Editorial policy

This page sets out how Penny & Pixel is written and maintained. It exists so you can hold us to a standard, and so the standard doesn't quietly slip when a commission is on the line.

Independence

Our recommendations are made for the buyer, not the retailer. Commissions never determine which games we pick, how we rank them, or the verdicts we give — see our affiliate disclosure. We accept no payment for a placement, a ranking, or a positive verdict. We accept no free products in exchange for coverage.

Sourcing

• Prices come from live retailer data (the Amazon Product API), never hand-typed.
• Sale dates come from official Steam, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, or Amazon announcements. Where a future date isn't officially confirmed, we give the historical window (for example, "the Steam Summer Sale has landed in late June every year since 2019") rather than inventing a specific day.
• Playtime and value context is drawn from published data and broad player consensus.
• Where a fact comes from someone else's work, we cite and link them.

Accuracy and updates

• Price boxes are live, or they show "Check price" — never a stale number.
• Roundups and platform hubs are reviewed at least quarterly (picks, prices, skip calls), with a visible last-updated date.
• Sale-calendar guides update when official dates are announced.
• Corrections: if we get something wrong and you tell us on the contact page, we fix it promptly and note that we did.

Claims we refuse to make

These are the lines we don't cross, ever:

• No fake testing.We don't run a lab and won't claim hands-on testing of games or gear we haven't used. Our method is research and value math, and we say so.
• No fabricated ratings, reviews, prices, or dates. We never invent a star rating, a review count, a price, or a sale date to fill a page.
• No borrowed authority.No fake credentials, no "industry veteran," no "expert panel," no tenure claims. We're enthusiasts with a method, and that's the honest pitch.
• No gray-market promotion. We recommend authorized stores only and warn openly about the risks of unauthorized key resellers.
• No fake urgency.No countdown-timer pressure or "buy now or lose it" manipulation. If waiting for a sale is the smart move, we'll tell you to wait.

Who's responsible

Penny & Pixel is written by a named author — see about — and published by Type 5 Marketing LLC. Questions about anything on this page are welcome via the contact page.