How do you manage working relationships with developers given the potential wrecking ball you can swing at their work? Is it stressful being a critic of big-budget products given the forces of PR that scratch at the door?
Since I do most of my games writing on a freelance basis, I don't have as many developer relationships as I'd like - I almost never even get sent tchotchkes, never mind invites to cool events/launches or "Hey, thanks/I BREAK YOUR STUPID LEGS" messages after a feature goes out.
(Maybe they all get lost in the post...)
(Probably a good thing in the case of the legs one...)
As for the wrecking ball... I don't think reviews have that power any more, not really. I think an individual can boost something that wouldn't otherwise have gotten much attention into more prominence and get people talking about it - especially online. As far as negative verdicts go, usually the bitching seems to be linked to things like Metacritic averages these days, which I'm afraid I don't even consider when choosing scores. I write to entertain and inform my readership, not out of some egotistical hope of playing kingmaker or executioner.
PR people: it's part of their job to complain about bad reviews. Good editors try to keep their writers insulated from that as much as possible, unless there's a genuine problem.
