From EGM issue #199, enjoy:

"My industry pisses me off.

I was a little suspicious of the cover choices one of our competitors was making, so I checked in with a contact of mine from a major game publisher. "Yes," he confirmed. "We can pretty much get whatever cover we want from that magazine. All it takes is for us to meet with the publisher, promise that we'll buy some ads, and discuss the details from there." So...that magazine's cover stories are for sale. Great.

Recently, some publicists for another game company were lamenting the fact that they couldn't get any coverage on a certain, very high-profile website out there, because they weren't advertising with that site. To get stories written up on their games, they'd have to start spending the bucks. More editorial coverage for sale. Wonderful.

Sadly, I'm not making this stuff up.

I have no stake in these two situations, so why should I care so much? Because even though they're competitors, they affect my business and my reputation. Why do so many mainstream newspapers and periodicals command respect? Because they don't act like the idiots I referred to above. But how will gaming journalism, a relatively new field, gain any credibility when certain prominent outlets or even entire publishing groups whore out their editorial integrity (if I can even call it that)?

So now I have companies thinking they can treat Electronic Gaming Monthly the same way...that we're all like this. We even heard through the grapevine that one ad buyer recently told our sales department that their client wants Ziff Davis publications to start playing ball with them, or else they're pulling support (meaning, if we don't start putting their games on our covers, we can kiss that ad money bye-bye, as well as support for normal editorial coverage of their titles). You know what? Those guys can kiss my ass. With full backing from my editorial director (former EGM Editor-in-Chief John Davison), we're prepared to tell them to go ahead and pull that "support." We've never been and never will be beholden to any outside party. If we miss out on some coverage...well, too bad. Ultimately, they're punishing their own customers (you guys), not us.

It looks like gamers won't be missing out on any of that coverage, though'a few of our competitors have editorial real estate for sale, and business is looking good for them.

--Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Editor-in-Chief"

Was he referencing Gamespot? Who knows.

Source: Dan Hsu's blog

EDIT: Yea, I probably should have said something in the post about this being from 2005, my bad.