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[PdotMichael]

How does that ensure they will never publish a leak again?

Mafia tactics would work better:

But Ubisoft doesn't send their games to Kotaku anymore.

 

[GatticusFinch]

What do people propose is the best recourse for companies to do in the face of leaks? I'm genuinely curious to see if the response isn't simply "Deal with it. Shit happens.".

I'm just trying to understand what you imagine a publisher should do when, they reveal to you information early on a regular basis and allow you to criticize them with no recourse, when you get information that one of its employees illegal sends you and you expose it. Like, should they be expected to ignore it? Take it as a likelihood of being in a public facing industry? Disregard it and continue trusting you with other information?

Maybe it's because I'm not in journalism, but I'm legit confused what the expected reaction should be

Exactly what they did--blacklist them. In any industry, you figure out who you can and cannot trust with your sensitive information. If they found the leaker, that person would be fired, but that's probably not possible. Blacklisting the person who published the leak, when they are also wanting your insider access for other information, sends a message to everyone else that they might want to think twice before publishing leaked information or lose access to those stories. Perfectly rational response. Why feed the good stories to someone you know can't be trusted regarding leaks?

And before anyone tries to make the claim, no, this isn't some "journalism" slippery slope. This is consumer news, not Woodward and Bernstein. Obviously if Kotaku found out Bethesda was using child labor to code Fallout 4

Spoiler

and judging by all these bugs, maybe they are

, that would be a different discussion.

 

[GillianSeed79]

I think a new game announcement is pretty important. I'm a reader. So it serves me. And it's cool to find out the existence of something before it's officially announced.

I work for Microsoft. I'm bummed when the existence and details of a product I'm working on or know about get leaked. It can wreck a lot of work by Marketing and PR or misrepresent the product due to incomplete or inaccurate information.

But it's not the prerogative of the journalist to consider my feelings. It's up to the employees to respect their employer's wishes and not fuck up the marketing plan.


Jason is being a responsible journalist by telling his readers about something his readers will be interested in. It's not his responsibility to respect Bethesda's marketing and PR teams.

When an employee is a piece of shit, and wants to ruin a lot of his coworker's work, he or she will find a way to do it regardless of outlet. If he or she didn't leak it to Kotaku, it would've gone to somewhere else. And then Jason would have been an idiot for squandering what could have been a major financial boon to his site and a major interest of his readers.

Let the employers deal with the employees, and let Jason and Kotaku do their job.

This is a grade A quality post and a perfect response to the "Kotaku deserves it because they leaked stuff for clicks" argument.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

Well....that sucks but it's Kotaku.

 

[Acerac]

Sorry please point out my casual homophobia?

He disagrees with you but had no actual way to refute what you had to say.

Is this a response to "bend over backwards"? Are gay people the only ones that can have anal sex?

If anything it's a rape joke, which isn't really any better, but he was obviously reaching.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

The article says otherwise:

You weren't cut off for your harsh reviews or revealing some terrible secret about working conditions or such.
You were cut off for publishing leaks about upcoming games. That's not "real reporting" that's just posting information that was obtained by questionable means (breaking NDAs and such) for the sole purpose of getting more views. It didn't reveal anything that would improve the gaming industry, it's just for clicks.
Leaking pre-release game information is not serving your readers - that's what reviews and critiques are. These kind of leaks are just serving yourself.

No. Responsible journalists decide what should and what shouldn't be published based on the importance and content of the leaked information. A responsible journalist doesn't just publish every piece of secret information that falls into his hands.
If you got a leak about something bad or revolutionary happening in the games industry - of course you should publish it without the company's permission. But this is not even remotely the case here.
So please explain to me what was the ethical justification in publishing those specific leaks. What was so important in those leaks that you had to publish them despite knowing that it shouldn't be public yet.
Not all leaks are equal and the ones mentioned in the article aren't some groundbreaking reveals. You just decided to screw over those publishers for more viewers. That's absolutely fine - it's your choice. But don't come crying later when those publishers no longer want to cooperate with you.
If it was about blacklisting for bad reviews (like Jim Sterling) or revealing some horrible working conditions than I would agree with you. But it's not.

