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 LordofHats wrote:
No. PC Gamer has been around for a long time, and being a magazine focused on PC, that an internet venue like YouTube would find them with a lot of subscribers doesn't surprise me.

Fair enough
just hadnt realised they were still a big enough thing

I used to pick up copies of PC Gamer regularly, back when the only way to get demos was through disks in magazines...

John Oliver did a great segment on "Native Advertising" on his show Last Week Tonight. It basically covers this topic and is an excellent watch for anyone interested. TotalBiscuit also frequently talks about needing ti distinguish between paid promotions and reviews, and how best to keep one from affecting the other. He goes so far as to not review games after he has done a paid promotion for them now. IGN and what not are notorious for blurring the lines here.

Watching LPs is pretty much a must for me these days.

 Melissia wrote:
I used to pick up copies of PC Gamer regularly, back when the only way to get demos was through disks in magazines...

Pretty much people remember PC gamer as the to go place for demos before faster interwebs came around, even people who didn't game knew that PC gamer was the hot stuff.

So no big surprise the momentum they built up is still carrying them reputation wise.

Yeah, PC Gamer has a lot of good will built up for it, though it's not really talked about that often. I'd sitll trust them more than most other big-name mags and review sites though.

Normally I'd repeat the old platitude of 'Trust, but verify.'

But to be honest, I'd be doubting that now. It's more, "Verify, then verify some more a week after it's released."

It does help that games are released in the UK several days after the states normally.

An update on steam curators which should be a fairly decent guide of how PC gamers rate the quality of certain sources for review content:

1. Totalbiscuit: 227K
2. PC Gamer: 80K
3. Jim Sterling: 53K
4. RPS: 43K
5. Nerd Boxset: 43K
6. Jesse Cox: 37K
7. Kotaku: 28K
8. Just Good PC Games: 23K
9. NorthernLion: 21K
10. r/PCMasterRace: 18K

Hard to categorise a couple of these. PCMasterRace is a subreddit community, not sure about JustGood PCGames. There are 4 individual youtube/personalities, and of course TB far in the lead. Good to see Jesse climbing up - he's not a "critical reviewer" but he's a "trusted gamer" basically, and that trust is becoming ever more important and why you see sites like Kotaku with how many employees? languishing like that.

PC Gamer is probably banking on past credibility, I hope they're at least "decent" still. Kotaku is recommending games that won't be released for another year so yeah... ffs.

 Compel wrote:
Normally I'd repeat the old platitude of 'Trust, but verify.'

But to be honest, I'd be doubting that now. It's more, "Verify, then verify some more a week after it's released."

It does help that games are released in the UK several days after the states normally.

Yep TB et al. repeat frequently to not pre-purchase games. It's the only way to get some accountability for bad games again. Hopefully it's having some impact, but given Destiny had 350 million in sales so quickly shows that on consoles at least players don't care much. It could be that PC will become the poor second cousin again, not due to piracy claims but because a more discerning customer base is harder to mislead and therefore harder to profit from. If that means we only get the "genuine" games... can't say I'd complain!

The changes to steam recently have been a huge boon for PC gaming once again imo. The addition of curators, the change of the "new releases" to "popular new releases" to help avoid shovelware and so on. Really good changes that will I think really help steam stay in the lead - they just need to work on their damn CS, refunds and purchase policies in general now ; /

PC gamer is still a fairly decent magazine. It's pretty much the only mainstream gaming mag that actually directly addresses 'gamer culture' while others almost completely focus on previews and reviews. PC gamer often has editorial pieces on various subjects, and has regularly addressed things like the modding community and PC hardware.

That's good to know Hatter, thanks. Sounds like they do understand what PC Gaming is about which is a rare thing in gaming sites/publications lately I think.

I only go to these inbedwithgamecompany sites for trailers and release dates, for reviews i look to people i know on the noobtoob game forums, IGN with their constant scores of 10 per game for the most boring overproduced gak games the last 10 years, no thank you, even magazines i read as a kid were better and had a lot more critique like Computer and Videogames

As if to emphasise why there are so few people you can trust, I've been waiting for a "real" critique of Shadows of Mordor. Sure, I can read the glowing reviews that IGN and Gamespot gave it, but how much of their review is an honest impression and how much of it is an obligation based upon website advertising and the sheer amount of hype pieces IGN ran for it.

I am of course waiting for Total Biscuit to do his piece on Shadows, because he won't just critique/give his first impressions of the game but he'll also go into the nitty gritty of how it runs on PC (that platform I'll be getting it for). Taking a look at his Twitter account I find the following:

TB wrote:As an FYI, Shadow of Mordor on PC was given out early to a bunch of Youtube channels for brand deals. Expect lots of content on launch

TB wrote:Reading a few forums (yeah I know my mistake) about this whole Shadow of Mordor brand deal thing boggles my mind. There are literally people saying "I don't know what he's complaining about, if he wants it early he has to give something in return". Ermm, the problem is that you can't review, first impressions, critique or whatever this game on PC prior to launch or even on launch (unless you weaseled your way in as we did) if you don't take a deal that specifically says "you can't say bad things". You don't see a problem with that? It is the worst case scenario in which a company withholds review copies to maximise potential exposure while keeping critique at bay, it's about as anti-consumer as it gets. I guess some people are incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Of course I can buy it and cover it on release, by which point a bunch of people have already purchased it. Not only do we lose relevance the longer we have to wait but more importantly, consumers end up with less information. We live in a world where some consumers actually want less information it seems and are entirely ok with the first pieces of information to come out being bought and paid for. Heh, I sometimes think the biggest enemy in the battle to protect consumers, are consumers.

So he could have very well received an earlier code and been able to tell us about it earlier, but to do so would have seen him enter into an agreement that would stop him from saying anything negative about the game.

Honesty/Integrity: Thy name is John Bain.

Yep, following TB on YT/Twitch/Twitter you really do come to see how much ridiculous gak there is in the industry. From all corners - gamers, media, devs, publishers etc. That "no fething way" to "pre-release key only if you agree to say nice stuff" is one of the many reasons we pay homage to the bald man.

edit: his WTF is is out for it and it actually looks really good. They didn't need to pull a silly stunt like that.