Curmudgeon Gamer
25 May 2007
Media Summit A-Go-Go
The big sites have mentioned they've been under another of those news embargos for the duration of Nintendo's big E3 replacement show. (I've registered my disdain for the news embargo system before.)
So, what was the big news that was so R0XX0RZ MEGAT0N that Nintendo would forcibly gag a legion of game press until the moment of midnight to release it?
THAT THERE WAS NO NEWS.
In the words of Joel Robinson, "Oh god! The joke's on us!"
So, what was the big news that was so R0XX0RZ MEGAT0N that Nintendo would forcibly gag a legion of game press until the moment of midnight to release it?
THAT THERE WAS NO NEWS.
In the words of Joel Robinson, "Oh god! The joke's on us!"
--JohnH at 15:33
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[ 1 ]
08 March 2007
Things Changing, Staying Same, Re: Kotaku
So as the blog world found out last week, Sony tried to play hardball with Kotaku to keep them from posting a rumor (which in the process became all but substantiated) that they were working on a new PS3 system feature, the "Playstation Home," to combine X-box Live's popular obsessive-compulsive Achievements feature with the Wii's Charlie Brown-creator tool. The mixture will, in the end, allow people to create a virtual, anthropomorphic personification of their PS3, which will live in a little virtual house, and collect little virtual game-related trinkets that represent your game accomplishments. Perhaps a future update will let the little guy live in the virtual basement rent-free beneath his virtual mother's home.
But let's set the Playstation Home thing aside, although there is certainly a lot of comedy there to be mined. Instead, let's talk about the attitude that prompted Sony's little do-our-bidding letter to Kotaku. For assuredly, it is far from being a exclusive to them. The assumptions that lie beneath that odd missive get to the heart of why the game journalism world in general, let us not mince words here, sucks.
The big sites, the ones who get the big news first (leaving the dozens of second-tier sites to lap up their used news and reprint in the great echo chamber of the internet) usually get that news by making a Faustian bargain. The contract reads "Our PR guys will spoon-feed you news, on the condition that you present it the way we want, and when we want it." An organization that obeys that kind of edict doesn't sound, to me, like something that can be called a press. But what can a site do but play the game, or be banished to the abyss of the second-tier?
Kotaku could buck the trend because, really, people don't go there, or to Joystiq, or Insert Credit, or Penny Arcade, or (yo homies) GameSetWatch, or here, for breaking news. They go/come (t)here for commentary. That's what blogs are best at.
Of course Kotaku isn't innocent either. One of the things that Sony requested of them in their ball-collection note is their debug PS3, something that Kotaku could not have acquired without agreeing, on an unspoken level at least, to the deal. And THIS week, they did pull information gained at GDC off the site because it had actually been "embargoed," and Kotaku had received a letter from Microsoft saying, in essence, "Who's your daddy?"
Most of the top-tier game news sites, the Gamespots and the Gamespies and the Gamewhosits, do this, but of all those that have used the Red Pen to ink their names on the contract, IGN would seem to be the ones who hide it the worst.
IGN, the guys who set up a subscription plan so that one can pay for untainted access to the PR spigots of major game companies. A recent blog post from IGN Wii editor Matt Casamassina said:
Oh sure, it can't be an easy place for a top-tier site to be in. And I understand that there are some things that the manufacturers may not want news sites to print, and that is okay. Where we differ is on how to protect that information from the hungry eyes of the public. You do it, not by co-opting the enthusiast gaming press into your circle of trust, but by not telling it to them before you want them to know.
I do not think them turning into what is essentially an advertising service for the major manufacturers is they way to go. It is not good that any press get too close to those that they report on, and who have every reason to manipulate it. Joystiq suffered enough of a creditability blow some time back when one of their writers drank too much PR Kool-Aid that they fired the guy responsible. It couldn't have happened if they took more of a detached approach to the subject. The big sites like Gamespot and IGN may never be able to ween themselves off the sour PR milk, but gaming blogs shouldn't be chasing scoops anyway.
Let the NDAs lapse, and get back to the sacred task of shamelessly posting of every unsubstantiated rumor that hits your mailbox. That's all I'm asking.
But let's set the Playstation Home thing aside, although there is certainly a lot of comedy there to be mined. Instead, let's talk about the attitude that prompted Sony's little do-our-bidding letter to Kotaku. For assuredly, it is far from being a exclusive to them. The assumptions that lie beneath that odd missive get to the heart of why the game journalism world in general, let us not mince words here, sucks.
The big sites, the ones who get the big news first (leaving the dozens of second-tier sites to lap up their used news and reprint in the great echo chamber of the internet) usually get that news by making a Faustian bargain. The contract reads "Our PR guys will spoon-feed you news, on the condition that you present it the way we want, and when we want it." An organization that obeys that kind of edict doesn't sound, to me, like something that can be called a press. But what can a site do but play the game, or be banished to the abyss of the second-tier?
Kotaku could buck the trend because, really, people don't go there, or to Joystiq, or Insert Credit, or Penny Arcade, or (yo homies) GameSetWatch, or here, for breaking news. They go/come (t)here for commentary. That's what blogs are best at.
Of course Kotaku isn't innocent either. One of the things that Sony requested of them in their ball-collection note is their debug PS3, something that Kotaku could not have acquired without agreeing, on an unspoken level at least, to the deal. And THIS week, they did pull information gained at GDC off the site because it had actually been "embargoed," and Kotaku had received a letter from Microsoft saying, in essence, "Who's your daddy?"
Most of the top-tier game news sites, the Gamespots and the Gamespies and the Gamewhosits, do this, but of all those that have used the Red Pen to ink their names on the contract, IGN would seem to be the ones who hide it the worst.
IGN, the guys who set up a subscription plan so that one can pay for untainted access to the PR spigots of major game companies. A recent blog post from IGN Wii editor Matt Casamassina said:
There are some potentially crazy-awesome games coming down the pipeline for Wii, by the way. You guys have no idea. I know that's vague -- has to be, but I've seen some stuff that you simply have no idea even exists and frankly, if you did, you'd flip out. Comments like these have a way of backfiring on me and i'm sure some people will be annoyed that I've even brought up, since I'm unable to give even a hint about the projects in question.Yes! Is it not a shame that you, member of the gaming press whose job it is to inform us unwashed readers of so much juicy information. But alas! You have bigger, important interests at heart than us poor non-insiders, us unimportant masses, us pitiful ignorants. But I am sure you will tell us when you journalistic hands are unbound, and you come down from Mt. Olympus to bestow upon us a morsel of Truth.
Oh sure, it can't be an easy place for a top-tier site to be in. And I understand that there are some things that the manufacturers may not want news sites to print, and that is okay. Where we differ is on how to protect that information from the hungry eyes of the public. You do it, not by co-opting the enthusiast gaming press into your circle of trust, but by not telling it to them before you want them to know.
I do not think them turning into what is essentially an advertising service for the major manufacturers is they way to go. It is not good that any press get too close to those that they report on, and who have every reason to manipulate it. Joystiq suffered enough of a creditability blow some time back when one of their writers drank too much PR Kool-Aid that they fired the guy responsible. It couldn't have happened if they took more of a detached approach to the subject. The big sites like Gamespot and IGN may never be able to ween themselves off the sour PR milk, but gaming blogs shouldn't be chasing scoops anyway.
Let the NDAs lapse, and get back to the sacred task of shamelessly posting of every unsubstantiated rumor that hits your mailbox. That's all I'm asking.
--JohnH at 01:39
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[ 10 ]
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