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[Real_Madrid]

Hey Schreier,

If Kotaku is staffed with REAL HARD-HITTIN' GAMES JOURNALISTS like you have consistently tried to portray yourselves as the last couple years, why even bitch about "blacklists?"

Isn't the whole cozy, buddy-buddy relationship between publishers and journalists exactly the thing you're trying to rally against? Why are you bothered AT ALL by being blacklisted if you're "investigative journalists"?

Jup, Kotaku just wants to show how 'real' they are. I don't like the site, don't like the clickbait, don't like the leaking of stuff.
And no, I'm not one of the people who 'stands with the big publishers'. I just can't see why publishers should give review copies to sites they don't like. They are not obligated in any way to do this.
Kotaku can still make Bethesda and Ubisoft reviews.

 

[EnlightenedMint]

Keep it up Kotaku.

I don't read a ton of their articles, but sometimes there are some great ones like that recent article about the development of Destiny, that is stuff I hope to see more from all gaming outlets.

 

[Maztorre]

Everyone act like the publishers are always the bad guy, its a bussiness and if you are getting shit from someone why keep communicating with him, i dont get it.

Because no other entertainment or tech companies act in such a childish, petulant way? It's the fucking real world, you can't lock down your message 100% all of the time and guess what, leaks happen.

It is literally the job of a journalist to acquire and report on relevant, pertinent information they discover first hand or via their sources. It is companies like Bethesda and Ubisoft that are acting in a petty manner by refusing to accept the freedom of the press and "punishing" and manipulating media outlets to try to keep others in line and on message.

Capcom has had more leaks than the Titanic for Street Fighter V, but they don't arbitrarily fuck with journalists' access to the game, they are happy to stand behind the quality of their product. Bethesda and Ubisoft, however, have a recent history rife with shitty practices that both the press and consumers have called them out on, and rather than address those practices, they would rather demand compliance from the press until they have fooled enough customers into a preorder.

 

[PhilGPT]

Just out of curiosity... does Kotaku blacklist any developer/publisher?
(Like not cover their games for whatever reason)

 

[DeepEnigma]

There is no side, unless you have an agenda, then there's always a side.

The only fact is a big company excercised their legal right to chunk the duece to giving any attention to a gaming blog that they feel is detrimental to their bottom line. Sucks but thems the breaks in this business. They will survive as they always have.

I am not disagreeing with that. They do have that right. I just don't have to agree with then doing so on even regular journalism questions. That is petty. Especially for a publicly traded entity.

My comment was also more on the hypocrisy of some posters, and some being blatantly obtuse.

 

[patjburns89]

The level of shitposting in this thread is insane.

People really hate Kotaku to the point where they're not just OK with this, but fully support and "defense forcing" it?

It's really bizarre. Kotaku has its share of articles I'm not a fan of, but I recognize the value of the news they do indeed break.

Also, just putting it out there that the official Kotaku leak thread of Fallout 4 back in December 2013 got quite a lot of replies and views, so there was indeed some large interest in the story.

 

[Acerac]

It's still shitty and I don't like it, but it's hard not to understand why some of the bigger companies would do this; in most/all cases they're publicly traded companies, some of the things that can/have gotten leaked are bad for them.

We all know why they do it. It's completely understandable.

We're just saying that it's horrible for journalistic integrity... which, granted, this industry hasn't had any of for quite some time.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Keep it up Kotaku.

I don't read a ton of their articles, but sometimes there are some great ones like that recent article about the development of Destiny, that is stuff I hope to see more from all gaming outlets.

Hopefully Kotakus "integrity" cashes their check for them

 

[codhand]

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.

Seriously, thank you! Completely sick of not just publications on the cheerleading squads of publishers, but some neogaf posters too.

 

[Patrick Klepek]

Just out of curiosity... does Kotaku blacklist any developer/publisher?
(Like not cover their games for whatever reason)

Nope. We cover everyone's games, regardless of what's going on there. I mean, just take a look at how much we've written about Fallout, despite not getting early access to it.