Absolutely wrecked. Indisputably.

This is punishing a company for their perceived naivety in building a working relationship. If Kotaku was an actual news site, they'd be out here disclosing the names and identities of their sources for lulz, then complaining when they're not on the visitor's list at prison.

 

[Archaix]

I've never been a fan of Kotaku and don't really see that ever changing. But jesus fucking christ. The idea that they did something shameful by ruining a marketing push and leaking game titles early, it's just disgusting. It's one thing to understand that two super shitty companies did something super shitty and say Kotaku should have expected this, but actually supporting it and acting like Kotaku was in the wrong?

Fuck everything about videogames and the people who buy them.

 

[Htown]

This thread is more disturbing than anything in that article.

Holy shit, guys.

 

[Gaogaogao]

Bullshit. Not everything is "censorship". The publishers are in no way "not allowing for dissenting opinions" they clearly have no control over what Kotaku do or do not publish. It's an exercise in PR not censorship. Really what "blacklisting" amounts to is that it ends the previously beneficial relationship between the two parties. No business has any obligation to provide a media outlet with access or with pre-release copies, if the PR arm of the business feels that allowing the media outlet this access is harmful to their image theyre entirely within their rights to withdraw it.

Considering the amount of bitching about the unfairly cushy treatment games journalists get from publishers people this is a step in the right direction. All games media outlets should be "blacklisted" as then it removes the bizarre dynamic between the publisher and the journalists.



Not to single you out but responses along this line keep popping up. Why do you feel that any media outlet is entitled to special treatment from a publisher?

they are not 'entitled' to special treatment. they don't even need 'special treatment' because apparently they can buy their own games. publishers still nonetheless look childish in the face of criticism.

 

[CS_Dan]

I think it says a lot about the industry that the leaking unannounced titles is considered to be "journalism".
The shit that Klepeck did to do with Infinity Ward and other such stories are truly deserving of that title.

Why are the games press surprised when the hand that feeds them gets withdrawn when they bite it?

If the sites are being blocked because a bad review it seems petty, but leaks seem lioe they might be justified.

 

[codhand]

The site I work for, Gameblog.fr (the second biggest website in France) has been blacklisted by Ubisoft for the last two years. We are not invited to press events anymore, we don't get interview opportunities, we don't get review copies until games have been released (sometimes we don't get anything at all) and it looks like we don't get press releases anymore (it's funny because we were talking about it yesterday at the office).

All of that because some of our sources told us Ubisoft's plans for the Assassin's Creed IP (our situation is quite similar to Kotaku's). It should be noter that Ubisoft tried to pressure my editor in chief into revealing who gave him all that information. But he protected his sources' indentity.

how many publications, how many instances of publisher blacklistings will we need to see before we can concede that it's complete bullshit on the part of the publishers?

 

[Lime]

Well, blacklisting Kotaku would be a first step.

Lol no, blacklisting doesn't prevent leaks. It just means they won't respond to inquiries or give their side of stories when kotaku contacts them. In no way does blacklisting prevent leaks

 

[MisterR]

The thing that bothers me is that there are insiders leaking information like this in the first place. No one needs to be told how bad, not to mention illegal this is. Can we put the blame on Kotaku for running with it? Well, frankly yes. They are participating in an illegal disclosure of confidential information. There's a very good reason why most emails from anyone within a corporation comes with the following:

This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is confidential and may be privileged. Any unauthorized distribution or disclosure is prohibited. Disclosure to anyone other than the intended recipient does not constitute waiver of privilege. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify us and delete it and any attachments from your computer system and records.

The employees providing Kotaku with this information are in the wrong, and should be punished accordingly. Responsible journalists would seek out a statement from the company, and vet the information first before releasing to the public, but most of all, make sure they have permission to do so.

