f13.net

Seriously (http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/sony-blackballs-kotaku-240860.php). I don't even know what to say. I have extreme dislike for Kotaku. They steal their content from various sites. Have horrible regular entries, and reviews that don't really say anything. But somehow, they rose to fame. A lot of people are going to take their side on this one. Well, that's just not how it works. When one of the Big Three (or even a little company) asks you nicely not to go forward with something - especially something THEY want to announce - you do them the favor of not going forward with it. I kept my mouth shut about Odin Sphere for Atlus, they can keep their mouth shut about playing house on their PS3.

I would've sided with them if the news was some sort of big expose on some horrible coverup in the industry. But it wasn't. It was just about Sony playing catchup on some features the 360 and Wii had. Weak sauce guys.

Someone who knows Crecente needs to hit him with the goddamn cluebat.

Don't like them either. Not sure where to start.

[EDIT]

Only thing worse would be all the sycophants who post on their site.

I had mercifully avoided being aware of these guys until the PAL PS3 emulation chip story broke and I read their take on it someone had linked somewhere. Just skimming a few of their stories was enough to see how unprofessional and juvanile these idiots are, so I'm not surprised they'd do this sort of thing. Seriously, they sound like teenagers writing some rag for their high school. How did they get popular again?

Probably something to do with all the dorks out there who think that there's such a thing as "games journalism".

Break an NDA! Woodward and Bernstein eat your heart out!

[EDIT] Also, the more self important you are, the bigger a gaming journalist.

The real "news" here is actually Kotaku posting that email exchange and "giving it to the man". Gaming journalism is just self advertisement, and not news at all. Some people like that sort of thing.

Holy shit. Ok. It's blowing my mind. The number of people supporting this bone-headed decision is just ridiculous.

IT WAS NOT THAT IMPORTANT A PIECE OF NEWS.


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. This isn't journalistic integrity. It's impatience.

This just gets better. Gawker media sites are starting to support them and bring their legion of celebrity-worshipping, gadget-drooling meatheads to Crecente's rescue.

Please tell me that last paragraph isn't trying to gain sympathy by reminding Sony they spent a few grand on Kotaku/Giz (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/announcements/playstation-blacklists-kotaku-for-responsible-journalism-240885.php).

I hope it backfires on them. I would hope Nintendo and Microsoft (and other game developers) wouldn't want to deal with someone so self promoting and loose with company secrets, and just boot them like Sony did.

They don't seem to realize that gaming journalistic "integrity" is really nothing more than being in a good relationship with companies that don't need you. It's doling out what's been handed to you. Not "getting the big scoop".

[EDIT]

Or maybe I'm just too cynical. Huh.

The industry could do with less secrets in the first place though. Then you wouldn't even have this bullshit, and everyone would be happy.

I'm definitely agreeing with schild on this. They broke a positive story a company wanted to make public, but wanted to wait before breaking it so it could be unveiled at the right time. Journalistic integrity applies when you're breaking stories people want hushed up and that the public needs to hear. Not shitting on a press release to get your spotlight on.

Eh well, thats Gawker though, I mean look at thier stable of Blog sites:

Defamer: Celebrity Gossip
Valleywag: SV tech gossip (should be called valley shag, since about 40% of the time its about...does anyone really care who Kevin Rose is boning this week? I mean except for the cult of Digg?)
Kotaku: Gaming gossip

But mostly its about Nick Denton style journalism, which is load a bunch of reality TV style sensationalism in a shotgun, and unload it on the screen in a badly designed website.....

Honestly, if this somehow creates a movement in the industry to totally shit on trade secrets, I may disappear forever. Kotaku can NOT be supported on this decision. It undermines every relationship any game journo has ever built with any company.

Godfuckingdamnit Crecente. You're on my LIST.

Calantus:

"They broke a positive story a company wanted to make public, but wanted to wait before breaking it so it could be unveiled at the right time"


Thats called an Embargo, a common request for companies waiting to fire up the PR machine, and its completely fucking Jr League to be violating it.

Theres a very short window of opprotunity cost with PR, meaning your press and marketing has to be executed simultaniously to get the most bang for the buck, no one wants to run a news story that broke last week......all journalists want to be first to have the scoop, thats the leverdge point companies have with press.

Fucking with someones embargo is not a good idea

It's not an embargo. He probably leaned on someone who gave him a hint.

You want to know how I know it wasn't embargoed? Cuz I didn't know about it.

And trust me, I'd have found out.

For this stunt, he needs to fry.

Edit: You especially don't leak news when you've probably been told "Hey, this is what's happening, no, this isn't a release, Sony will be delivering this straight to the people." I hope his source kills him in the night.

ROFL....somehow the image of 150 little midget sony elves streaming through a window with tiny littloe daggers and black shirts with PS3 logos on them comes to mind....

hmmm less caffine more sleep methinks

The best I could ask for is honest reviews and tough questions (fear of losing swag or not). That's about the best journalism is going to get.

SOE Keynote stuff, via MaxConsole, from Neoseeker.


If Kotaku just wanted to post a rumor, they should have posted that.