 

[DoctorFling]

Disgusting. Ubisoft and Bethesda need to grow up and act responsibly if they want to avoid negative press, I hope other sites and publications pick up their slack.

 

[tearsintherain]

This is part of the reason why we tend to get more "soft" journalism out of the industry. Publishers hold all the keys and if you piss them off, they cut you out of any news or information. There are alternatives to gain access to PR docs from publishers, but being denied access to those within or work with the company makes it hard to validate your information or even just get balanced news.

Game journalists will probably forever be relegated to being another arm that publishers use as part of their PR strategy and nothing else, with sites that don't play go under or move away from games entirely.

its stupid for game journalists to depend on the company for information pipeline. In their clamor to release news early, insider info, etc they cozy up to the industry and turn into shills.

I view the games journalism industry as two segments: one that is beholden to the industry, ala IGN/gamespot/gamestop's rag/etc, and those that talk about the games post release like Angry Joe, specific twitch/youtube users, neogaf, metacritic, etc. The former just tells me rough things about games I am interested in like release dates or features but I don't pay any attention to reviews, I look at the latter for that. I don't have any sympathy for kotaku, they have so much clickbait and sensationalist articles I can't take any of their sites seriously anymore.

Even still reviews don't really mean much anymore, between betas and twitch and message boards you can get a pretty good idea 90% of the time whether a game or system is going to be for you or not well before release.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

We were in a similar situation with one of those publishers for the past year, and it appears we just got a soft blacklisting from another major publisher. Typically what it does is make you double down on digging into them, coming away with a Fuck It attitude and rarely does it have the desired impact from publishers.



So you don't want there to be anything remotely resembling journalism for video games

I can't imagine what publisher would blacklist Polygon. You guys toe the company line pretty well.

 

[Markitron]

More Kotaku whining. Not saying it's 100% fair but they knew the risks when they published the articles.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Ironically the one time it's actually about ethics in video game journalism people act like it's not.

Hahaha, so true.

 

[Kamina777]

We're not talking about small-time blogs though. If Kotaku, one of the biggest gaming sites in the world, isn't at a high enough level not to get blacklisted, then that means no one is. And that's a bad thing. The subject being reported on should not dictate how and what can be reported on them.

Kotaku has been in the game for a very long time, I honestly thought they were blacklisted by practically every company ever. Kotaku is huge but it will always be seen as a blog by the gaming giants, as well as electronic Giants for that matter. For better or worse no matter how big they get that will always be the case.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

Something like leaking is probably just a convenient, zero-tolerance reason to stop doing business with the worst game sites on the internet for every other reason.

 

[tuxfool]

Granted, it's just the response in this thread, but this weird martyrdom rubs me the wrong way. People are standing almost in unison behind Kotaku like they unveiled some super shady and horrific shit, when in reality it was just kinda obvious information.

We're behind them not because of what you said, but because the behaviour of these companies is extremely petty and sad.

 

[killroy87]

I'd personally argue that reporting on the existence of unannounced games doesn't do much but instill early expectations from the fanbase which ultimately leads to a game not hitting those expectations.

There are times when reporting on leaks are okay. To me, personally, reporting big details about Fallout 4 almost 2 years in advance is not okay. Nothing good came from that expect for website hits on Kotaku, hurt feelings, early expectations and disappointed developers. Sure, whoever leaks the stuff to begin with needs to just simply not do that, but sometimes reporting on leaks can do more harm than good.

Just my two cents, I guess. Boasting that you reveal games way in advance (which has a multitude of effects on the developer, the publisher, and the fanbase) isn't exactly something to be proud of in my opinion.

Features like those exposing work conditions at Rockstar are good. Acting like a victim because you front-paged something that was not meant for public eyes (and not for any sneaky reason other than it wasn't done yet and announcing a game is a huge part of a game's marketing push) is kinda off-putting to me.

Exactly, I agree. To be clear, things like Jason's story on Destiny, or reporting on working conditions or wage discrepancies, that's all totally valid. That leads to insightful discussion that you know, actually serves readers.

But complaining because the publishers whose games you leaked are now not "cooperating" with you? That's not journalism, that's literally just trying to jump the gun and get first views on an inevitable announcement.

