Editorial Policy

This page explains how Held Games decides what to publish, how we check it, and where we draw lines that other sites in our space do not. It applies to every article on the site, including sponsored content.

Independence

Our editorial opinions are not for sale.

We earn money through Amazon Associates affiliate links, Mediavine display advertising, and occasional sponsored content. None of those relationships determine what we recommend. We have recommended products that earn us nothing, and we have criticised products we link to.

No advertiser, affiliate program, or manufacturer gets approval over our conclusions. If a company asks us to change an opinion, we decline and keep the article as written.

See Advertise With Held Games for the full commercial terms, and Disclosure for how affiliate links work.

How We Source Content

We work from primary sources wherever one exists.

For hardware, that means hands on testing. Our review methodology sets out the testing process, the minimum two week use period, and what our scores mean.

For software and community projects, that means the project itself rather than coverage of it. We read release notes, changelogs, build files, and issue trackers before we write. Press coverage of these projects is frequently wrong about which version shipped, which hardware is supported, and whether a download exists at all. We check.

When we cannot verify a claim, we either leave it out or label it clearly as unconfirmed. We do not publish a number we cannot stand behind.

Corrections

We correct errors visibly.

When a correction changes the substance of an article, we say what was wrong and when we fixed it, in the article. We do not silently rewrite a piece to hide a mistake. Articles that have been substantially updated carry an updated date.

If you spot an error, please tell us through our contact page. Corrections from readers are welcome and we act on them.

Emulation And Preservation

Held Games covers emulation as a preservation and hobbyist pursuit. Everything we publish is written for people playing games they already own.

We write freely about emulator software, custom firmware, and device setup. These are legal tools and a legitimate part of the hobby.

We do not link to, name, or explain how to reach ROM sites, game file aggregators, or any source of copyrighted game data. We do not publish "how to get free games" content in any form. If a guide needs game files to make sense, we assume you have your own and we move on.

Held Games covers ROM hacks, fan games, decompilations, and recompilation projects. Many of them are among the most interesting things happening in this hobby. Many of them also use licensed assets, which puts the people behind them in a difficult position.

We report on these projects as news. We do not act as their distribution.

We publish no code host links. No GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, SourceForge, Nexus Mods, Modrinth, CurseForge, itch.io, or Steam Workshop URLs appear anywhere on this site.

We publish no creator handles. We do not print account names, repository slugs, or pseudonyms for the people behind these projects. We name the project and attribute the work to "the creator", "an independent developer", or "the team behind it".

Two narrow exceptions exist. We name long running open source emulator projects such as RPCS3 and mGBA, which are established software, not at risk individuals. We also keep real names that the people themselves have already put in front of a large public audience and that mainstream outlets have reported.

This is our own call about how we want to operate. It is not legal advice, and it is not a judgment about anyone else's choices. It costs us something. Attribution is normally the right thing to do, and dropping it is a real tradeoff we have accepted deliberately.

For firmware, we name the product rather than the repository. KNULLI, muOS, and Onion OS are what readers search for anyway.

Sponsored content is labelled at the top of the article, before the content begins. Every outbound link in it carries rel="sponsored".

Sponsored articles are never presented as reviews. A review is our independent assessment of a product we tested. A sponsored article is a commercial placement, and we say so in both cases.

We do not sell dofollow links, link insertions into existing articles, or edits to published editorial. Every standard on this page applies to sponsored content without exception.

Hardware Specifications

We flag specifications we have not personally confirmed rather than presenting them as fact. Manufacturer spec sheets for budget handhelds are often wrong, and chipset claims in particular get repeated across the internet without anyone checking.

Where we have tested a device ourselves, we say so. Where we are reporting a manufacturer claim, we say that too.

Questions

If something on this page is unclear, or you think we have fallen short of it, please get in touch through our contact page. We would rather hear it.