I look at professional game reviews the same way I look at Ron Popeil infomercials: as chunks of paid programming. Does anyone actually base their purchases on what comes out of this small handful of institutions?

It seems to me that, by this point, we've almost completely cast aside any pretense that these serve to inform us in any real capacity. Instead, we view them now only as public measurements of games we've already purchased and played, having been informed by sources we find trustworthy, such as peer recommendation or our own intuition.

Whatever discussion occurs now focuses only on the public measurement as an object, and how close or far it comes to our own personal measurements; but the question of whether or not they are at all genuine or uncompromised is beyond discussion.

In a nutshell, we've twisted our views of these things to synchronize with the advertising industry that created them, because that's the only way their existence makes sense to us.

So my thought isn't that professional game journalism is bad - it's that it hasn't been invented yet. My hope is that at some point, the number of professional writers who are disillusioned and tired of trying to conform to this medium's boney grip reaches some sort of critical mass which might lead to its true birth.