Affiliate disclosure
Some links here earn us money. None of them change a score. This page says which links, how much they matter, and what we do when the two could conflict.
The disclosure, in one paragraph
GuildGamer uses affiliate links. If you buy something after clicking one, we may earn a commission from the retailer. The price you pay is exactly the same as it would be if you had gone to the store directly. Commission never influences our editorial verdicts.
We say this because the United States Federal Trade Commission requires a clear and conspicuous disclosure of a material connection, and because you are entitled to know what a recommendation costs us and earns us before you weigh it.
Where you will see them
- Store links in setup articles, where we recommend a specific part at a specific price.
- Store links next to a review, where a game or a piece of hardware is available to buy.
- Occasionally, a deal we think is genuinely good. If a price is a temporary sale we say so and give the date.
Affiliate links carry a marker in the article near the link, so you can tell before you click. Links inside the body of an argument, to a patch note, a developer post or another publication's reporting, are never affiliate links.
What commission does not buy
- A score. Review scores are set after the verdict is written. No retailer, publisher or affiliate programme sees a review before it publishes.
- A place in a ranking. A part is recommended in a build because it is the right part at that price, not because it pays better.
- A recommendation at all. If the honest answer is that you should keep the hardware you own, or skip the game, that is what the article says, and it earns us nothing.
- Editorial coverage. We do not accept payment to write about a product, and we do not add or remove links in a published piece for money.
Review copies and loaned hardware
Publishers sometimes give us a game key. Manufacturers sometimes lend us hardware. When that happens, the article says so in the body, near the top, not in a footnote. Loaned hardware goes back. Accepting a copy of a game commits us to nothing, including publishing at all, and it never sets a score.
Programmes we take part in
None at present. This site currently carries no affiliate links, is enrolled in no retailer associates programme and has no publisher storefront partnership, so nothing on it earns a commission if you buy something.
The rest of this page describes the rules we will hold ourselves to when that changes. Each programme we join will be named here, along with the exact disclosure wording that programme requires, before the first link goes live.
Display advertising is separate
No display advertising runs on this site yet either. When it does, it will be sold programmatically, it will have nothing to do with affiliate links, and advertisers will get no say in editorial and no advance look at anything. Ads will load only after you accept cookies, which is described in the cookie policy.
If you would rather not
You are welcome to copy the product name into a search box and buy it wherever you like. The article is the same either way, and none of it is behind a wall.
Questions, or a link you think is mislabelled, go to contact@guildgamer.com.