Disclosure Policies

Disclosure and/or re­cusal from top­ics, peo­ple, re­views, im­pres­sions, etc. is an im­por­tant fac­tor in pro­vid­ing the fairest and ac­cu­rate cov­er­age we can pro­vide. Additionally, so does prop­er­ly iden­ti­fy­ing any af­fil­i­ate or part­ner net­works we may be a part of. As such, we have laid out these dis­clo­sure policies.

We strive to cov­er all sit­u­a­tions that may come up, but ex­pect these to be up­dat­ed if sit­u­a­tions arise that re­quire ad­di­tion­al claus­es and up­dates to our dis­clo­sure. User feed­back is im­por­tant in this re­gard as well. If there are cir­cum­stances we are not cov­er­ing or is­sues we are not ad­dress­ing, then please leave your feed­back in the com­ments be­low or con­tact us.

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Affiliate Networks

Affiliate net­works are a way of gen­er­at­ing rev­enue and pro­mo­tion by part­ner­ing with a com­pa­ny. You are like­ly fa­mil­iar with this from Youtube cre­ators that have calls to ac­tion to sign up for free tri­als of ser­vices like Netflix, or Amazon’s Audible. These part­ner­ships al­low cre­ators to of­fer ser­vices and prod­ucts they feel se­cure in of­fer­ing and be­lieve are rel­e­vant to their audience

As of February 24th 2017 we have de­cid­ed to part­ner with Play-Asia, a video game im­porter and re­tail­er, and make use of their af­fil­i­ate net­work. We want to be care­ful in how we use this, though. So don’t ex­pect to see it on every page on the site.

Currently we are plac­ing af­fil­i­ate ban­ners only on our stream­ing pages and on our video site, SuperNerdTube, as a way to help ex­pand our cus­tom video host­ing and stream­ing so­lu­tions. You can find more in­for­ma­tion on Play-Asia’s af­fil­i­a­tion pro­gram here.

Reviews, Impressions, and Let’s Plays

Content pro­duc­ers are re­quired to dis­close the source of the prod­uct (eg. game, com­ic, movie, book, etc.) they are pro­vid­ing cov­er­age on. Additionally, con­tent pro­duc­ers are re­quired to dis­close con­nec­tions they may have to com­pa­nies or in­di­vid­u­als re­lat­ed to the prod­uct. This includes:

• Whether the prod­uct was pur­chased by the con­tent cre­ator, giv­en as a gift, or pro­vid­ed by the publisher/distributor/developer of the prod­uct for pur­pos­es of coverage.

• Whether the prod­uct was ob­tained through Kickstarter, Indigogo, or an­oth­er crowd-funding source (with the ex­cep­tion of Patreon, con­trib­u­tors are barred from sup­port­ing in­di­vid­u­als or com­pa­nies on Patreon and must dis­close pri­or Patreon do­na­tions to ed­i­to­r­i­al staff).

• Additionally, prod­uct cov­ered that is in an “Early Access” or pre­view state will be pre­sent­ed as an “Impression.” Preview con­tent, whether al­pha or beta state soft­ware or Early Access, will be pre­sent­ed “as is” and la­beled as not in­dica­tive of the fi­nal product

• All con­tent pro­duc­ers and ed­i­to­r­i­al staff are re­quired to dis­close any con­nec­tions to in­di­vid­u­als or com­pa­nies con­nect­ed to the prod­uct they are cov­er­ing. If fair cov­er­age to a prod­uct can­not be pro­vid­ed then pro­duc­ers or ed­i­to­r­i­al staff are to re­cuse themselves

Coverage of Events and Issues

We strive for fair and ac­cu­rate cov­er­age of events and is­sues. People will al­ways come into an event or is­sue with pre­con­ceived no­tions and bi­as­es. Our de­f­i­n­i­tion of ob­jec­tiv­i­ty in re­la­tion to jour­nal­is­tic pur­suits iden­ti­fies these bi­as­es and re­quires us to put these in check as to gath­er the facts of an event and present them as fair­ly as pos­si­ble. Our au­di­ence is an im­por­tant fac­tor in en­sur­ing we do the ab­solute best job we can cov­er­ing is­sues. As such, our con­tent pro­duc­ers and ed­i­tors are re­quired to dis­close any con­nec­tions to a sub­ject so our au­di­ence can keep these in mind. When a pro­duc­er or ed­i­tor feels they can­not check their bi­as­es to work a sto­ry ob­jec­tive­ly, then they are to re­cuse them­selves. Connections that are re­quired to be dis­closed to our au­di­ence are:

• Whether a con­tent cre­ator is or has been friends with some­one con­nect­ed to a story

• Whether a con­tent cre­ator has pre­vi­ous­ly worked with or for some­one or an or­ga­ni­za­tion con­nect­ed to a story

• Whether a con­tent cre­ator has pre­vi­ous­ly fund­ed or do­nat­ed to a per­son or organization

• Whether a con­tent cre­ator is a mem­ber of an in­dus­try or­ga­ni­za­tion (eg. IGDA, ESA, SPJ, etc.)

