The point of "why pay creators" comes up a lot. Here's my take as a publisher who regularly does sponsored content. 1/ Creators are helping players find games they love => we're selling more copies => we want that ecosystem to flourish => we should help them pay their bills. 2/ We're not paying for coverage per se; it's for content to land on a certain date to elevate a newsbeat (announcement, playtest, demo, launch, etc) 3/ Nobody should pay creators whose audience doesn't fit your game. Ever. 4/ If a game can only score content via sponsorship, something is already quite wrong. Ideally, you want something like 10% sponsored, 90% organic. 5/ Sponsored content should always be marked. Full stop.