«Is it right that those who review video games are partners of the same companies that produce them?», this is where it all starts, from a question thrown out there and which has struck streamers and YouTubers or content creators as they are called today (they are all creators, oh well) to open a crater in their bubble. On the other hand, imagine if I, as a writer, were paid by the person who published it when I reviewed a book, what credibility would I have? Immediately at the time (a few months ago) the community flocked to him as if he had dared to violate an unwritten pact, or rather than violating a pact, to spit on the plate where everyone eats, that etiquette of silences and conventions that bring together reviewers, YouTubers, influencers, publishers and that nebulous gray area in which everything is contained and nothing is truly declared.
The waters of digital creators had just calmed down, also because everyone in this time tried to stifle the discussion, to minimize it, to reduce Falconero to an irritating moralist who ruins the party, and the thing that no one expected happens, they enter the scene, Raiden and Midna, that is PlayerInside, not two strangers who want to be independent heroes, not the small purists without sponsors and therefore free to speak for lack of temptation, but two of the largest, most structured and most rooted creators in the scene, those who really represent an important part of the Italian gaming public. The other day (I think the day before yesterday) they published a bomb video, it’s very courageous, where they say, with that calmness that cuts through more than any indignation, that they want to give up sponsorships, that they prefer to return to a cleaner and more transparent model and well, they left everyone with their mouths open, and I would pay to see a YouTuber struck dumb (actually, afterwards I’m going to make him a donation, because as Pavese said “the free things are the ones that cost the most, they cost the effort necessary to understand that they are free).
Suddenly the discussion is no longer “is Falconero right or not?”, it becomes “if even they choose to do it, then the problem really exists”, because Raiden and Midna, without wanting to give lessons to anyone, have shown the entire environment what it means to take responsibility for one’s role, one’s following, one’s credibility, that credibility that is lost in an instant and that is rebuilt only with visible choices, declarations of principle leave the time they find, and generally continue to find it in bank transfers from companies.
In short: while everyone was struggling to defend the system by reducing the issue to an ideological whim and taking poor Falconero as the black scapegoat, the very ones who would have benefited most from the system decided to stand sideways and say enough, and that enough, said by them, weighs a lot, weighs like an involuntary lesson that forces everyone else to look at themselves in the mirror or in the webcam and ask themselves how much it is still possible to pretend not to see the conflict of interest while you swim in it every day feigning impartiality, a pretense that has become a second skin.
In the end this remains: Falconero, a solitary and rebellious hero, with one question made the facade collapse and two important and structured and historical and beautiful creators (ok, I have a soft spot for Midna but Raiden isn’t bad either, and he certainly won’t be jealous of me, an old and tired writer) put the conversation back together with a very hard choice that was not forced by anyone. A choice that sometimes comes when you least expect it and which, precisely for this reason, hits harder. What can I tell you, really good guys.