justinmcelroy

@Kerned said:

@justinmcelroy said:

I think it's worth noting that our series was part of a Internet Explorer campaign which is not a product we cover, which makes it less problematic from an editorial perspective.

That's a positively absurd justification. It's the same company.

My point was that if an advertisement is for a product we don't cover, there's no chance of it running against negative content, which can be embarrassing for an advertiser. Not a huge difference, but it helps.

@Soap: We made a video product that was sponsored by Microsoft. In much the same way, Game Informer's front page was sponsored by Sony a couple of days ago. And that's not to single them out, endemic advertising is the norm in the industry.

I think it's worth noting that our series was part of a Internet Explorer campaign which is not a product we cover, which makes it less problematic from an editorial perspective.

@hussatron: That's fine if people have an axe to grind with Polygon because of a trailer. It could have been executed better, and we've been working hard to make the full series less self-serious. Also since that trailer we've produced:

This: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/18/3655956/triforce-johnson-the-worlds-most-patient-gamer-wii-u

And this: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/1/3560318/homefront-kaos-studios-thq

And a few dozen more like them, so I'm hopeful the detractors will be able to look past their hangups soon so they don't miss the excellent work people on my team are doing.

@Milkman: I dunno, for me, it's no different from GEICO making a twitter account to interact with people. Not seeing a difference, but that's just me. We on the editorial team don't set up these sponsorships, so I can't speak to the rationale behind them. I just wanted to make a broader point about endemic vs. non-endemic sponsorships

Hey buddies, just wanted to duck my head in here and make one quick point.

You're obviously entitled to whatever opinion you like, but there's something really important about deals like the GEICO sponsorship I wanted to highlight. GEICO may seem like an odd sponsor for a video game website, and maybe that's true. But the very good thing about that is that GEICO is what's called a non-endemic advertiser. That means we don't cover any GEICO products.

When a publication is supported by an advertiser they don't cover, that's really healthy because it eliminates the possibility for conflicts of interest. (The same, by the way, could be said of Mountain Dew and Doritos which I knew everyone was up in arms about.)

Hussatron unintentionally highlighted what makes this so great: An anti-GEICO thread isn't ever something that would be a concern, just not something that would pop up on a gaming site, so it alleviates the possibilities for those sorts of concerns.

We'd never change what we'd write because of an advertiser (even though I know so many think that's how the press works) but there's always a possibility that an advertiser will pull advertising or refuse to spend with a publication because of what they write. That's what makes non-endemic sponsorships so key to maintaining editorial independence.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

Maybe we should just have an episode where we advise WiiWare developers to get new professions, and they have an episode where they tell their listeners how to tell your best friend that you like his girlfriend?