This is horrible writing on every level. Based on what that crap site must be pulling in with ads, F13 writers should be making a mint.

I agree with others here - Sony asked Kotaku not to publish a rumour about a new product they may have coming out. The sensible thing would be to have asked for an in when the product was released, or some other quid pro quo. If it had been a story on how Blu-Ray needs the blood of kittens to operate, sure - that's a story to run without the company's permission. But what they ran was something Sony no doubt wanted to launch as an expected surprise at some future point. Now everyone is just waiting for the official announcement.

What also got me was how disappointed the Sony PR guy sounded. Seriously, he felt a lot of trust get violated there.

So, Kotaku shoots itself in the foot. Any future PR guy is going to want to hold his tongue around them (or not invite them) just in case.

awwww....they made up....

traffic driving stunts = WTG

Sony has been suffering from so much bad PR, even this shit made them look like the bad guy. Guess they had no choice but to make up. Might turn out for the better. Now there's some interesting rumours out there for them, and they don't look like "evil blackballing corporate assholes" (Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. The perception does).


Still though, I say Boo! Kotaku deserves to be shitlisted.

I need to write when I get home.

I am DISGUSTED. Fucking DISGUSTED with this.

Goddamnit. I think I'm gonna put my head through my monitor.

(http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/8756/homefc1.jpg)

Neogaf found the logo in doubletime.

Unless Kotaku signed some sort of NDA I don't see what the problem is. There was one quote from an unnamed source and the rest of the info came from Sony itself or other published material. If Sony doesn't want people rumor-mongering about potential upcoming announcements maybe they should shut their own mouths first. I.e. this isn't information Sony privately gave them, asked them not to publish it and they did it anyways. They did their own research of publically available information plus one unnamed source and decided they didn't feel like being bullied by Sony into keeping quiet and published it.

Edit: extra first

This isn't even bullying. It was a favor.

Not even a big one.

The point is it's not news Trippy (it was being prepared to be released for all journos anyways), and they decided to steal Sony's thunder to make themselves look good. Before they do so, they ask Sony about it, Sony politely tells them to hold off -- and for whatever reason, Kotaku decides to ignore them. Then Sony pulls the plug on their swag.

And then Kotaku decides to bring further attention to themselves by publishing the email exchange, and tried to turn it into some David vs Goliath story (and nothing about the rumor at all). It's all silly and pointless, and not journalism.

I agree it's silly and pointless. What I don't understand is why all of you think "prior restraint" is a good thing.

Because this isn't an industry of "news." It's a luxury industry. Companies get to drop bombs on us. Not journalists. This was PURELY Kotaku not respecting Sony and acting the fool.

They deserve to get blacklisted by the whole industry. Actually, they deserved to get blacklisted a long time ago. This is just icing.

I have mixed feelings. I know nothing about Kutaku or however it's spelled. So...

1) It was just a rumor and they chose to print it. Sony asked them not to.
2) They were dicks and printed it anyway.
3) Sony over reacted IMO, as was said, this wasn't an NDA type of situation or information given to them officially by Sony.
4) They play victim and Sony makes up to avoid bad PR.

Honestly, both parties have mud on them in this one.

I don't see how Sony does.

It's "perceived mud". Which is actually worse than real mud ;).

This isn't a story that the public just has to know right now.

From Sony's perspective they've given Kotaku stuff, can't they ask for something in return? Again this isn't Sony asking to squelch a story about how the PS3 catches on fire..."responsible journalism" lol.

Kotaku is crap. I don't understand a lot of the new websites. Digg is another good example of a site I just don't get. It sometimes has something vaguely interesting but 95% of it is just retarded. The whole content aggregation trend annoys me - someone has to produce actual content!

The fans of these sites are slobbering morons for the most part. Comments section read like a gunshot to the face.

Sony just wanted shock and awe at a show.

Seriously. I wish the worst plights I can think of upon Crecente right now. This wasn't balls OR journalism. This was a bandwidth bumping PR stunt of the worst kind.

This reminds me of the Player Hater's Ball.

I remember this one time my brother told me about this cool gumball machine my parents got me for my birthday. Totally pissed my parents off. I liked it either way, but it made me kind of sad that they couldn't show me in their own way.  :lol:

Cause they look petty for (initially) cutting off Kokatu at GDC.

You know, I toyed around for a long time with making a rumor mill site.

This situation, where the website looks like a total asshole (though gamers would LOVE IT) is the exact reason I never went forward with it.

Edit: Sony doesn't look petty. When you cut off ties with someone, you cut them off. Kotaku deserved it. Sony pussied out. I think less of Sony now. They just keeled over to a fucking blog run by people who honestly don't even seem to know much about gaming.

Not petty at all. It's their shit. Kotaku was in a privileged Insider state. Sony wasn't beholden to them. Kotaku decides to break trust for their own short term gain. Sony has every right to take their own shit back.

The real dirty thing is them trying to make it out like Sony didn't have the right. I don't think that shit happens in any other consumer reporting industry. But Crescente knows he even has leverage here, because he has a retarded fanbase who can get riled up about anything he says.

