Review copies of video games cause bias in reviewers

From the outside, from someone who has no personal experience on it, it might be a bit difficult to understand that, indeed, making YouTube videos can be a career and the only source of income for people who get enough views.

I don't know what the exact numbers are, but it's my understanding that you get, at least on average, 1 cent (in US currency) for every displayed advertisement in your video (if you are a YouTube partner, or whatever the contract was). Now consider that the biggest YouTube channels, for example those making video game reviews, may make a couple of videos a week, and they typically get at least 100 thousand views per video. If even half of those viewers do not use an ad-blocker, that's about 50 thousand cents, ie. about 500 US dollars per video. Let's say the channel publishes on average 2 videos a week, and the average viewer count is that 100 thousand per video, and 50% of the views produce 1 cent, that's about $4000 US per month.

This is a perfectly livable monthly wage, even after taxes. A popular individual could perfectly well make a living making solely a couple of YouTube videos per week, and nothing else. (And the 50% of ad-blocker-using people was a rather high estimate. It's my understanding that a significantly lower percentage of people actually use one. Which means even more income per video.)

The bigger channels get even more views per video, and they may make more than two videos per week, so the income is that much higher.

The problem with this is, of course, that if this is your only source of income, you are now 100% dependent on it. You are 100% dependent on making 2+ videos a week, and getting 100k+ views per video on average. This is a rather precarious form of career, because it depends completely on how popular you are. View counts mean everything.

Now consider YouTube channels that are (mostly or solely) dedicated to video game reviews. Some of these channels are really large and popular, large enough that their owners probably do it for a living, earning 100% of their income from them.

These huge channels are also very liked by video game publishers. Getting a game reviewed by such a channel is essentially free publicity. (As far as I know, game publishers do not pay these channels to review the games. These channels do it on their own accord, because that's how they make their living.)

As a video game reviewer, it's of crucial importance to be able to review the game as early as possible, well before the launch proper. The channel's viewers want to know how good a game is before launch, so they can make a better informed purchase decision (yes, a ton of people purchase games on launch day, as soon as possible).

This means, given all of the above, that these game review YouTube channels are pretty much completely at the mercy of video game publishers and the early review copies of games they receive. (While there are some channels, even big ones, that mostly or even only review games after publication, they tend to be rarer, and require some gimmick to attract viewers other than merely reviewing games early.)

In other words, as a big video game reviewer on YouTube whose income depends solely on receiving early review copies of video games from publisher, you really, really don't want to piss off these publishers so that they stop sending you the early review copies. Your very life depends on it.

You can easily see where this is going.

At an absolute minimum, even with the most honest and genuine reviewers this inevitably introduces bias in their reviews. Even when they want to be as honest as possible, they will still be walking on eggshells so as to not piss off any major publishers. They will inevitably try to minimize how bad negative aspects of the game sound like, and in some cases perhaps even avoid pointing them out altogether, for the fear of pissing off the game's publisher company.

At worst, of course, the review may be completely biased to the point of being dishonest.

Many commenters on this very subject have also opined that early review copies may cause bias even on those reviewers who do not depend on their YouTube income (because they have a job besides making YouTube videos) and do not really care about whether they stop receiving review copies from a particular publisher or not.

Ironically, in their quest to show how not influenced they are by getting an early review copy, in their attempt at showing how unbiased, honest and open they are, they may actually go overboard and actually become overly critical about the game, in a manner where the bias actually swings to the other side of the spectrum. They may not (and usually are not) doing this on purpose, and it may well be subconscious, but nevertheless the end result is the same: Getting an early review copy of the game (something that only very few select people do) made them biased. It might have made them biased in the opposite direction, but still biased.