I like Kotaku, but what Stephen has just done is admit that his site is guilty of a lack of ethics at best, and a crime at worst.

I hope this is sarcasm. If not it's a terrible post.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

What? What??

I meant in the sense that negative reviews or impressions didn't really seem to do anything to their relationships with these companies, according to the article

 

[James Scott]

Leaking games that will be announced a few weeks/months from then is pretty shitty. Leaking info of bad practices like what Konami has been doing to their employees isn't.
Games costs several 10s of millions of dollars, some being more than that with hundreds of people working on them, ruining the reveal doesn't please anyone, you're just getting more clicks from it.
Don't think fans would like the surprise being ruined nor the marketing team losing the impact a reveal would have. I don't even like Ubisoft or Bethesda, but I can see why'd they'd be upset if their projects got leaked. I can also see why Kotaku wouldn't want to remain quite with this info, but there would likely be consequences.

 

[daveo42]

To be clear, and I say this as someone with plenty of experience on the media side, no company can prevent "serious reporting" by refusing to speak with a journalist. That is a fallacy.

Anyone who studies journalism, or trains to be a journalist, learns that from the very start. You have to chase the story. You don't expect it to be handed to you on a silver platter (and if it is, you should be asking why).

I'm not saying that you should be handed anything on a platter, but getting an official message from the subject of story becomes harder and can make getting someone to speak on record about what you've already heard from multiple sources off record difficult. Maybe it's not as bad with games journalists as most of the time, there is no named source.

 

[Curufinwe]

It's the dev/publisher's job not to let leaks out. It's not the media's job to suppress leaks or decide what should or shouldn't be published.

I agree, unless a leak is going to get people killed.

 

[Steel]

Are there really people in this thread defending a blacklisting because Kotaku got early gameplay details and posted them? That's kinda their job.

 

[Steez]

There were more than two stories involved here, as anyone who actually reads the article will find out.

But the article makes it clear that the blacklists happened specifically after leaking the existence of games and not after the investigative pieces like about Doom's troubled development. So...?

 

[SentryDown]

The amount of people in this thread siding with multi-million dollar companies whose multi-million dollar AAA games still generate multi-million dollars of revenue despite being leaked a year or two beforehand is not shocking - it's fucking sad.

The secrecy even in the face of the most exposing leaks is ridiculous in this day and age. They want you to watch shitty press conferences where they announce their games with shady trailers to build the maximum amount of hype - hype based on pitches and not off substance.

Salute to Kotaku and its writers for giving a fuck about journalism that is more than just sitting on publisher's laps' and writing everything down they get whispered in their ears.

Please tell me how leaking AC Syndicate internal promo images (aka bullshots) is better than a conference.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Didn't Sony once threaten to blacklist Kotaku over leaking PS Home details ?

 

[benny_a]

But the article makes it clear that the blacklists happened specifically after leaking the existence of games and not after the investigative pieces like about Doom's troubled development. So...?

It doesn't make that clear. Just because one event happened after another doesn't mean they ignored for example that Kotaku shone light on the predatory acquisition practices of Zenimax.

 

[WanderingWind]

Not one thing you wrote matters. The press is free to report on this kind of information as it sees fit, they do not have to pass some kind of "worthiness" test before publishing. The only unethical action that has taken place here is Bethesda/Ubisoft's childish attempts to punish those in the press who report on their products outside of their sanctioned messaging. Information leaking to the press is a fact of life for any public-facing company, they can either choose to accept that and move on, or get rightfully called out when they throw their toys out of the pram.

I have no idea why people continue to quote that as if it was some great statement. Especially with regards to this "Responsible journalists decide what should and what shouldn't be published based on the importance and content of the leaked information. A responsible journalist doesn't just publish every piece of secret information that falls into his hands."

