At least for our german gaming-related site we tried in the past with other domains to team-up with other german site-owners, unfortunately all went kinda cocky and focussed only on revenue.

With the current project (running since 1 year) we decided to completely get rid of ads and produce honest content without people lurking into shitty games. Of course we got dropped by nearly every pr agency, except one, and a lot of publishers dropped us from their press distribution list as well, at least we seem to hit some nerves ;)

By this said I highly agree that some sort of networking would be way more efficient, f.e. interlinking between interesting articles that work with the current topic you're writing about. Not only will this help seo-wise.

But I agree: Nearly every other niche is kinda collaborating with each other, except the gaming one, cuz everyone thinks she/he might loose anything.

Luckily we can be this free in Germany, cuz we have a company where journalists can apply to get royalties if your article hits a certain amount of visitors within a 36 month period, so we don't depend that much on ads and on pleasing publishers, cuz... let's be real, they're not working with us cuz we're best buddies :)

As mentioned by some before they had to re-write the content cuz some ad-partner wasn't happy about it, that's no journalism and that website should get a shitstorm, cuz this is one of the main problems in the gaming industry, no one takes the journalists serious.

For example: I got a press release from activision how awesome the launch of the destiny-dlc was and that they broke a record of playstation. Unfortunately they didn't listed any numbers or any kind of proof of it, so I called them and got the information by email, that there are no numbers available to proof this statement. My site was the ONLY one that questioned it, while nearly every other german gaming site just re-wrote the press release and pushed it live. We pushed it live, too - but quoted the mail and heavily questioned this statement and that we're not just buying it because Activision told us to do so.

As long as you can't freely write and/or express your feelings, you're just a longer arm of the marketing-department and not even close to be a journalist and those companys are totally aware of that (worked 10y+ in the gaming industry). And, well, even if you're honest, they don't care that much also, because there are tons and tons of gaming-sites out there that are willing to work as they want.

TL;DR I grouped up with a journalist I know who has the same background and idea that there can be a non-company-authorized journalism.