Editorial standards

Where our facts come from

Every story names its primary source and links it: a developer's own devlog, a store page, a patch note, a filing, a statement made on the record. Not an aggregator repeating it, and not a site that read the same post we did.

A rumor is labeled a rumor, in the body, where you cannot miss it. If one outlet has reported something and nobody has confirmed it, the story says that in plain words rather than laundering it into a fact through careful phrasing. If the only sourcing we can find is another article citing an anonymous account, there is no story and we do not run one.

Quotes are exact. If we tidy a stumble or clip for length, the meaning survives intact and anything we inserted sits in brackets.

Reviews, review copies, and access

We review what we play. There is no such thing here as a review assembled from trailers and other people's coverage.

Reviews end in a recommendation, never a number. A score compresses a judgment into a digit and invites an argument about the digit; naming who a game is for and who should skip it is the more useful answer and the more honest one.

• Free copies are always disclosed. If a developer or publisher gave us the game, the review says so. Same for early access to a build, a press event, or travel. Being handed a copy is normal and it does not buy a verdict, but you get to know it happened.
• Nobody pays for coverage. Not for an article, not for a verdict, not for a place on a list. Sponsored content, if it ever appears, is labeled as sponsored at the top and is never dressed up as editorial.
• Relationships are declared. If we know the developer, worked with them, or backed the game, the piece says so before it says anything else.

Affiliate links

Some articles link to stores through affiliate links, and a purchase made through one may earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Those links are disclosed on the page that carries them.

They never decide what we cover or what we conclude. A game does not get a warmer verdict because its store pays a commission, and we do not add a link to a game we would not have written about anyway.

How we use AI, and where we refuse to

One rule sits above the rest: AI never invents a fact that reaches the page. Not a quote, a price, a release date, a studio name, a patch number, or a source. Every factual claim is checked by a person against a primary source before it is published.

AI helps here the way a spell-checker does. It catches typos, trims a baggy sentence, and untangles our own rough notes. It does not write reviews, produce quotes, or stand in for playing a game. If it ever did more than light copy-editing on a piece, that piece says so.

Illustrations are real press assets and screenshots. If an image is AI-generated we label it, and we never pass one off as a screenshot or as a developer's own art.

A hallucinated detail is treated exactly like a fabricated one: it triggers a correction and a hard look at how it got through.

Criticism, and the people on the other end of it

We are often writing about a game made by one person or a handful of them, who will read what we publish. That does not soften a verdict. It does decide where the verdict is aimed: at the work, at what it does and fails to do, and never at the person who made it.

We will tell you a game is not worth your evening when it is not. We will not be cruel about it for the sake of a line worth quoting.

Who owns this, and how it is paid for

intheindie is independently owned. There are no investors, no parent company, no grants, and no outside funding of any kind. Nobody outside this publication has a claim on what it covers or what it concludes.

The money comes from affiliate commissions on store links, and that is the whole of it. No display advertising, no sponsored posts, no paid placements, and no arrangement anywhere in which coverage is the product being sold.

This is worth saying plainly, because who pays for a publication is a fair thing to ask before trusting one, and the answer usually explains more than the writing does. Ours is short: readers who choose to buy something through a link, and nobody else.

Who writes this

intheindie publishes in a collective voice. There is no byline on a story because the publication stands behind every one of them, rather than dividing responsibility between names.

That puts the burden of trust on the publication, which is the reason this page exists and is written this plainly. If we fall short of anything on it, tell us at contact@intheindie.com and it becomes a correction rather than an argument.