No, a journalist isn't going to just publish every tip that comes across the news desk. Yes, we sit around and discuss the worthiness of a story. But neither of the things Kotaku got blacklisted for fails the basic tests all stories go through. Is it sourced and verifiable? Unless we're just going to call them liars, then yes it was. Does it serve the audience? Well, the entire games journalism industry is based on discussing upcoming games, so yes, it exactly served the audience. So, based on the statement above, the responsible journalist from any walk of life would publish this.

People are getting wrapped up in the "lol it's just games." That is true, but again, you can't pull that card and then pull the "lol games journalists." Which do you want? Bloggers who make fart jokes and rewrite press releases? Or journalists?

 

[TheExecutive]

What do people propose is the best recourse for companies to do in the face of leaks? I'm genuinely curious to see if the response isn't simply "Deal with it. Shit happens.".

I'm just trying to understand what you imagine a publisher should do when, they reveal to you information early on a regular basis and allow you to criticize them with no recourse, when you get information that one of its employees illegal sends you and you expose it. Like, should they be expected to ignore it? Take it as a likelihood of being in a public facing industry? Disregard it and continue trusting you with other information?

Maybe it's because I'm not in journalism, but I'm legit confused what the expected reaction should be

If you don't have them sign an NDA then you open yourself up top leaks and that's your fault. If leaked from within they should put their big boy pants on and find out who leaked it inside their own company and deal with it internally.

Either way not a journalists responsibility to protect a corporation's secrets. You are blaming the wrong people.

 

[Jarmel]

Please tell me how leaking AC Syndicate internal promo images (aka bullshots) is better than a conference.

Less bullshit involved.

 

[thabiz]

He disagrees with you but had no actual way to refute what you had to say.


If anything it's a rape joke, which isn't really any better, but he was obviously reaching.

Is he/she the casual homophobia avenger? Cause I gotta say. He's pretty bad at it.

 

[Maztorre]

What do people propose is the best recourse for companies to do in the face of leaks? I'm genuinely curious to see if the response isn't simply "Deal with it. Shit happens.".

I'm just trying to understand what you imagine a publisher should do when, they reveal to you information early on a regular basis and allow you to criticize them with no recourse, when you get information that one of its employees illegal sends you and you expose it. Like, should they be expected to ignore it? Take it as a likelihood of being in a public facing industry? Disregard it and continue trusting you with other information?

Maybe it's because I'm not in journalism, but I'm legit confused what the expected reaction should be

Maybe they shouldn't operate in the commercial entertainment industry if they want to be free from mass criticism or people scouring for information for anticipated commercial products? Or even better, foster a culture where their employees do not feel a compulsion to leak such information to the press?

Games companies are not deserving of special protection from journalists, who they already have an alarming degree of leverage over compared to other media.

 

[daveo42]

That is like saying there is no difference between a gossip magazine and an actual news report.

One has information that is worthwhile to know, the other is to just make money.

Look at pretty much any reputable news organization. Are there fluff pieces being reported on from that organization? It's there because people will tune in or read that. Also, leaks that are properly verified shouldn't be considered gossip.

 

[Head.spawn]

I'm not sure what they expected, you write damming news about publishers, take private info and publish it publicly, help leak information that they want to keep within the company, basically go out of your way to defame them etc etc...

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you sure as fuck shouldn't stand there with your hand out for free games to review, special access to developers for interviews, or Other exclusive stories being handed out on a silver platter, on their dime.

 

[WanderingWind]

Oh yeah, I agree with that too. It's also not the dev/publisher's job to supply content to the media.

Well, actually, it very much is. That's what PR/PA is.

 

[Prophet Steve]

Absolutely wrecked. Indisputably.

This is punishing a company for their perceived naivety in building a working relationship. If Kotaku was an actual news site, they'd be out here disclosing the names and identities of their sources for lulz, then complaining when they're not on the visitor's list at prison.

Sure, indisputably, if you ignore what journalism is about.

It is hilarious that you are agreeing with some guy that is talking about "responsible journalism". Sure, you may not think announcing a game beforehand is super important news, but on the other side it doesn't have a big negative effect either. So they are completely responsible in what they are doing.

