certainly meant to be funny, and a bit serious as well since nobody honestly will be seeing Justin for probably 100+ hours now that he has the game.

But it has fueled the ire of those over at NeoGaf claiming "TEH BIAS!!!!11!1!".  Here's the deal everyone, a game review is simply an opinion of the person playing it.  And that person, no matter how much they want to admit it, will have a bias if they're already a fan of the game, its series, or its publisher even.

Now *normally* I wouldn't have a problem with a video of this type.  The problem in this instance though is Joystiq's mantra that they are unbiased in their work.  They have put themselves in this ivory tower over and over and over again.  So when an editor is such an unabashed fan of something, and your site makes it a HUGE deal that its reviews and reviewers are unbiased, editorial has an easy fix for this.  Don't let that person review that game.  This of course is a problem if the person with the problem is the site's managing editor that refuses to give up the review.

On his personal blog Justin goes on to defend his video and the fact that he will still be reviewing the game for Joystiq.  He says near the end:

"The trick, to crib a line from Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical Rent, is finding a critic with baggage that goes with yours."

This would be EXACTLY RIGHT except for the site's stated policy that everything is unbiased, and the lengths they go to in order to "provide unbiased coverage and criticism of the video game industry."

I know, it's easy for me to talk with a po-dunk personal blog that receives exactly squat for free.  But here's the thing, if anyone anywhere ever wants to send me anything for free, I'm taking it, disclosing it to the public, and then publishing my thoughts on what I got.  That's *my* stated policy.  We'll see whether or not Joystiq's Editor-in-Chief Chris Grant sacks up and tells Justin he needs to stand down in order to preserve the site's ethics.  Either way it goes, it's made for high comedy.