Articles/videos
Wings over Sealand articles (second article has summary) 1 2
Rab Florence (the guy who started all this) criticizing games writing since 2008
John Walker's (Rock Paper Shotgun) blog (start with Games Journalists, And The Perception Of Corruption)
TotalBiscuit
Jim Sterling
Penny-Arcade
Gamasutra
Forbes
Worthplaying
GiantBomb
Old Gamasutra article on the influence of PR
Jason Lauritzen editorial and GAF post
Forum posts etc
Shawn Elliot - 1 (aegies is Arthur Gies of polygon.com) 2 3 4 5 6 on the psychology of PR etc
and some more Arthur Gies - 1 2 3 4 5 and some replies 1 2 3
Jeff Green on the way it actually works
ShockingAlberto on his view as a former games writer
Jason Schreier (Kotaku) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 reply
N'Gai Croal initial reaction on Twitter
Chris Schilling (freelance) likes both people involved and so doesn't want to write about it
Danny O'Dwyer (Gamespot UK) on why his site won't cover this (audience is not interested) - 1 2 3
Examples of various press kits
The 3DS comes to GiantBomb
GillianSeed79 and firehawk12 on how journalist do criticize their peers
pastapadre on being shunned by the industry
An old episode of CGW Radio discussing Gerstmann-gate
Stephen Totilo (Kotaku)doesn't think this is an important story(has possibly changed his mind about that part, read post 9). Wants to focus on good games journalism, this prompted a pretty funny picture and a comment about it, then Stephen Totilo enters the thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Weekend Confirmed
Syriel on his experiences of PR
Jeff Gerstmann short comment on swag
Snowden's Secret comments on gaming press reactions
Christian Donlan and Simon Parkin of Eurogamer want to change how they do things
(adding that /\ since I've got the top post)
Personally, I don't think unboxing is a huge deal. Showing people what's in a box could be seen as merely informing the viewers about the product they're thinking about buying, or it could be seen as blatant advertisement. I think the former outweighs the latter because there is a genuine interest among the audience in seeing these things; they want to see what they'd get if they bought it.
Of course, if you already perceive the gaming press as being corrupt, then you'll pick the marketing angle every time.