Compromising Journalistic Ethics to be a Cool Dad
I used to be the person who always turned down the video game goodie bag. That is, until I needed to bring something home for my kids.
Crossplay will resume a more normal schedule starting next week. Expect a reported (free!) piece tomorrow, and a mailbag on Friday. My hope is to deliver three pieces per week going forward, with at least one reported (free!) per week. Thanks for your patience and support!
When you leave a private meeting to see a video game at an event like E3, or like this past week’s Summer Games Fest in Los Angeles, you are often handed a promotional trinket by the company. T-shirts, stickers, branded notebooks—the kinds of objects that you might end up using due to convenience, and end up doing some “accidental” marketing in the process. It’s harmless, but I hate lugging extra stuff around, and so unless a company bends over backwards to make me feel bad for not taking it, I won’t.
Crossplay readers, I took the goodie bag this time—well, one of the bags. As of this writing, it’s crammed underneath my airplane seat, evidenced by the photograph above. I was previously lugging the big yellow duck around at the event where I was, presumably, a professional. The jury’s out on whether the professional bit still applies.
I blame my kids.
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