 

[LoveCake]

What about us gamers blacklisting Bethesda Softworks & Ubisoft?

I know some have issues with Kotaku but like them or not, publishers shouldn't be allowed to block or blacklist people/companies because they don't like what they have said about them.

 

[InsaneTiger]

Excellent, no need to placate a online "rag" publication.

Anything sent to Kotaku is much better sent to prominent Youtubers and Twitch streamers, at least with them, your game will speak the loudest and not ideology or politics. Which are the last things you want associated with a product you are trying to sell to a wide audience.

Ah, shillin for the Youtubers. Because we all know they can't possibly be influenced by publishers.

 

[NormalFish]

Not a huge fan of gawker related sites, but kotaku has clearly been making an effort to actually cover the gaming industry in a manner more befitting people calling themselves journalists. Publisher response is juvenile but expected.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Hey Schreier,

If Kotaku is staffed with REAL HARD-HITTIN' GAMES JOURNALISTS like you have consistently tried to portray yourselves as the last couple years, why even bitch about "blacklists?"

Isn't the whole cozy, buddy-buddy relationship between publishers and journalists exactly the thing you're trying to rally against? Why are you bothered AT ALL by being blacklisted if you're "investigative journalists"?

Because going public about publishers strong arming the media into being nice to them is investigative journalism?

Blacklists are not things that should exist. I don't like Kotaku's content but it's nice to know who to watch out for.

 

[ChryZ]

Fuck slimy publishers, I'd say if you're NOT blacklisted by them then you're doing something wrong. Don't play their "games", don't honor their embargoes, don't assist their per-order culture, don't give them the benefit of the doubt, don't help their metacritic obsession, don't be controlled by control freaks. Journalists should work for the people and not for the man.

 

[Lanrutcon]

The amount of stupid in this thread is reaching critical mass.

Glad Kotaku came out with the article. Blacklisting journalists? That's always a good sign.

 

[Steez]

The "Fuck yeah, I stand with the big company! Fuck the free press!" attitude some people here seem to have is somewhat concerning.

To be clear, I'm not standing with Ubi or Beth on this either. It goes without saying that it's a dick move, but again, they blacklisted Kotaku for mildly ruining the party and not for publishing some hard facts that changed our perception of the industry for the worse.

This is a distinction people need to make.

We're behind them not because of what you said, but because the behaviour of these companies is extremely petty and sad.

I mean, it's not everybody, but I'm not imagining all the "Hey Kotaks, super great job on fighting the big bad publisher with those hard-hittin' scoops"-posts either.

 

[codhand]

More Kotaku whining. Not saying it's fair but they knew the risks when they published the articles.

this is fascism. what youre saying is; dont report the news.

 

[Real_Madrid]

Because no other entertainment or tech companies act in such a childish, petulant way? It's the fucking real world, you can't lock down your message 100% all of the time and guess what, leaks happen.

Euhm no. The movie industry for example does what it wants. I can be wrong, but I can recall that Disney isn't doing a press viewing of Star Wars.
Again, no one is forcing the press to anything. If you don't like the terms Ubisoft enforces, then don't follow them. It's that easy.

 

[Acerac]

More Kotaku whining. Not saying it's 100% fair but they knew the risks when they published the articles.

Indeed, nobody should ever criticize game devs ever.

I'm amazed that this is such a popular opinion in this thread. Do people really actually believe this? It seems like a very dumb idea.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I can't imagine what publisher would blacklist Polygon. You guys toe the company line pretty well.

Ouch.

Maybe the Geis embargo *cough*EA Access is only on Microsoft XBox, personal PR*cough* rant?

 

[Kintaro]

It is actually very disheartening to see how many people are supporting Bethesda's and Ubi's actions. I for one, don't need the big companies dictating the content that gets pushed out when it comes to the media. Game gets leaked early? Of course they should push that information out. It IS news. Just because a big company is gonna get butthurt over the leak, does not mean that the journalists need to even take that into consideration. I'm not a journalist, but to keep their journalistic integrity, they should publish information objectively without even considering the big companies.

