Ethics Policy

Ethics in gaming journalism is not an abstract ideal. It is a set of concrete choices about money, access, and relationships — choices readers rarely see but always feel in the coverage they read. Pro Slot Games publishes this policy so those choices are visible. It explains how we handle conflicts of interest, how we treat review copies and hardware loans, why we stay independent from the companies we cover, and what we owe both our readers and the subjects of our work.

This policy sits alongside our editorial policy, which sets out the Four Rules and the workflow every article follows. Where that document defines how we report, this one defines the boundaries we keep while doing it.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest is any relationship, financial stake, or personal tie that could reasonably be seen to influence our coverage — whether or not it actually does. We take the “reasonably be seen” part seriously, because a reader’s trust does not survive on our private assurance that we were fair. It survives on our being transparent enough that they can judge for themselves.

Our contributors do not write assessments of games, hardware, or companies in which they hold a meaningful financial interest. Where a writer has a personal connection to a subject — a friendship with a developer, prior professional work for a studio, a stake in a project’s outcome — that connection is disclosed to editors and, where relevant to the reader’s understanding, disclosed in the piece itself or reassigned to someone without the tie. We would rather over-disclose a harmless connection than let a material one pass unmentioned.

Review copies, hardware loans, and gifts

Covering games and gaming hardware sometimes means accepting review copies or loaned equipment from publishers, platform holders, or manufacturers. This is standard practice across the industry, and it is not inherently corrupting — but it has to be handled openly, or it becomes exactly the kind of hidden influence readers are right to worry about.

Our rules are straightforward. Accepting a review copy or a hardware loan never obligates us to cover a product, never obligates us to cover it favourably, and never gives the provider any say over what we write. Where a benefit like this is material to a piece — a loaned console, review access, a covered trip — we disclose it, so readers know the material conditions under which the coverage was produced. Loaned hardware is treated as loaned: it belongs to the provider, not to us, and we do not represent borrowed equipment as an unqualified endorsement.

Promotional gifts and merchandise are not a currency we trade in. We do not let trinkets, early access, or hospitality purchase goodwill in our coverage, and an editor is free to decline anything that could compromise, or appear to compromise, our independence.

Independence from publishers and platforms

Pro Slot Games is not owned or controlled by any game publisher, platform holder, hardware maker, or storefront. That independence is the foundation of everything else in this policy, because none of our other commitments would mean much if a company we cover could quietly dictate the outcome.

No outside party approves our coverage before it runs. Advertisers and commercial partners have no influence over editorial judgement; the sale of advertising is walled off from the newsroom, and any sponsored or partnered material is labelled clearly and kept separate from independent editorial, as our editorial policy requires. A company spending money with us buys space or a labelled placement — never a favourable assessment, and never protection from criticism.

Fairness and the right of reply

Independence is not a licence to be careless with the people and companies we write about. When our coverage makes a significant critical claim about an identifiable party, fairness requires that we represent their position accurately and, where appropriate, give them a genuine opportunity to respond. We aim to describe games, studios, and their work in terms their makers would recognise as accurate, even when our judgement is critical.

Because the bulk of our work is evergreen analysis, explainer, and retrospective coverage of games and formats that genuinely exist, our first obligation is simply accuracy: we write only about real games, real studios, and real mechanics we understand correctly, and we do not manufacture drama, testing claims, or verdicts we cannot support.

Accountability

An ethics policy is only as good as a publication’s willingness to be held to it. We accept that accountability. When we fall short of the standards on this page, we want to hear about it, and we treat credible concerns seriously rather than defensively. Errors of fact are handled through our corrections process, and readers can report a suspected mistake at corrections@proslotgames.com. Broader questions about our ethics, independence, or a specific editorial decision can be sent to editorial@proslotgames.com.

We do not claim to be beyond error or above scrutiny. We claim only that when we get something wrong, we will own it and fix it — and that the commitments on this page are the ones we actually intend to keep.