Some games pay to be featured on Conan's 'Clueless Gamer' sketch

- Re/code report on which games paid to be on Conan O'Brien's "Clueless Gamer" sketch. Newsbrief: Re/code reporters Eric Johnson and Amy Schatz published a story today detailing their investigation into when and why Conan O'Brien's talk show accepts payments for certain games to be featured as part of its "Clueless Gamer" sketch. It's a good bit of reporting that includes information and opinions from a diverse array of sources, including opinions from publishers who paid to have games featured on the show and those who didn't, yet had their games featured anyway -- often to mocking, negative commentary from Conan himself. This is troubling, because -- as the Re/code reporters point out -- Conan never discloses that roughly a third of the games featured on the show have paid for the privilege. "These Clueless Gamer segments are not serious reviews nor endorsements — they are strictly comedic sketches," a Conan show spokesman told Re/code in an email. “We do not believe sponsorship identification is needed." Read the full report for more details, including comments from multiple sources on the Conan show as well as people who paid to have their game featured on the "Clueless Gamer" segment and those who did not.