[edit] Anyhow, I guess it's all blown over now.


In other news: Possible return of Rumble? Yay

The mud on Sony I was referring to was both reactions cost them in a market segment

1) Cutting off this guy obviously caused a backlash and they were able to paint Sony as bullies
2) Going back on it and bringing them back in made them look like pussies and may embolden future leaks like this.

Sony should have just left it as a no comment and this would have had a lot less exposure. The rumor wasn't even that interesting to begin with.

I've never liked Kotaku, or Crescente in particular. Fucking fanboi amateurs. This wasn't journalism. Sony wasn't trying to cover anything up, which would warrant such an "expose."

Also, their site is ugly as shit.

I also find it amusingly ironic that some of you who decry gaming "journalism's" cozy relationship with the gaming industry are suddenly siding with Sony when a gaming site decides one time not to suck up to them.

If it wasn't that big a deal to Sony they shouldn't have taken their ball away.

The only big deal was who released the information. Obviously Sony wanted to AND they asked nicely.

If anyone over reacted it was Gawker fucking media.

I'm all for journalistic standards and objectivity, not being afraid to back down and all that jazz. But again this is not some sort of serious story.

GAMERS NEED TO KNOW - RIGHT NOW!!!

No.

This was the wrong time to choose "not to suck up." And there is a difference between sucking up and being respectful of a relationship.

Journalistic integrity means not hyping things up and not giving undeserved reviews. Having a critical eye. No BS "top games of 2008!!" that just polish the knobs of whoever invited you to some retreat.

Leaking PR info is not journalistic integrity. This "for teh journalism" stuff is retarded.

I didn't say it wasn't a big deal. This was Sony's new baby, and they should have respected that and let Sony show it off first. And they asked nicely. Crecente just decided to be a dick and steal the spotlight.

The readers at slashdot get it at least. If you look at the comments there they are at least 50% pro-Sony.

Kotaku has a right to print what they want, and Sony has a right to revoke special access. Nobody is inviting me to Sony events or giving me PS3 debug units - is that some sort of crime?

I agree with Schild that Sony backing down makes them look weak and it also makes them look like they are acknowledging that they overreacted. By backing down they are admitting they were wrong even though they weren't wrong at all. And now Kotaku gets to basically gloat that they were right from the start.

"I agree it's silly and pointless. What I don't understand is why all of you think "prior restraint" is a good thing."

Because companies large and small spend money on marketing and PR, well timed, precise marketing, they also spend money giving jackass sites with high traffic rating free shit, thats the cost of going to the dance.

And when those sites and journalists give them the big FU, they get pissed. OTOH who the hell knows, maybe it was a put on, theres a lot of benifit to be had on both sides in driving traffic and generating buzz before a big event. What I'm saying is half the shit you see IS engineered to drive eyeballs. And given the nature of Gawker properties it wouldnt suprise me.

Think of it this way, your friend spends a lot of money making killer snow boards, in fact hes a big snow board supplier, he gives you free snow boards, and you report on snow boards on your blog, he tells you about this new model of snow board, but hes going to announce it at the big rasta-stoner-snow board convention. And you decide to drop the infor on your blog 7 days before, after your buddy just paid 150,000 for the promotion, media and event staff as well as all the time organizing it.

Basically you just told your friend to go fuck himself, thanks for all the free snow boards man, so you could get a few shekles of advertising in your pocket from an increased traffic rating. Then you fell back on your trump card of "journalistic integrity"

So whos the asshole, the guy for saying, no you cant come to the convention after party because you just fucked me over or the guy who got all the free shit then thanklessly did the fucking?

Businesses are built on relationships, if people cant trust you they cant do business with you, and are reluctant to do business with people who are similar to you, in fact they might change thier policy of even bothering to talk to the snow board fan sites......

What this means is one person can fuck up the free snow board supply for everyone else....

If you dont get this imagine a Mac fanboy site that got free stuff dropped info on the iPhone 7 days before the Mac Expo, what kind of armageddon do you think Steve Jobs would have perpetrated on every Mac Fansite that (used) to get free shit?


Basically the company was asking Koto to STFU and not act like an asshat for 7 days...

Kotaku's move was bad from their own tactical point of view (ie, being able to get further scoops).  Sony was also completely within their rights to not feed them information anymore.  That being said:

People's moral indignation here is fucking ridiculous.  I am going to remember this thread and link it every time somebody complains about how the media is beholden to X group and how it won't report on any topics their masters don't want them to report on.  At that point, I link this thread and say "Information about X topic isn't "Real" news.  Ya'll should've respected the PR right of the campaign/government/corporation to release this at the time best for themselves".  EDIT:  Made example more general (put in "X" in place of political group) to avoid hurting Stray's fragile feelings and to avoid the possibility of similar maniacs derailing from my general point.   

Summary: you can't label an entire industry "not news" and them lambast people reporting within it unless you respect the right of everyone else to arbitrarily label entire industries "not news".   

 

Huh? Republicans?

