OPINION: Freebies and trust

On one side politicians fiddle their expenses and ex-royals cash in on their relatives. On the other newspapers and TV channels back the party Murdoch has done a deal with, and in-between times their competitions milk us for our hard-earned money.

We increasingly live in an age of consumer cynicism that drags down both those in a position of power and those whose role it is to report on them. Worse still, this public mistrust is well placed – actively fuelled by real-life greed and a tail-chasing media.

The ivory towers of the games industry and the games media are not too distant from this phenomenon.

It might work in the Microsoft PR plan, but what does it say to the everyman gamer when the high spot of an E3 conference is when their representative is gifted a new Xbox 360? What does it say when jubilant journalists tweet from a $6m party held by Activision? The curtain has dropped, and although the effects may not appear in the form of vitriolic forum posts we are doing nothing to allay either fear or misconception.

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