Youtubers get paid to play

An interesting piece on Gamasutra digs into the payment for Youtube content by popular Let's Players like Total Biscuit, Angry Joe and Polaris.

Out of the bigger Youtubers (more than 5,000 subscribers) 21% in the survey have received money directly or in-directly from a game dev/publisher to feature their game. An additional 5% say they've done so only when a game dev offers money, while 5% preferred not to answer.

Is it ethical then? Youtubers are not journalists, but don't they still owe it to their viewers to be transparent? Sure it's not a review, but if your channel is powerful enough to sway gamer opinion and someone is willing to pay money for a spot on it - don't you owe it to your fans to disclose this? It's an interesting question and perhaps the most important lesson here is to keep it in mind that when a game is being featured on a popular Youtube channel it may just be there cause someone paid for it.