Also you can't have a working relationship with a journalist by having them tell only what you want them to tell. What in the fuck is that shit?

I'm not sure what they expected, you write damming news about publishers, take private info and publish it, help leak information that they want to keep within the company etc etc...

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you sure as fuck shouldn't stand there with your hand out for free games to review, special access to developers for interviews, or Other exclusive stories being handed out on a platter, on their dime.

So, what do you think game journalism is supposed to do then? Because clearly they have to do exactly what publishers tell them to, which makes them just PR machines. What are they achieving right now by locking out Kotaku? It is punishing them for doing their job while at the same time not preventing anything. It is some very petty practice.

They aren't demanding anything either, but it shows how publishers suddenly treat journalists differently when they don't publish what they want.

 

[Intheflorsh]

Don't report on leaks! Unless, of course, it's a controlled leak!

 

[Gbraga]

But Ubisoft doesn't send their games to Kotaku anymore.

lmao

 

[Memorabilia]

To be clear, we've been blacklisted by both companies. Because we do real reporting and refuse to act as publishers' marketing arms. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

All I can say is thank you.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Sure, indisputably, if you ignore what journalism is about.

It is hilarious that you are agreeing with some guy that is talking about "responsible journalism". Sure, you may not think announcing a game beforehand is super important news, but on the other side it doesn't have a big negative effect either. So they are completely responsible in what they are doing.

Also you can't have a working relationship with a journalist by having them tell only what you want them to tell. What in the fuck is that shit?

Im sure 99 percent of buyers of said game will know nothing of all this lol

The plight of games journalism

 

[Acerac]

Is he/she the casual homophobia avenger? Cause I gotta say. He's pretty bad at it.

No, he just wrote a dumb post in the thread a while back and ignored responses to it. Since it was clear his opinion wasn't respected here, instead of debating his viewpoint he is lashing out at people who disagree with him.

Yeah this is getting way OT I'm sorry I'll stop.

 

[ultron87]

With these stories Kotaku even has demonstrated restraint in deciding what to publish and what not to! With the Assassin's Creed leak they had a target video they could've posted and decided not to because it added nothing to the information gained, even though posting a video assuredly would've resulted in more clicks.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=141349831&postcount=878

 

[Kintaro]

I misunderstood. I thought you said Kotaku was the one doing it wrong when you were laying down a much broader criticism of the industry.

*Shrug*

Given the shape of the thread it was a fairly easy mistake to make. No need to be too haughty over somebody seeing what you said and thinking you were one of the mindless bashers.

I don't give a shit about either side here. However, I know from experience how companies react to leaks on both sides of a potential deal. When money is or is potentially involved and its wrecked, they will react both internally and externally. More money than said journalists will ever know or see in their lifetimes (barring the lotto maybe).

None of this should effect what a journalist does, but a journalist shouldn't be surprised if it effects them either. After all, they have their money to think about as well. Which is what Kotaku is doing. Their job is to report and play this up for maximum effect so that is benefits them as well. Badge of honor and such.

Video game life goes on.

 

[SigSig]

This thread is more disturbing than anything in that article.

Holy shit, guys.

Fully agree.
I get it, some of you really dislike Kotaku, but a Defense Force for what's basically trying to silence journalists in order for publishers to be able to dictate the first impressions of their game with PR and hype?

 

[Takuan]

The site I work for, Gameblog.fr (the second biggest website in France) has been blacklisted by Ubisoft for the last two years. We are not invited to press events anymore, we don't get interview opportunities, we don't get review copies until games have been released (sometimes we don't get anything at all) and it looks like we don't get press releases anymore (it's funny because we were talking about it yesterday at the office).

All of that because some of our sources told us Ubisoft's plans for the Assassin's Creed IP (our situation is quite similar to Kotaku's). It should be noter that Ubisoft tried to pressure my editor in chief into revealing who gave him all that information. But he protected his sources' indentity.

So you leaked nothing, but were blacklisted because you wouldn't give up your source?

