I’ll tell you why.
So Video Game journalists need information on the games they are writing about. Where can they get this information from?
The companies who make the video games. Companies give out information because they want people to buy their video game. Companies may refuse in the future to give out exclusive information to a publication that has given their games bad reviews.
The creators of Duke Nukem Forever threatened this when their game was getting bad reviews. Publications have more to lose by publishing bad reviews than publishing good ones. They lose their access to exclusive information that gets people reading their sites and magazines.
I learned this as I read some of the reviews for games out there. I stopped looking at the number scores and looked at exactly what the reviewers said. They would praise some games and penalize others for remaining the same.
I don’t think video game journalists can be trusted to tell the consumers the truth about the games they review.
You know, I’m not a big gamer anymore (although I still play every now and then), but I always had so many suspicions back in the day, especially over competing sports games and the reviews that ran parallel to each other. The Madden NFL/NFL 2k series comes to mind.