Keep the good fight going Kotaku.

Well, journalists should know that their stories and actions can have consequences (businesses don't like it when you cost them money) as well. That's also their job as well. So, while this blacklisting is "news" (old news at that), no one should be surprised. You live with it.

If someone reported on stuff on Kotaku that cost them and their masters a lot of money, they would be butt hurt too. =P

 

[BrokenFiction]

Kotaku got them a big new fan today. This was a tremendous read.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

If Kotaku is staffed with REAL HARD-HITTIN' GAMES JOURNALISTS like you have consistently tried to portray yourselves as the last couple years, why even bitch about "blacklists?"

I mean, this is explained in the article, here let me make it SUPER ALL CAPS EASY and quote the relevant passage.

In recent weeks, readers have asked questions. They’ve wondered why I, someone who has enthusiastically covered Assassin’s Creed games for years, didn’t review the most recent one. They’ve wondered why we didn’t seem to be subject to Fallout 4 embargoes of embargoes and why we didn’t have a review of that game on the day it came out. In both cases, we managed some timely coverage because Ubisoft and Bethesda did send review copies of their games to one of our remote freelancers, presumably with the hope he’d cover them for the other main outlet he writes for, The New York Times. Make no mistake, though, their efforts to shut out Kotaku have been unambiguous. Our colleagues across the world in Australia and the UK have been met with the same stony silence. Representatives from both publishers did not reply to requests to share their perspective for this story. Points for consistency.

 

[Glass Shark]

More Kotaku whining. Not saying it's 100% fair but they knew the risks when they published the articles.

Can you point me to a single line in the article that sounds like whining? All I see is information to readers about a situation. They're not even complaining about it. They're just saying, "Hey, this is a thing we think you should know about."

 

[internetwolf]

Mad at Kotaku for enlightening us, smfh

 

[Kamina777]

I am not disagreeing with that. They do have that right. I just don't have to agree with then doing so on even regular journalism questions. That is petty. Especially for a publicly traded entity.

My comment was also more on the hypocrisy of some posters, and some being blatantly obtuse.

Fair enough, I can see how it can seem petty, but company-wide, NOBODY is taking any chances.

 

[CastorTroy]

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.

Haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

 

[Haunted]

Kotaku should display this prominently and proudly as a badge of honour.

I can't imagine what publisher would blacklist Polygon. You guys toe the company line pretty well.

At least Microsoft's.

But that's a bit unfair - Polygon has intermittently had some strong long-form articles in the past, so I could see certain publishers taking umbrage with that. However, simply alluding to being blacklisted without naming the publisher in question also highlights the difference - while Kotaku doubles down on journalistic integrity, Polygon still seem to be hoping to be let back into the fold and PR cycle.

 

[Syriel]

Kinda hard to do real journalism if two of the biggest players on the videogame market to refuse to give any sort of comment for any sort of story you might be writing (including those about them).

Disgusting. Fuck Bethesda and fuck Ubisoft both.

Uh, did you read the article? They're being penalized (denied review copies, requests for comments, etc.) because they act like real journalists instead of lapdogs. The price is that their job as journalists and critics is made more difficult (such as, again, being denied review copies, total silence on requests for comments, interviews etc.).

"No comment," or no response at all, is actually standard fare in most journalism. Journalists get ignored and denied way more often than they get full access. That's standard fare.

While it'd certainly be nice to get responses when we ask Bethesda or Ubisoft PR for questions about, say, bugs in their games, or issues at their companies, it's not necessary. We have no plans to change anything in our approach to reporting and serving readers just to make up with publishers that try to make our jobs more difficult.

This is exactly the correct approach to take. You just keep going on.

Over the years I've been blacklisted on-and-off by various PR teams at various companies and the best reply is to just keep doing the job. Eventually teams change and companies change their tune.

It's just part of the job.

I hate this idea that "they leaked stuff so this is okay". So any site that reports on casting of a movie before its announced should be blacklisted? Or a company who reports on the specs of a new Apple device should never be invited to their events (which doesn't happen)? Why is the gaming industry allowed to have different standards?