 

[riotous]

This thread blew up; I think it would be useful to link to some examples of this "real journalism" that Kotaku thinks caused this?

Maybe throw some in the OP.

I'm sure some has been talked about here but hard to catch up to this story.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

So I don't really understand

A) The magical arbitrary "worthiness" line that separates good leaks from bad ones when it comes to details about electronic entertainment products, and everything below "Amazon expose" level is somehow wrong to publish

B) The idea that Kotaku is clearly indiscriminate in what they post leak-wise, which would be impossible to assert without being a Kotaku employee privy to all leaks submitted to them

C) The very concept that learning about new entries in an AAA series that is guaranteed to have new entries is somehow harmful to AAA publishers and their marketing schemes

D) Why I as a consumer should particularly care about that C) even if it was true

 

[Anton Sugar]

I think a new game announcement is pretty important. I'm a reader. So it serves me. And it's cool to find out the existence of something before it's officially announced.

I work for Microsoft. I'm bummed when the existence and details of a product I'm working on or know about get leaked. It can wreck a lot of work by Marketing and PR or misrepresent the product due to incomplete or inaccurate information.

But it's not the prerogative of the journalist to consider my feelings. It's up to the employees to respect their employer's wishes and not fuck up the marketing plan.


Jason is being a responsible journalist by telling his readers about something his readers will be interested in. It's not his responsibility to respect Bethesda's marketing and PR teams.

When an employee is a piece of shit,

(and let's be perfectly clear here, any employee who deliberately and maliciously leaks information about upcoming product announcements is a really awful piece of shit with no regard for their coworker's hard work, and is just an egotistic self-serving fame-starved person who is probably missing something important from their lives)

and wants to ruin a lot of his coworker's work, he or she will find a way to do it regardless of outlet. If he or she didn't leak it to Kotaku, it would've gone to somewhere else. And then Jason would have been an idiot for squandering what could have been a major financial boon to his site and a major interest of his readers.

Let the employers deal with the employees, and let Jason and Kotaku do their job.

Boom.

Get pissed at the employees who don't value the company's secrecy, not the outlet that reports the results of that shitty employee.

So I don't really understand

A) The magical arbitrary "worthiness" line that separates good leaks from bad ones when it comes to details about electronic entertainment products

B) The idea that Kotaku is clearly indiscriminate in what they post leak-wise, which would be impossible to assert without being a Kotaku employee privy to all leaks submitted to them

C) The very concept that learning that new entries in an AAA series that is guaranteed to have new entries is somehow harmful to AAA publishers and their marketing schemes

D) Why I as a consumer should particularly care about that C) even if it was true

This, too.

 

[Trojita]

Kotaku has really turned itself around. Schreier, keep up the good work.

It's shameful what publishers do to game reviewers and journalists. This shit wouldn't be respected in the movie industry. There's a person on GAF here that runs a site on games for a very well known JRPG company that was blacklisted for critiquing a shitty game accurately.

 

[jormungand]

Funny how Kotaku says that its blacklisted by Ubisoft when they reached an agreement to "leak" Assassin's Creed Victory assets.

 

[kenta]

What do people propose is the best recourse for companies to do in the face of leaks? I'm genuinely curious to see if the response isn't simply "Deal with it. Shit happens.".

I can't name examples off the top of my head, but recently I feel like I've seen some publishers just embrace when a game is leaked by putting out a teaser trailer shortly after the leak is published or at the very least issue a confirmation along with a "Look forward to seeing more at E3" kind of statement. I think that's a pretty classy way of dealing with it

 

[GatticusFinch]

Sure, indisputably, if you ignore what journalism is about.

It is hilarious that you are agreeing with some guy that is talking about "responsible journalism". Sure, you may not think announcing a game beforehand is super important news, but on the other side it doesn't have a big negative effect either. So they are completely responsible in what they are doing.

Also you can't have a working relationship with a journalist by having them tell only what you want them to tell. What in the fuck is that shit?