Please. Just for once: Start talking about games. Pretty please?  :oops:

Secondly - Don't confuse political news and world issues journalists with product reporting. Entirely different thing. Gaming journalism is similar to Car and Driver or Home Audio and Video. Not Bob Woodward and Christiane Amanpour.

[EDIT] I've never said this before, but you should be BANNED for that bullshit. Fucking asshole. Stop making this about your personal political beliefs.

???  Wow, something in this story really hit a nerve with you people.  Because of how scared I am of Stray, I'll just say this:  Everyone here is right!  Journalists in EVERY OTHER AREA OF HUMAN EXISTENCE should be daring and independent and investigative.  But in gaming, they should be obedient little industry lapdogs.  That's my final word, I'm done with this thread.

Also:  I edited my above post to make it less political orientation-specific, so that Stray doesn't have to cry himself to sleep tonight. 

Stop being such a dingdong. There was no investigation or independence here. They got leaked info from an insider. They asked Sony. Sony basically said, yes, now we ask that you keep quiet especially since we've given you thousands and thousands of dollars in free shit, just this once. And Kotaku said "Hey Fuck You Guy."

What the hell is wrong with you? Is the situation complicated or something?

It's not about the story hitting the nerve, Triforcer. You being a fucking a troll is what's hitting a nerve. You were making this shit about yourself, no different than what SirBruce used to do.

Daring and independant, fine.  Flagrantly violating the trust of a company that you are supposed to be maintaining a working relationship with over something innocent, not so much.  Where is Kotaku's expose on the working conditions of Sony's factory laborers?  How about their hard-hitting insider report on farming of software jobs oversees?  Let's not beat around the bush here -- what they did was ignorant and inconsiderate, but in no way an attempt to stick it to "The Man."

For the record, I'm not so much defending the nature of the industry's press and product handling as I am just stating how it is. I've said numerous times how I wish this kind of stuff wasn't so secretive and timed with fanfare in the first place. But it is what it is.

What possible difference does it make? The companies are the ones spending the money on the fanfare, so who cares.

I don't care about the money spent on fanfare. Where'd you get that from?

I'm just saying that I wish more companies weren't so secretive about their information all the time (then you wouldn't have this rumor mongering crap). I don't expect Open Source levels of dev/user communication, but it'd be nice if more companies had more Inside Man mouthpieces that dealt with communities and offered more things to chew on for gamers. Not every product release has to be a "Wait till it's perfect, then drop the Bomb" scenario.

What I mean is that the info you're referring to is going to come out in good time anyway. I don't see the point in trying to elicit stuff so people can think highly of themselves for getting the "ZOMG BIG SCOOP INFOZ!!!"

You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about eliciting anything. I'm talking about companies beating these rumor sites at their own game by offering more information freely and gradually.

Basically, do more than just Press Releases and "Exclusive Previews". I mean, actually get out there and talk to people. Don't keep them in the dark all the time.

Could be with product features, could be with fixes and feature updates. If you have a fix in a firmware update for something, or just a some wanted feature additions, then just say it. Silence any worries sooner rather than later.

I posit that they don't do so much talking to the community about what they are doing because that info gets back to their competitors. The timing is not only to allow them to wow and dazzle you, but also to keep that super secret code update/company partnership/sponsorship/whatever in their hip pocket so their competitors don't know about it until the last moment.

I am certain there is enough word passed around that some of this stuff is sniffed out by their competition, but they still want to hold back as much as possible so they can be first to market with their new innovation or what have you.

You don't think they do? Schild has more info about more "secret things" than you can possibly imagine ;)

The problem in a nutshell with what Kotaku did was he violated his source's trust...and any real journalist isn't going to be such a freaking idiot when it comes to the very meat of what his job is all about.

Anyone willing to lay odds on the chances of, say, Nintendo continuing to give Kotaku insider information that let's them beat others to the punch?

Well, yeah, they do.  Cause, as you may have noticed, gamers (nerds, actually... actually, humans) as a whole tend to be a pretty knee-jerk, reactionary bunch.  So when a game is still in testing, and info comes out that they're planning to hire Jack Black to provide the voice overs for the Green Lantern instead of Phil Lamar, or that when you die you can't play again for another hour, or that there will be 2000 levels and they don't expect anyone to get to level 100 within the first 5 years of release, people flip out, there are protests, boycotts, cries that the company has betrayed mankind, and about 4 people in the middle of the crowd mumbling "Um, it's still in testing, that could change..."

On some level, all that publicity is good.  But I do believe that it does more harm, and instantly sets up an atmosphere of antagonism between players and the developers.

I don't get it.  So what if this was leaked?  If Sony wanted it to remain a rumor, then they could have just said "No Comment".  Big deal. 

Why should the average gamer care if the game sites don't get "super secret info" that they aren't allowed to reveal?

They say No Comment when they don't mind info being leaked a little, or if it's not that important -- Or something they don't want anyone to know at all or ever. Or simply, because it isn't true.

This, otoh, was news they wanted to fully handle themselves next week. That's why they actively persuaded Kotaku to not publish it. They have an entire game conference built around these kind of announcements. But instead of getting a hint about how important it was to Sony, Kotaku willingly ended an relationship for personal gain. Kotaku was well within their rights to do this, of course, but there would be consequences (as there would be consequences when you go behind anyone's back).