Apple has no problem blacklisting people.

Their Bethesda articles were pretty eye-opening for how shady their business practices were. Good for them for publishing those kinds of stories even though it hurts them monetarily.

Would there be any legal consequences if someone from your company bought a street broken copy of say Fallout 4, beat it, and posted a review before the embargo ends?

Also, do you know how much revenue Kotaku loses out on by not having a review out for a AAA game when the embargo ends?

No legal consequences whatsoever. If you buy a game on the open market, you are free to review it. There are no NDA issues. There are no copyright issues.

Now you can't pirate a game (I've seen people try to justify that before, which is just idiotic), but if you can buy a legitimate copy, you can go to town.

 

[JumpJeff84]

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.

For what it's worth, a buddy of mine who works at Ubi told me that Ubi caught the employee who leaked the Assassin's Creed Liberty stuff to Kotaku. The higher ups were PISSED, and they made an example of him. He was fired, and charges were pressed, as he'd signed confidentiality agreements as an Ubi employee.

Kotaku hadn't signed any such thing, no crime was committed. That's how journalism works.

 

[HueyFreeman]

This is a good start: the beginning of what will hopefully be a slow, but likely painful, separation of game critics from their industry relationships.

Good for you guys, Jason - this is something to be proud of.

 

[capitalCORN]

Fuck Kotaku. They have a Japanese name, but not Japanese morals.

 

[Markitron]

this is a fascism. what youre saying is; dont report the news.

Nope that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm glad they published the articles. They got their scoop and their clicks and now their moaning about it.

 

[Alienous]

Haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

Have you read their Destiny story?

 

[Ninja Scooter]

What does being "blacklisted" mean? Are you guys not sent games for review? It feels like it might end up being an either/or kind of thing. You can be investigative and leak information and that's fine, I actually think there is value in that kind of organization/site, but it's not shocking that they would then not be receptive to inviting you to press events or giving you early copies of games.

At the same time it does sort of feel like they are trying to bully their way into getting what they want. You can do all the investigative and leak stories you want, but these publishers know your bread is buttered with game coverage, and they probably feel if they can restrict that they can kill the head and the body will follow, so to speak.

 

[Acerac]

Well, journalists should know that their stories and actions can have consequences (businesses don't like it when you cost them money) as well. That's also their job as well. So, while this blacklisting is "news" (old news at that), no one should be surprised. You live with it.

"Never publish negative things about devs ever."

The fucked up part is that so many sites agree with you.

 

[Ekai]

Kotaku is more of a tabloid than actual journalism.

The only thing I don't like about Kotaku is the fact that they essentially spearheaded a campaign against a sequel to Eternal Darkness with lies about how Dennis Dyack was still in control financially and that all of his dev team left him and other nonsense like that that you could easily find to be false if you just bothered to research it really quick. Like, he was still working with the dev team he got well along with in the early days of Silicon Knights and he was not working on ED2 in any manner that he came to be criticized for (it was only in a creative director manner) with other games but Kotaku decided to just launch the lie-ship anyway and people ate it up.

I know people have issues with Dyack but he's not the worst game director out there and people wanted a sequel to ED1 for a while now. But nope, because of people clamoring around articles like that Kotaku one, a hivemind against ED2 formed and now it'll likely never happen because the crowd-funding was key to it happening in the first place. Given my love of ED1, it heavily colored and still does to this day partially how I view Kotaku. That was extremely tabloidy of them. I agree.

However, since GG, I've respected them quite a lot more since they're not bending to people who don't care about journalism and just want to harass women. And outside of their condemnation of ED2, Kotaku honestly hasn't been that bad to me. I just really love ED.

 

[Lime]

Well, I guess gamers get the games media they deserve

 

[autoduelist]

The "Fuck yeah, I stand with the big company! Fuck the free press!" attitude some people here seem to have is somewhat concerning.

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.

 

[Calabi]

It's pretty petty, and vindictive, but then again gaming companies have never been that grown up.

It'll only impact them negatively anyway so I guess let the dumb twats carry on.