Preview Placement

Kotaku: Developers Can Pay for Preview Placement on Gamespot, Gamespy

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 31, 2006 - 8:19am.

New York - Gawker Media's Kotaku games blog this week reported on practices at several gaming enthusiast websites -- including CNET Networks' Gamespot and News Corporation's IGN/Gamespy -- where game publishers and developers can pay to have previews for their titles receive more prominent placement on the sites. "You can purchase messaging plus units that increase the likelihood of an article about your game showing up on their front page," a source who was a former media buyer for various game publishers told Kotaku. Neither site makes this relationship known to its readers. The editors at both Gamespot and IGN then confirmed the existence of such practices when questioned by Kotaku. "I can confirm that GameSpot does offer publishers programs that promote their content on our site using a variety of means," Gamespot executive editor Greg Kasavin told Kotaku.