The real asshole-ish thing they did is not accept the consequences. They posted Sony's response and tried to paint them like they were in the wrong for pulling their privileges.

I think it's Phil LaMarr. And please god no!!!!!!!!!

My friend who works at S-E sometimes tells me things that aren't public yet and asks me not to tell other people. I don't. Even when it is silly stuff that is not a big deal anyway.

This is not "investigative journalism." The public doesn't need to know. Reporting rumors from anon sources is the worst kind of journalism.

There wasn't some coverup that needed exposing. This isn't Watergate or secret European prisons. I disagree that gaming info isn't new - it is news but this type of thing is not journalism or news reporting.

Beating out a press release is not a service to the readers. It isn't integrity. It is information that would have been released by Sony eventually were it true, and people waiting a bit isn't a problem.

This is news in the same way as what I had for dinner is news.

Wow that's just mind-boggling to hear people say that.

Personally my take on this is that Kotaku was perhaps stupid and asshole-ish to do what they did.  Sony, on the other hand, was stupider.  Their first making threats to Kotaku to try and get them not to print the story, then going ahead and un-inviting them from various events is something that pretty obviously was a poor decision.  Not that it wasn't well within their rights to do, and maybe it was even the appropriate response - but it wasn't a good response, because it should have been pretty obvious that they would be painted as the bad guys, 'trying to keep information secret' and 'disrespecting freedom of the press' and all kinds of crap.

In my opinion the appropriate response would have been to say and do nothing.  Anything that Kotaku was already invited to goes ahead, but after that...pretty much drop any kind of relationship with them at all.  But there's no need to tell them, and there's especially no need to un-invite them or ask for things like the return free shit they've already been given.  That especially makes them look bad.  I think the folks at Kotaku would have gotten the message pretty clearly if after this stunt, no more special offers or relationship with Sony came their way.

THIS ISN'T A FREEDOM OF THE PRESS ISSUE. THIS IS A "BACKSTABBING FRIENDS" ISSUE.

Why can no one see that?

I don't like the way those words, special access, irritate some part of my brain.

Setting aside what Kotaku posted, if failure to comply with a company's wishes results in you not being at their media event, what does that say about those who are there?

Umm....They didn't do that. Hell, even Kotaku doesn't try to say that.

Link (http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/sony-blackballs-kotaku-updated-240860.php)

McWhertor called Sony up and asked about it. Sony asked politely to not go with the story. Nothing more, nothing less.

Next thing they know, the story is on Kotaku's front page.

THEN Sony writes back and basically says "Fuck you, you're out. Give us back our stuff."

THEN Kotaku tells the Internet "Lol, look guys. They want their shit back. Down with the Man!"


Hopefully that's the last time the actual story even needs to be explained.

 :-(

I saw it...


And yeah, I think it's LaMarr, I just was too lazy to IMDB for spelling for a quick example.

Is your world entirely black and white Triforcer? Can you not see the shades of grey between? I can't think of any other reason you would post such a thing. There is a veeeeery big difference between covering up a story and not leaking a press release story early. Veeeeery big. There's so much grey there I can't imagine how you could possibly have missed it unless you simply can't see grey at all. Let me put an example in language you can understand. If a news program found out that the republican party were doing something seriously wrong and did not report it, or sugar-coated the issue, then that would be bad. If a news program found out the contents of a speech someone from the republican party was going to give next week, but they didn't release that information out of respect, that would be fine.

What I meant was that this is what Kotaku has made it into, and most people are both too stupid and don't understand the issue enough to see how moronic they are for trying to claim that getting the 'scoop' on a simple feature-release by a week is some grand journalistic endeavor.  It's less about what it is than what it appears to be, and Sony's handling of the situation allowed Kotaku to make them look bad when their response was relatively appropriate.

That's what I meant about Sony making threats, though I suppose I worded it wrong.  In the context which Sony's PR intended it in, it was more of a warning, I'm sure.  Like telling someone not to take your last beer or you'll throw them out of the house.  I can only imagine they didn't actually realize how Kotaku would be able to make this appear, or they would have been a good deal more subtle with it in the first place.

Sony left themselves very open for Kotaku to paint them as the bad guy in the situation, which Kotaku took full advantage of.  Kotaku posts a couple emails, points out how Sony was going to un-invite them to stuff and ask for the return of demo hardware, and the internet immediately sees them as the journalists being bullied by the corporation not to post 'important news'.  If Sony had instead simply asked nicely and then not followed up by informing them of the consequences...then if Kotaku went ahead and posted, stop inviting them to any future events and giving them any perks, it would have been handled quietly without Sony leaving themselves open as they did.  Hell, even simply saying 'if you post this, in the future we may have to hold back on giving you any pre-announcement information or demos' would have sounded much better than 'you're uninvited, and give us our stuff back'.

Hmm. I read that differently. Seemed to me their Beep Throat sent an email, that is, to tips@kotaku.com.