You also can't have a working relationship with a company by publishing a bunch of leaked information you know they don't want published and you know you received in violation of someone else's NDA.

I mean, how obvious is this shit? Kotaku bit the hand that feeds so they don't get fed anymore.

 

[MisterR]

I think a new game announcement is pretty important. I'm a reader. So it serves me. And it's cool to find out the existence of something before it's officially announced.

I work for Microsoft. I'm bummed when the existence and details of a product I'm working on or know about get leaked. It can wreck a lot of work by Marketing and PR or misrepresent the product due to incomplete or inaccurate information.

But it's not the prerogative of the journalist to consider my feelings. It's up to the employees to respect their employer's wishes and not fuck up the marketing plan.


Jason is being a responsible journalist by telling his readers about something his readers will be interested in. It's not his responsibility to respect Bethesda's marketing and PR teams.

When an employee is a piece of shit,

(and let's be perfectly clear here, any employee who deliberately and maliciously leaks information about upcoming product announcements is a really awful piece of shit with no regard for their coworker's hard work, and is just an egotistic self-serving fame-starved person who is probably missing something important from their lives)

and wants to ruin a lot of his coworker's work, he or she will find a way to do it regardless of outlet. If he or she didn't leak it to Kotaku, it would've gone to somewhere else. And then Jason would have been an idiot for squandering what could have been a major financial boon to his site and a major interest of his readers.

Let the employers deal with the employees, and let Jason and Kotaku do their job.

This is the best post in this thread. Journalists are supposed to look out for their readers and give them information they want. It's not their job to look out for some company's PR.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

I have no problem with journalists reporting anything they want to.

Likewise, I have no problem with someone refusing to give interviews/etc to someone they don't want to.

This isn't 'standing with the big company'. It's actually a very coherent and logical stance -- people are free to do as they wish. I don't criticize 'big company' for shutting off communications with a journalistic outlet because it's up to them.

Imagine if you were, say, in a band. You did an interview with Rolling Stone, and they totally took things you said out of context and smeared you, or otherwise wrote stuff you personally found unflattering or hurtful - or maybe even hurt sales of your new album. Two years later, you have a new album coming out, and Rolling Stone asks for an interview -- don't you think it's perfectly fine to refuse them? Isn't that your right? That doesn't 'hurt journalism'.... it's your damn prerogative. Journalists do not have some basic right to interview you, or to get inside information from you... and if you feel burned, you have every right to shut them out from future communication.

Likewise, it's the 'big companies' prerogative in this case.

Is it possible this creates a environment where journalists are scared to print anything bad? Sure, but -every- industry deals with this, because it's the price of any expose. You can't do an expose and then expect the company to happily work with you in the future. And you certainly can't force them to.

That's not really what is happening here though. Kotaku is not asking for a sit down with Todd Howard. An analogous scenario to this would be if a rolling stone found out that Radiohead was recording a new album, published the story despite a "no comment" from the band and their label, and when the album came out they refused to send a copy to Rolling Stone for review out of spite. Except this probably wouldn't happen because the two industries are different and RS likely has a lot more pull than most video game journalists. It would also be viewed as insanely petty and probably just result in bad press for the band, which so why they wouldn't do it even if they were pissed off at Rolling Stone. The games media/publisher relationship doesn't seem to be nearly as symbiotic, and I'm not sure it will ever get there.

 

[dreamfall]

I think this sheds light on the publisher strong-arming marketing deals and trying to dictate the control of information on a title in a manner they'd like to announce.

If something leaks, isn't it the responsibility of a games journalism outlet to report on it? I mean what's the point of a press outlet? Then again, there have been years of NDA's, moderated review events, and publishing agreements on sites that have been more than willing to cooperate.

It seems apparent that if you don't play by whatever arbitrary rules these publishers have concerning leaks, articles they don't like about their titles, or whatever else, they'll blacklist you. I feel like Kotaku has gotten a lot stronger in the last couple years, so this is a shame.