Ethics and corrections policy

This page is the standard we hold ourselves to. It is written to be checkable: if we break one of these rules, you have something concrete to point at when you email us.

Sourcing

• Two independent sources minimum. Every news story on this site is verified against at least two sources that do not derive from each other. If we cannot get to two, the story does not run — it does not run as a “reportedly” either.
• Primary sources first. Patch notes, developer blogs, official brackets and results pages, storefront listings, verified accounts of the people involved, court and regulatory filings, earnings reports. Aggregators and screenshots are a starting point, never the evidence.
• Sources are named. Every article ends with the outlets it was reported from, named in full. We do not publish outbound links, so you can look them up yourself — but you always know who we relied on.
• We do not launder single-source scoops. If one outlet has something and nobody else does, we say that outlet has it, we link them, and we do not repackage their reporting as ours.
• We write from facts, not from other people’s prose. Our structure, angle and wording are our own. Rewriting someone else’s article is not journalism, and it is not legal either.

Corrections

We get things wrong. When we do, the correction goes at the top of the article with a timestamp and a plain description of what was wrong — not quietly edited in, not buried in a footnote, not deleted.

• Factual error: corrected, with a dated correction note at the top of the piece.
• Significant error (wrong subject, wrong outcome, wrong person): corrected, noted at the top, and the headline is changed if the headline was wrong.
• Unfixable error: the article is unpublished and replaced with a note explaining why. We do not silently delete.
• Email [email protected]. You do not need to be polite about it, and you do not need to be the subject of the story.

People

Streamers are not public institutions and a viral clip is not a source. We apply a higher bar to stories about individuals than to stories about companies:

• We report what is documented and on the record. We do not report allegations that exist only as an accusation in a clip, a Discord screenshot or an anonymous post.
• We give named subjects a genuine chance to respond before publication when a story is critical of them, and we say in the piece whether they responded.
• We do not publish anyone’s home address, legal name if they do not use it publicly, employer, or family details.
• Minors are not the subject of drama coverage. Full stop.
• We do not embed or describe leaked private material, including material obtained through hacking or a breach of someone’s account.

Money and independence

• Advertising is sold separately from editorial and advertisers see nothing before publication. No advertiser has ever been given, or will be given, a veto or a preview.
• We do not publish sponsored posts, paid guest posts, or paid links inside editorial copy — at any price. If you are emailing to offer one, the answer is no.
• Review keys, hardware loans, press trips and event access are disclosed in the article that results from them. They do not buy a score. See our review policy.
• If any affiliate links are ever used on this site, they are labelled where they appear, and they never determine what we cover or what we conclude.

Sources and confidentiality

If you ask to speak off the record before you tell us something, we honour it. We do not publish a source’s identity without their explicit consent, and we do not hand it over to a company because the company asked. If you work at a studio, an org or a platform, email us from a personal address rather than a work one.

AI

We use an AI newsroom system to research and draft. Every rule on this page applies to it without exception, and the two-source gate is enforced in software, not by good intentions. The details are on our AI policy page.

Complaints

If you think we have breached this policy, email [email protected] with a link and what you think went wrong. We answer complaints from anyone, not just the people we wrote about.