It was this line that put my mind on that track, I think: We just received a very interesting tip

Because of this: (http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/v3.kotaku.com/img/txt.tip-your-editors.png)

I just assumed they'd received an email, sent to the "Here's a story!" email address.

Hm.

• Receive an email 'tip' (assuming it was an email, here).
• Sony neither confirms nor denies rumors, except to confirm it by telling them not to print it or else.
• Or else, eh? They run it anyway. At this point, the only "trusted info" is Sony's confirmation, which they don't mention.
• Elsed!
• So, now they printed Sony's emails. Of course. At that point Sony was no longer dealing with them as partners, colleagues, co-conspirators, or whatever, and what's a game news site to do? Carry on and hope to be forgiven someday, or fight right now?
• Who run Bartertown?

What a great scandal if they traded their tipster's identity for amnesty. I hope if they did that and someone finds out, they'll run the story even if Kotaku asks them not too.

Someone tell me where the game companies are in this situation. I've talked to enough people about this in the last couple days to COMPLETELY confirm that game companies now have a strong hatred for Kotaku - moreso than before.

And yet, everyone is quiet.

Is Kotaku a fucking superpower or something? Is everyone retarded?

Given how Sony got lambasted in the "press" for their very expected and in my opinion quite reserved response, do you think anyone else (besides me, but I'm dumb like that) is going to respond publically without having weeks of PR people soaping it up? :)

Kotaku really shot themselves in the foot...nah, in the stomach, and imo will bleed for quite a long time--they just haven't realized it yet. Meanwhile, those that take the stance of following their sources issues will do better in the long run.

You do realize that we are fighting a war in Iraq largely due to that style of "jounalism"?  And that after the truth about Iraq came out the NYT and other agencies reformed their policies on anonymous sources?

Anonymous sources are a starting point. Someone gives you a lead, you follow it up. You get the real dirt and report that. The Watergate scandal reporting was not just "some anon source says some bad shit went down!" The source got the ball rolling and resulted in real investigation.

But this whole line of conversation is silly because there was no journalism or investigation here. It was just jumping a press release. I'll say it for the hundredth time: I'm all for real journalism. I'm all for not printing PR hype as-is, not giving undeserved reviews, for reporting product failures or valuable consumer info.

If Sony doesn't want you to go ahead with a story that only 100 games are going to be backwards compatible you run the story. If Nintendo doesn't want you to publish a technical analysis of the Wiimote that finds it very unresponsive and innacurate you publish it.

What you don't do is take what someone told you in good faith that is simply a news tidbit and ruin a PR opportunity by jumping the gun on it.

If they tell you "hey don't tell anyone but the PS3 causes cancer" yeah it is your duty to report that. If they say "hey, don't tell anyone but we are already half done with God of War 3 for the PS3 and it fucking rules" you should probably just keep your mouth shut. And when you do blab you don't then cry that the people you backstabbed don't want to deal with you any more.

Well, I'm not a publisher so my opinion matters for squat anyway...

It just doesn't seem like it should have been a big deal, to me. Or even a small deal. Sony has the trained parrot to answer the phone and say "We never comment on rumors and speculations," and apparently it even did. I don't know why they didn't just let the bird handle it. The parrot had it under control.

Then some would have heard of a rumor posted to Kotaku, and a week later there's an announcement. New to most, confirmation for some. Pretty much the same result either way, or if only close to it, maybe spending some advertising dollars to advertise isn't so much to ask.

Saying Kotaku is unprofessional just sounds like it gives them a pass. Sony isn't unprofessional, or shouldn't have been: Of course the email you send, describing your cessation of cooperation, is going to be published. Back when you were cooperating it wouldn't have been, but as that very email just said...

I've never been comfortable with the use of exclusive information as currency to purchase favor  in player-press negotiation. It feels as dirty to me as if we just used money.

A live MMO specific thing: I've been irritated on more than one occasion by an inability to maintain player-dev communication due to marketing's desire to fill its wallet with exclusives for a press-favor spending spree, while the current players wait and wait for a dialog which will eventually begin with them asking, "Why in the hell did we have to read this information somewhere else?"

I've been frustrated by what looks like a failure to comprehend that you can announce anything, anywhere and it will find its way to everywhere... no need to give smaller community sites - such as the game's official one - somewhere between nothing and who cares.

I dislike that the game press news channels are set in stone. Gaming is broad and becoming a lot broader, and there are already some gaming categories with demographics ill-served by all game news being crammed out the same tubes. Many MMO players are flat out not gamers otherwise. How many players of The Sims are served by their game news being delivered along side Warcraft IV, Hello Kitty Online, and Lego Star Wars?

I don't like the distinction between professional journalists, citizen journalism, columnists, bloggers, etc. They're all journalists, some good and some bad. "Citizen journalism" is already quite good, game journalism is still quite bad. Print media still champions the worst web implementations on the net, so even less trained and experienced journalists who are more net savvy seem quite competitive to me, etc.

I can't tell if big announcements go to big news sites because they are big news sites, or are they big news sites because they get the big announcements, or both and so always will, even when better things come along.

