Hello there!
I’m John, founder and editor of VGBees, a video game and culture media brand incorporating this website, podcasts, social media accounts, and a Discord server. I’m really glad you’re here!
This post is where you’ll find our editorial, ethics, and compensation policies in one place.
Our Mission
VGBees is covering video games and the culture around them with a keen interest in the people who make games, the business practices that affect games, the memories we share that put games in sacred headspaces, and the perspectives that challenge those sacred headspaces.
VGBees is entirely uninterested in being a publisher’s outlet. VGBees wants to entertain you, yes, but also make you consider a thing you love from angles that don’t always make you comfortable.
VGBees is fiercely independent. VGBees will feature no on-site ads in the traditional sense. VGBees is fully supported by its audience via premium membership and satellite sponsorship and ad revenues for podcasts (on the public feed) and YouTube. Sponsorships may be sold on the website but will never affect editorial nor will they result in any sort of traditional ad unit.
I am exhausted by ads. The majority of games sites I check every day often feed me into a loop of ad-based turmoil that usually results in me closing the tab. I used to run a site that did this, too. VGBees is removing itself from that loop.
Though VGBees is supported by its audience via direct financial support, we will not be a paywalled site for the vast majority of our content. Premium users can get early access, bonus podcast episodes, and other perks, but we want VGBees to available to the public at large.
Staff Structure (June 2024)
Right now, VGBees is officially just John Warren and a band of contractors and freelancers. Until this begins to scale up, we’ll continue with this structure. Everyone who works with VGBees is paid for their labor and your support goes directly to keeping this site rolling and filled with work not just from John, because who wants to just read John’s stuff?
Freelancers can pitch [email protected] and rates begin at $200 per piece. We are accepting criticism, humor, blog posts on a simple subject, long-form reporting, reviews, etc. We are not accepting personal essays unless they fully engage critically with the subject.
Reviews Policies
VGBees will run reviews of games from time to time. We’ll never assign a review that will press a freelancer to hit an unreasonable embargo, which means sometimes we’ll post a review of a game well after the embargo hits. We simply do not care about being a pre-sale buyer’s guide for games — the criticism will gestate if it needs it.
So how do we do reviews? Well, I’m glad you asked…
Scored Reviews with a Twist
We review games at VGBees with a score, but it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. My very personal philosophy on games reviews after decades of playing games and 14 years of working in and around games is: there are really only three overall vibes I have when I play a game, so that’s how we score at VGBees.
No
Games with a “No” score are games we don’t think are very good. Simple as that. Could be widespread technical issues that doom it, could be general vibes issues, could be anything! It all depends on the reviewer and how they interpret the scale.
Yes
If I’m honest, most games I ever play feel like a “Yes” to me. I’m glad I played it. Maybe I’d recommend it to a friend. Maybe I’ll think about it in random moments later in my life and smile. Something is good about this game and it’s worth exploring.
Hell Yes
This is the highest honor we can bestow upon a game. Don’t mistake this score for any kind of statement of perfection or anything like that. What a silly thing to chase or care about. A “Hell Yes” means this is a really special game.
Stingers
At Fanbyte, I absolutely loved our Microreview format, which gave a 0-10 (with decimals) score to concepts, individual tracks, characters, items, etc. I’m bringing that format back with Stingers, which you should take deadly seriously. When you see that “dying in a spike pit” gets a 2.7, we want you to take that as gospel and get mad about it online. Anyway, Stingers are the only place you’ll see a numerical score on VGBees.
Ethics Policy
VGBees is helmed by a long-tenured games industry veteran and flanked by a very diverse group of contractors and freelancers. Therefore, it’s important to note a few current affiliations you should know about.
GLYDR
John is also the cofounder and CMO of GLYDR, a foot-based controller for games and VR. We won’t be covering it here on VGBees and we’ll refer you to this statement when we feel an article may intersect with this information.
Tencent
John worked for Tencent subsidiary ZAM/Fanbyte for years as their Head of Media. While there, he was exposed to protected information about games in development, some of which have not come out yet. He will not be covering these games and when and if a freelancer does, we’ll refer you to this statement. John will not provide any sort of former internal knowledge of these games or their development cycles in service of that freelance reporting.
Reviews & Codes
When a publisher or PR firm provides us with a code for coverage, we will disclose this. Also, we will not accept an embargoed review if it puts a freelancer in any sort of bind or stress. We will negotiate with the supplier of the code to post a review after embargo.
News Embargoes
When a PR firm reaches out to us about an embargoed piece of news, we will respect it as long as we have not previously come into contact with the news from a source. There will be times when we will report something that is not yet public knowledge if it comes from a source we trust. Barring that, VGBees will respect desired embargoes.
Protecting Sources
Though VGBees is not a hard news and investigation site, there may be opportunities for us to break news or report on non-public information of great importance. We will protect our sources with anonymity if requested.
