As for reviews, keep in mind that if your reviews come out a week late no one will care. I've had to put up reviews late in the past and I may as well not have bothered. Absolutely nobody will read them. Once again your time will be better spent elsewhere. Also, never once have I ever gotten in trouble for a low review score. That's largely a myth and I've never seen anyone in the industry actually get in trouble for it. The only problems that arises are that fans of a particular game will rip you to shreds if you give "their" game a low score, but nothing from publishers. The story of the corrupt media outlets is largely a fabrication from what I've seen.
Right. And on top of that the fact remains that you can toot your horn about how honest and consumer focused your reviews are, but none of that will change the fact they're just your subjective opinion put to words on a page. It's incredibly silly to think your reviews are of greater importance or more finely tuned objective analysis of video games that cannot be found elsewhere. Reviews are reviews. Fact of the matter is they're not original, even if they're your original thoughts, and the publishers are not going to flip shit if you give bad scores. Each publisher handles negative coverage a bit different from the others, but by and large they're okay dealing with low scores. It's also worth remembering that receiving review code is a privilege, not a right. Just because you host a website doesn't mean publishers have to send you shit. Or all shit. You'll get what you get and not receiving something does not mean publishers have some evil vendetta against you.
So again this is where I become disinterested in the website. A focus on consumer rights I think would be an excellent, original, and important direction, putting aside egos and soapbox opinions for exposure of real problems and concerns gamers have with the industry. Stuff like DRM, fabricated pre-release material, false advertising, anti-consumer policies, unfair pricing, and so on. But it's tough to combine the platform for that voice with generic reviews and other such press. You can't say your the voice of consumers with one breath, then with the other claim your reviews are too. They cant be, because they're just subjective opinions.
