I think gaming journalists have become highly irrelevant and in some cases, damaging to the success of a game. We saw the same thing happen with music, some record labels refuse to send music review sites early copies of an album. It used to be a frequent occurrence that a leaked copy of an album was due to a reviewer leaking it.

Ultimately, it's the people who decide if a game is good or not. One of the biggest examples of failure in video game journalism is when IGN reviewed Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby in 2014. They gave it a score of 7.8 out of 10 and listed one of the cons as, "Too much water" - it was so laughable it became a meme.

I don't blame Bethesda for boycotting sites like Kotaku, I rarely ever read game reviews anymore. I actually find I get more value from watching playthrough videos on Youtube and Twitch these days, they're generally more honest representations of the quality of a game, not the words of an entitled blogger writing under the guise of being a journalist.

Great article.