I'd love for their to be a game gossip/rumor site doing just that. I don't expect them to be invited to media events on purpose.

I can't tell if I answered your question.

Big announcements go to sites that are big because they have the exposure. Why would anyone give f13 a REAL announcement? The stuff I've broken has required actual work to confirm. Well, some of it was handed to me on a platter, but not much.

Anyway, big sites. Yea. They sell more games than f13 or kotaku. That's all it comes down to. That's why the currency is exclusive information. it shouldn't bother you simply because that's all there is.

I hate this. There has to be somebody either between or looking over the shoulders of devs wanting to release information so that things don't get spilled too early (ie. they are still in flux), but that thing should not be marketing. I think the larger companies just don't understand that you don't market a game that is already released to the people already playing it. You don't have to wrap everything up in market speak and put it into the right channels. You just have to give the players the information in the fastest and easiest way for them to recieve it. They already play your game. Getting new players into your game and hyping the shit out of it is what expansion packs and special offers are for, chain marketing up in a basement somewhere between those times.

To follow up on what I said about more "open communication", here's a good example of what I'm talking about.

Insomniac (developer of the Ratchet and Clank series and Resistance) are now starting their own podcast (it's called "Full Moon" or something). That's cool as shit to me. Not because I want to them to hear "secrets" or anything, but just to hear what those guys are up to, and what general ideas are floating around in their heads at any given time. It's a cool source of info to set beside the typical PR approach.

I still think Kotaku are dumbasses, but I also think the sort of news that they offer, rumors and whatnot, is indicative of a bigger thing. A lot of gamers want to know what's going on in between PR releases and the occassional "Exclusive Preview" at IGN. And because of that, I think it's in game companies' interests to offer things like developer diaries and podcasts. They should be the ones giving all of this "in between" news, not rumor sites.

I think Kotaku's existence mostly signifies that people are dumbasses that like reading about World of Whorecraft instead of something important to the industry.

Still don't get it. If you break the story, they can still post that news on their site (just like when they post a press release even though it's been sent to thousands of others). I'd bet way more people get the exclusive reports via it being reblogged to a site they frequent, than even frequent the big web sites.

But it's the purchase of favors (with exclusives) which gives me drama, more than who gets them and why.

If the internet isn't lying to me, there's basically just News Corp. CNet, and GameStop, right?

Sure, many also-rans, but with numbers so insignificant by comparison... seems silly even to bring them up.

Funny thing is, I hate the way of news reporting on these sites. I don't get my news from them (not first hand anyway), and probably never will. I want some local color with my daily dose of game news, from a website that doesn't have blinking, flashing, moving shit all over it, with only the tiniest of boxes reserved for a hodgepodge array of game announcements. Organizing games by platform alone makes me think of libraries in Olden Tymes sorting their books by color.

e.g. GameInformer and EGM's news this month:

Even GI's 2 million readers are a trivial number, when compared to the number of daily unique visitors to popular gamer websites.

But it gets exclusives in spite of not being a big website. It even put an exclusive behind a members' only login screen, how annoying is that?

Gamespot, and IGN also offer so little in the way of news reporting.
I don't understand where the hidden difficulty is there...

Whoa whoa. Game Informer website? Are you kidding. No no, my brotha. We're talking about the magazine there. It's the only gaming magazine with a subscriber base, since they play catcher for EBGamestop.

And both IGN and Gamestop have a large news section. Those little boxes are just the frontpage - and you know it.

I'm not defending them, but they both offer more unbiased news about games than you'll find on any blog. Ironically, all of their previews sound like blowjobs - but I've already complained about them.

Yes, I saw.

First six months of 2006:
GAME INFORMER MAGAZINE 1,994,488 total paid & verified

...and also saw:
As of June 2005, IGN claimed 23 million unique visitors a month, with 5 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN is ranked among the top 200 most-visited websites according to Alexa, and the IGN forums are among the most active Internet forums.

I think there's hardcopy bias at work. I just don't accept that ~4 million offline eyeballs are worth ~46 million (or even ten) eyeballs online.


Yah, I'm more dissatisfied by the lack of arrangement: by not getting news from them, I can get MMO news from an MMO site, which gets its MMO news from them, etc.

Likewise, advertising on a site so broadly definied as "topic: nerdery" is a considerable expense compared to advertising on a more narrowly-defined, "topic: MMOs", site. Even with press releases, to ensure they make it to the MMO players, send those press releases to MMO sites directly too, rather than trusting them to be manually caught.

That's me straying off course there: point is that's a hodge-podge, so I want news from elsewhere even if that news came right from them, just so it'll be organized.


Oh, don't say that... I paint 'blog' with a very broad brush. Just because the professional columnist's idiotic newspaper can't make the links in their online column links, nor apply future corrections to the original article, nor figure out that requiring (false)  information from users prior to displaying their editorial is stupid to the power of ten, and can't properly manage trackback's, comments, and spam all at once, wage or no, doesn't mean they aren't bloggers blogging.

A blog is just a web page and a blogger is just a writer.

Old skool newspapers, likewise.

