GachaMeister Editorial Independence Policy

Who Controls GachaMeister's Editorial Decisions?

GachaMeister was founded by Alex Smith, who, ultimately, is responsible for the site’s editorial output. Individual articles, reviews, guides and research may also involve contributors, editors, researchers or other people working on behalf of GachaMeister. However, our editorial standards apply regardless of who produces or contributes to the work.

Companies, platforms, marketplaces, grading services, sellers and other organisations we cover do not get editorial control simply because they work with us commercially, provide information to us, respond to our questions or give us access to something we want to investigate or feature on our website.

We welcome them to provide us with up-to-date information, point out factual errors, and challenge any conclusions they believe are unsupported, but they are not entitled to decide what those conclusions should be.

If a company tells us that our published pack-opening fees are wrong, for example, and provides evidence that its pricing changed yesterday, we’d obviously want to correct or update it. If the same company comes to us and says they’re unhappy with their GachaMeister score, however, that’s something very different - and we will never change a rating, conclusion or editorial judgement simply because a company dislikes it, or because doing so would benefit a commercial relationship.

GachaMeister’s Commercial Relationships

GachaMeister may have commercial relationships with some of the companies and services we cover.

These relationships may allow us to earn money when a reader follows a link or takes another qualifying action, but they do not give a company control over what we publish. No GachaMeister commercial partner can pay to:

• receive coverage;
• increase its review score;
• improve or change our verdict;
• move higher in a ranking;
• lower the standard of evidence applied to a claim;
• turn an Official-Only claim into an Observed one;
• remove or suppress a supported negative finding;
• become recommended when we would not otherwise recommend it; or
• prevent a factual correction from being made.

GachaMeister also does not sell trust scores, rankings, recommendations or editorial verdicts, so please don’t contact us wanting to buy one - you’ll be wasting our time and yours.

We also want to be very clear that the rules work both ways too. A company with a commercial relationship with GachaMeister can still receive a poor score, lose a recommendation, appear in a supported warning, or have problems with its service described publicly. Likewise, a company with no commercial relationship with us can still receive a positive review or recommendation.

If you want to know more about how GachaMeister's affiliate relationships work - and how we ensure our editorial content remains unaffected no matter who we work with - check out our Affiliate Disclosure.

Free Access, Test Accounts and Other Benefits

Companies sometimes offer free access, testing credit, review accounts, products, samples or other benefits that are designed to make it easier for us to fully-review and examine their services.

Where GachaMeister carries out first-party testing, however, our goal is to reproduce the ordinary customer journey as closely as possible. We don’t treat free credit, special review accounts, or preferential access to a product/service as a substitute for normal customer testing.

If we ever use special access to check out a particular feature, answer a question, or gather information that isn't otherwise available, we treat that access for what it is. We don't use it to pretend we've reproduced the experience of an ordinary paying customer, and where it materially affects how our findings should be interpreted, we'll make that very clear.

Providing GachaMeister with free access, products, credit, or anything else, does not guarantee coverage, nor a recommendation or favourable result.

How GachaMeister Handles Conflicts of Interest

Editorial independence isn’t just about affiliate links. Conflicts may arise from a personal relationship, financial interest, previous business relationship, or another connection that could reasonably affect, or appear to affect, an editorial decision.

When a material conflict exists, we identify and manage it. Depending on the circumstances, that may involve disclosing the relationship publicly, presenting additional independent evidence or review, being honest in the conclusion we can safely reach, or even delaying publication until the conflict has been addressed.

If we’re unable to fairly manage a conflict, we usually won’t publish the affected conclusion, as simply acknowledging a conflict doesn’t automatically mean it’s harmless, or wouldn’t negatively impact our readers.

When a Company Challenges Our Coverage

Editorial independence doesn’t mean we shut companies out of the reporting/reviewing process, and actually, it means quite the opposite. We like when we’re able to approach platforms to ask questions, request clarifications, investigate potential issues, seek a statement, or give a company a chance to respond.

For a particularly serious claim/accusation, we may also give the person or organisation involved a chance to respond before we publish anything. This gives them a right to respond, not a right to “approve” our coverage. Choosing not to respond, however, is not on its own proof that an allegation is true.

If a platform, seller, grading company or other organisation believes we have published something inaccurate, we welcome them to reach out to us, and will ask them to show us the relevant evidence. We review the evidence on its merits, regardless of whether the company has a commercial relationship with GachaMeister.

If the evidence shows that we were wrong, we will happily correct the mistake, while if something has changed since publication, we will update the information where appropriate. If the evidence doesn’t prove that our existing finding or statement is wrong, then a company’s unhappiness alone isn’t enough reason to remove or change anything on GachaMeister.

The same standard applies when a commercial partner asks us to change or edit our editorial content. Evidence may justify a correction or a different conclusion, but simply asking us for a higher score, a softer verdict, or the removal of negative findings does not.

Remember that not every fact published on GachaMeister has been independently verified through our own first-party testing. Some information may come from official sources and where this is the case, we’ll present it accordingly.

AI is also one of the tools GachaMeister uses during research, analysis and drafting, but it does not make our final editorial decisions. AI output is, very explicitly, not considered reliable evidence for a specific claim. A human editor is always responsible for what GachaMeister ultimately publishes. Our Evidence & Verification Policy explains that boundary in more detail.

Our Corrections & Right of Reply Policy explains how challenges and corrections are handled, while our Review & Evidence Methodology explains how we conduct testing, official information and other forms of evidence.

Ultimately, money, access and commercial pressure do not get to decide what GachaMeister publishes. We follow the evidence, correct ourselves when we get something wrong, and stand by our research and supported findings even when they are inconvenient, or end up costing us money.

If our evidence isn’t strong enough to reach a fair conclusion, we’ll say so - always.