Bonus Action is a collaboration born of creatives determined to invent a space where journalism, critical thought, and discourse can thrive. Our goal is to build a healthy relationship with a community interested in our work. Because of this, Bonus Action is an equal contributor platform. We are a small team of enthusiastic pop culture fans who enjoy talking about what is happening in books, games, television, music, and fandom. We aren’t interested in mass-producing articles or growing a team for the purpose of quantity over quality. We want to include you, the reader, in that space.
Our goal here is to provide the best content in the most enjoyable and accessible way possible. We are open to feedback, encourage conversation, and want the community to return to pop culture discourse. We hope you find something here that brightens your day, and that our passionate voices encourage you to visit often.
Be Passionate
Bonus Action is fueled by the passion of its writers. While you are here, we encourage you to embrace that enthusiasm and bring it with you on whatever journey our writing finds you on.
Be Kind
Being a part of discourse means keeping an open mind. We are an inclusive publication that believes in equity and safety for everyone. While you are here, be kind to those around you, and be sure to consider your words and how they may impact others.
Be Creative
Pop culture is the definition of creativity. We, as a collective, want to infuse every article shared on Bonus Action with as much creative energy as possible. Hopefully, it will encourage you to be creative too!
Reviews & Embargos
At Bonus Action, we take the opportunity to work with developers and PR teams seriously. If offered the chance to give first impressions on a game, book, movie, or TV show, embargos will be strictly followed, and no content will be aired before the date indicated by the team producing it. Additionally, works containing spoilers will be held until the appropriate publication time. We will not publish ahead of players in a way that will ruin the experience of the media being covered. Any content that could contain spoilers will also be clearly marked at the beginning of the article, to ensure readers have consent to possible plot points discussed.
Embargo on news will be held to the same expectations. If Bonus Action has the opportunity to be involved in the breaking of important industry news, we will carefully adhere to all restrictions in coverage and will be sure to report the facts without inflated details, embellishments, or unethical commentary.
Review Process
At Bonus Action, reviews are an important way to build on growing pop culture elements. For all reviews, we will be diligent to provide as much detail about the media or product we are reviewing as possible. This includes finishing as much of the media as is possible within an embargo timeframe, and giving readers as much detail as we can. For games, books, and shows reviewed after a release period, we may choose to take an extra week to ensure we give a detailed report. All contributors of Bonus Action will be providing reviews, as we all have areas of interest that make us experts in different genres, categories, and product types. If a code or product sample is provided to Bonus Action for review, this information will be clearly stated in the review and will in no way impact our scoring.
It is important to note that writers with personal investments in any potential review will not be writing on that topic. This is to ensure that personal interests do not interfere with an honest breakdown of the product.
Bonus action uses a 10-point scoring system for all reviews. Below is the breakdown of this ranking:
- Unplayable/Unusable
- Poor Quality
- Low Quality
- Medium Quality with impactful issues
- Medium Quality – general experience
- Medium Quality with highlights and positive elements
- High Quality
- High Quality with standout elements
- Excellent Quality – few issues with minimal need for improvement
- Outstanding – a perfect score that stands out among other options
Our score system will be clearly shown at the bottom of every review, to ensure readers have access from the start of the review to our feelings on the media or product.
A low score on a review will never be due to issues with the product’s developers, or reflect interactions with the developers or PR of that product. This will be an ethical review of the product itself and how it functions.