The difference I see is that newspapers are in theory about news reporting, have some journalistic standards and that as Americans we expect the news media to perform certain duties like serve as watchdog and keep the populace informed.

I can write a blog about what I ate for dinner. There is nothing that ties blogs together in theory, other than that they all have writing. Blogs don't have any agreed-upon duty, we don't expect them to avoid bias or serve the public interest.

Now of course in reality our news media does a horrible job. There is supposed to be something more there like journalistic integrity but usually there is not. It is also worth pointing out that unlike other professions like lawyers journalists have steadfastly refused any formal code of conduct or set of ethics to maintain.

It isn't so much a difference in content than in expectations. I can say that by doing poor, one-sided reporting a newspaper is not doing it's job. I can't say that about a blog because blogs don't have any job to do.

I doubt we are far apart in our views.

One good thing I see coming out of this whole "are blogs journalists" thing is some sort of formalized journalistic creed or set of ethics that journalists are actually held to. Then being a journalist won't be a matter of writing on a blog vs. a newspaper but rather if you take journalistic duties seriously.

Oh, I disagree there just a bit. While I wouldn't say all bloggers are journalists, there definitely are many who are.

Meanwhile many editorials are written by columnists, not to report news and with a personal bias expected: just doing exactly what bloggers do and with the same set of expectations, too.

They're blogging in the paper.

And wasn't that long ago that many towns had two local papers: one conservative, one liberal.

Check out the Wikipedia entry on citizen journalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism). The history section is pretty cool.


Yeh, I pretty much already feel that way. A journalist is a person practicing journalism. A blogger is someone who is blogging. Sometimes a person does both.

Like this guy. (http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009409)

Meh...you know I had to start a blog for our site and it was a pain but fuck I've learned to dig it actually, they ARE pretty damn convienient. Also I've had to do some articles for our news reader. Because well, its a news reader, and its not like it takes some goddamn brain surgury to regurgitate the stuff incomming on gamebiz, gamasutra, or game press news, and a finely tuned goodle reader.

All this has caused me to do is at times sit around in amazement at how craptastic most game news sites are, oh its bad when I can check my email and google reader and then go to IGN and see the same shit parroted as news to gamers, I dont doubt they have thier shit fully automated and just scrape headlines and text then upload it as news, its not hard and I could hack that together in a weekend.

Heres the thing, I dont dig having to write "journalist style" stuff. I'm not a journalist, the closest I got to the journalisim department in college were a few hot co-eds with that major, I've never even taken a journalism class But you gotta do whatcha gotta do in a start up but hell even I can grock how retarded a stunt this was.

Anyhow I've removed Kotoku from our news reader options that our end users can subscribe to. Even though we're in closed beta I'll be goddamn if I'm ever going to drive traffic to Kotoku, and any other Gawker media property is definately out.

The upside of not having to blow marketing, and owning your own site is that the possibilities of ex-communication when you find someone to be an asshat are endless....

Dundee is right on as far as how badly designed and implimented those sites are, my feeling is they pay to play though, and they have got to be farming out the  site design, unless they have well trained monkeys, another similarly situated data analysis service told me early on very bluntly that IGN, Ziff et al basically gives away a product similar to ours to ensure the advertising revenue.

But where does that leave everyone else? And what quality is the reporting and the data?

Whatever I'm kind of bullheaded and stupid, and I reject the notion that shit like information, data, and opinion has to go through some kind of channel, marketing department, and be well vetted, while toeing the corporate line. If something sucks, so be it it sucks for a reason, I'm sure they hell not going to tell my community to go buy it because I have an advertising agreement in place. Not so with Journalists, but thats the problem when your bread and butter comes from increasing advertising inventory as much as possible. I think IGN and gamespot are going to have to open a child window on load now with just links to actual content they have so much advertising.

This is exactly why blogging should probably remain free wild and crazy, I like reading real opinions by real people. I dont think I'm alone in this

The problem with corporations that they arent getting, and that developers are getting is that games arent new, no in fact most of them look the exact fucking same. So guess what gamers arent going to buy whatever piece of shit someone decides to ship. Gamers understand this, and no amount of spin is going to make them suddenly decide to go buy the game.  Gamers who are amenible to this read sites like Kotoku.

Wow, what a tempest in a teapot.

Gaming journalism doesn't exist. Gaming journalism is various shades of advertorial copy slathered with fanboi service. You don't get journalism credentials because you break a story about a firmware release a week or so before it's released. You might get it if you find Phil Harrison sodomizing Asian children with Sixaxis controllers while playing Wii Sports in lederhosen, but even then, no one gives a shit. Gaming journalism has about as much respect as the sycophants and namedroppers who make up entertainment journalism. It's fluff.

The best you can hope for is honest, unpurchased reviews and a few sneak peeks at shit a few weeks before other people. That's it. Expecting anything more out of "gaming journalism," either as a writer or a reader, is foolish.

This kind of stupid is why I hate when gaming sites report unfounded, unlinkable rumors, because none of it matters a fuck when 2 weeks down the road everyone will have it. If all you care about is a 1-day bump in traffic, you shouldn't be writing whatever rumor you are working on.