Additionally, we strive to have our ar­ti­cles be as up-to-date as is pos­si­ble. Some sto­ries maybe de­vel­op­ing as they are pre­sent­ed, new in­for­ma­tion will come in, or a new source will come for­ward. We up­date our ar­ti­cles when new in­for­ma­tion comes forth and that will al­ways be dis­closed with an “Update Note.”

Crowd-funding and Donations

While we whol­ly sup­port the build­ing trend of fund­ing projects, in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies through crowd­sourced op­tions, we feel that cer­tain av­enues and amounts con­sti­tute a con­flict of in­ter­est. When cov­er­ing prod­ucts and events re­lat­ed to the in­dus­tries we are cov­er­ing, we feel that the fol­low­ing dis­clo­sures and pro­hi­bi­tions need­ed to pro­vide as ac­cu­rate of cov­er­age we can provide:

• Content Producers and ed­i­tors can fund Kickstarter or Indiegogo projects, but not in­signif­i­cant amounts. All fund­ing of this type must be dis­closed to ed­i­to­r­i­al staff and in any cov­er­age pro­vid­ed. If the ed­i­to­r­i­al staff de­ter­mines the amount fund­ed would in­flu­ence cov­er­age, pro­duc­ers or ed­i­tors will be told to re­cuse them­selves from coverage

• All staff at SuperNerdLand is pro­hib­it­ed from sup­port­ing in­di­vid­u­als or com­pa­nies through Patreon. This is not a state­ment against Patreon as a plat­form. We just feel that fund­ing of this type can con­sti­tute too much of a con­flict of in­ter­est when pro­vid­ing cov­er­age of prod­ucts, or­ga­ni­za­tions or in­di­vid­u­als. All pre­vi­ous Patreon do­na­tions must be dis­closed to ed­i­to­r­i­al staff, and must be dis­closed in con­tent when rel­e­vant to coverage

• Early Access pur­chas­es are al­lowed. As one re­ceives a prod­uct for the mon­ey give, we view this as just a pur­chase. When cov­er­ing an Early Access prod­uct, it will be pre­sent­ed as an “im­pres­sions” as the fi­nal prod­uct is un­avail­able and thus not review-able
• Donations to 501c non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tions are al­lowed, but if an pro­duc­er or ed­i­tor is do­nat­ing to an or­ga­ni­za­tion they are cov­er­ing, they must dis­close this to ed­i­to­r­i­al staff and in cov­er­age. If the amount is sig­nif­i­cant, ed­i­to­r­i­al staff re­serves the right to re­cuse some­one from coverage

Work Disclosures

The Editor-in-Chief, Josh Bray, works for a com­pa­ny that Microsoft con­tracts for Xbox sup­port calls. As such, Josh will re­cuse him­self from any Xbox or Microsoft re­lat­ed cov­er­age when pos­si­ble, and will dis­close this em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship when the top­ics re­lat­ed to them come up. UPDATE 10/4/2017: Josh has moved onto a dif­fer­ent con­tract, pro­vid­ing sup­port for un­re­lat­ed ser­vices. If this changes, we will rein­tro­duce the pre­vi­ous dis­clo­sure and re­cusal implemented.

(Updated 9/8/2015: Added the “Extra Disclosure/Recusal” sec­tion to de­tail ex­tra con­trib­u­tor dis­clo­sures where applicable.)

(Updated 2/17/2017: Removed “Extra Disclosure/Recusal” sec­tion as the site mem­ber it ap­plied too no longer works with the site. Archive of old­er ver­sion of this pol­i­cy page can be found here.)

(Update 2/24/2017: Added line to first para­graph of in­tro­duc­tion to ad­dress af­fil­i­a­tions. Added “Affiliate Networks” sec­tion at the be­gin­ning of dis­clo­sure poli­cies. Archive of old­er ver­sion of this pol­i­cy page can be found here.)

(Update 7/31/2017: Added sec­tions on Technology Partnerships and Work Disclosures. Archive of the old­er ver­sion of this pol­i­cy can be found here.)

(Update 7/25/2020: Cleaned up some gram­mar is­sues, mod­i­fied the af­fil­i­ate sec­tion, re­moved the Technology Partnerships sec­tion as we no longer pro­vide tech­nol­o­gy to them. Archive of the old­er ver­sion of this pol­i­cy can be found here.)