Game critics and Game Journalists

This morning while reading a post on another game site, I started wondering about video game journalism and critique as opposed to other entertainment journalism and critique. In the movie industry, movie journalists visit the major film festivals, dig up celebrity gossip and visit movie premieres but are never the ones that review movies for publications. Movie reviewers on the other hand are a whole separate breed and although they visit movie events like the ones mentioned it is usually with the goal to review them or to form an opinion for upcoming award shows. Now I'm not saying that the movie industry is perfect by any means, but shouldn't the games industry follow suit and not let the same guys that rub shoulders with developers at trade-shows be the same ones to review those games later? I'm not making any allegations about fixed review scores here, it is just a question about conflict of interest. If the video game model was followed by the movie industry you would have Roger Ebert as a host on E! and Ryan Seacrest reviewing. Both are great at their jobs, but can one person typically be great at both and do so without one influencing the other? I'd love to hear your thoughts on why this specialization has not occurred in the video games industry and what you think the effect may be.

What a great point, I never thought of it that way.  
 
Then again who is going to write the preview of the game? journalist? Not the game reviewers? They can't give their impressions if they can't play the games. Videogames are interactive, movies are not.

I've been thinking the same thing. So yeah, I totally agree. 

I take your point, but I think it just depends how profesional the reviewers are.
 
Jeff certainly didn't cut Tron any slack

I think that it is a question of man/woman power. Most sites just don't have the money to have people just covering events andpeople just reviewing games. Even at bigger sites there is a lot of bleed over between the two departments. 
 
I think your point is valid, but at this point in the industry, it's just unrealistic.
 
Also, (former 1up writer) Sharky's did a whiteboard video about this issue. It's not a solution or anything, but it is one journalist's view on this issue.  

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/29448  

Despite all of that, game journalist are still A LOT more reiable than metacritic's user reviewers. 

 Jeff certainly didn't cut Tron any slack "

" I take your point, but I think it just depends how profesional the reviewers are.  Jeff certainly didn't cut Tron any slack "

Most game sites already do that. 90% of the time, the reviewer does not go to previews or trade show events involving said game.

" This morning while reading a post on another game site, I started wondering about video game journalism and critique as opposed to other entertainment journalism and critique. In the movie industry, movie journalists visit the major film festivals, dig up celebrity gossip and visit movie premieres but are never the ones that review movies for publications. Movie reviewers on the other hand are a whole separate breed and although they visit movie events like the ones mentioned it is usually with the goal to review them or to form an opinion for upcoming award shows. Now I'm not saying that the movie industry is perfect by any means, but shouldn't the games industry follow suit and not let the same guys that rub shoulders with developers at trade-shows be the same ones to review those games later? I'm not making any allegations about fixed review scores here, it is just a question about conflict of interest. If the video game model was followed by the movie industry you would have Roger Ebert as a host on E! and Ryan Seacrest reviewing. Both are great at their jobs, but can one person typically be great at both and do so without one influencing the other? I'd love to hear your thoughts on why this specialization has not occurred in the video games industry and what you think the effect may be. "

" Most game sites already do that. 90% of the time, the reviewer does not go to previews or trade show events involving said game. "