BlackListed

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Then blame the people inside your own house who leaked it to them. Or better yet, realise in the modern age leaks to the press are just gonna happen, and pretty much the only way to mismanage them is to take it out on the press in question who do absolutely nothing wrong by reporting on stories that are given to them.

No, they're not obliged to work with the press, but they sure as hell don't look like adults either when they decide to take their ball and go home because the press does what it's supposed to do. Who do these guys hire for their PR that they think this is a good idea?

Kotaku made money at the expense of Bethesda/Ubisoft, what else did you think was going to happen.

Did they? "At the expense" I mean. I'd like to see either Bethesda or Ubisoft try and convincingly argue that press leaks before their (already needlessly expensive) launch parties actually cost them money in the sales of these games. This isn't a business issue, and even if it was they'd still be shooting themselves in the foot over nothing. They're mad, why? Because Kotaku spoiled the surprise? How does that cost them anything, especially when, as was stated right at the beginning, neither of these pieces of news was a surprise?

Kotaku made money, yes, by telling people something they all already knew. That speaks volumes for how little respect we have for decent coverage of the medium, but I don't blame them for capitalising on it when they can, and I'd love to see anyone try and draw a line between those leeks and anyone choosing not to buy these games when they otherwise would have, so the publishers are just being infantile.

 

[sageoftruth]

Blacklisting an outlet over a leak seems like misplaced blame. You should be taking a hard look at yourself, your staff and your information security rather than getting salty that someone shared what slipped through the cracks. By shunning an outlet as large as Kotaku they are limiting their audience, which doesn't really seem worth it at all. It's just bad business.

Sure, you could consider what Kotaku did as dickish, but they were well within their rights to publish the info. The simple fact is, they shared info they knew their audience would want. When it comes to enthusiast press, that's one of the few metrics you can use to judge an outlet's merit.

My best guess would be that they did it to ensure that this didn't happen again, in case there was something they really did want to keep secret, like the development of a game no one has covered yet.

 

[sageoftruth]

Fuck Bethesda and Fuck Ubisoft. As well as Konami.

New title: Kotaku gets Blacklisted, Bethesda and Ubisoft get Fucklisted.

 

[Albino Boo]

Did they? "At the expense" I mean. I'd like to see either Bethesda or Ubisoft try and convincingly argue that press leaks before their (already needlessly expensive) launch parties actually cost them money in the sales of these games. This isn't a business issue, and even if it was they'd still be shooting themselves in the foot over nothing. They're mad, why? Because Kotaku spoiled the surprise? How does that cost them anything, especially when, as was stated right at the beginning, neither of these pieces of news was a surprise?

Kotaku made money, yes, by telling people something they all already knew. That speaks volumes for how little respect we have for decent coverage of the medium, but I don't blame them for capitalising on it when they can, and I'd love to see anyone try and draw a line between those lyrics and anyone choosing not to buy these games when they otherwise would have, so the publishers are just being infantile.

Ok you have just spent 100k on your big launch at the show and some bloggers come along and leak the item early so they get more ad revenue. So it's no longer the lead item and you no longer get the huge amount free coverage that the launch party setup to generate. There is a reason why there are launch parties and its not for the sake of it. Its there to be the top item across multiple media around the world when it comes to games at the moment of choosing of the business doing the launch . Kokutaku fucked that up for their own economic benefit so they will get put out in the cold lose the economic benefit of review copies and have to wait until they can buy it retail. Cause/effect.

 

[Areloch]

Technically, Bethesda and Ubisoft haven't done anything 'wrong', in context of their business handlings, right?

I mean, definitely kind of a dick move, but they haven't done anything "wrong" by deciding to not work with a news outlet that leaked their documents - as in, they're not obligated to continue working with an outlet they disagree with, correct?

I'd say Kotaku also didn't really do anything wrong by putting information they discovered out there either, so it's kind of a weird gray area.

If Kotaku didn't make anything up, then they did valid reporting, and publishers aren't obligated to directly work with ANY news outlets, it's entirely at their discretion. So both parties are operating completely within their acceptable spaces, as far as I know.

That said, definitely a dick move on Bethesda and Ubisoft's part to blacklist them for something so inconsequential. If it was them publishing fabrications, or irrelevant personal stuff about employees, I could see a pretty valid reason to not work with them anymore, but leaking info about certain games being in production?

That's weaksauce. Not necessarily unethical, but pretty weak.

 

[McMarbles]

Ha ha, it's funny because it's tragically true!

 

[klaynexas3]

I really don't see the big deal about this. Kotaku reported useless crap that no one really needed to know because we were going to get the information only a little bit later. Bethesda and Ubisoft decided to say "Okay, you gonna play like that? Release as many leaks as you want, just don't expect us to help you out at all." And for those thinking this will somehow hurt their profit margin. This is Bethesda and Ubisoft we're talking about here. Who loves Kotaku so much that they'd never play another Fallout or Elder Scrolls just because of this, who weren't already apathetic towards the franchises in their current state anyway? I could imagine maybe the count is maybe in the hundreds, possibly in the lower thousands. That's barely anything on games that these guys push out.

Everyone did what they thought was best for their company. There was hardly anything unethical going on in this specific situation. All I can say is if the information had actually been necessary for us to get sooner, maybe I could applaud Kotaku. The fact remains that nothing about either of the articles was necessary to have been leaked earlier other than Kotaku simply wanting more clicks on an article. They still have their sources and if something shady is going down, they still have their ways of getting them. This only means they can't talk to the big heads or anything, which wouldn't matter in the first place because interviews with them is simply the big guys dodging all questions and painting everyone else as the idiot, which is fun for a laugh but doesn't really grant any new information. It also means waiting about another week to get a review from them, but we have so many sources for reviews that this doesn't stop any information from getting through to the consumers anyway.

So ultimately, why should anyone give a fuck as nothing of value has been shifted or lost?

 

[NiPah]

On the one side I now know they aren't restricted by trying not to anger Bethesda, on the other hand I do worry if a bias against Bethesda will grow coloring their articles to cover Bethesda in a negative light. I think Kotaku might be especially at risk for this since it seems they use a more personal voice in heir writing, as such the stories would be more impacted by outside bias whereas a more dry just the facts are less likely to be. It does highlight my main issue in gaming journalism, outlets have to cozy up to heir subjects or else you don't get the latest scoops directly impacting your ad revenue, maybe if more news sites stopped getting so close then publishers would have less of a strangle hold on the news.

 

[Daelin Dwin]

They should have respected the developer/publisher in not publishing documents they clearly didn't want published.

You and I clearly have very different ideas about journalism.

They should have respected the developer/publisher in not publishing documents they clearly didn't want published. If these documents exposed evil business practices or terrible work conditions then it would be a different story. But in both cases it was information about an upcoming title before it was ready for reveal. Heck, with Fallout 4 it was a script who's content was used in the final game.

Context is key.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, chuckled at this one. As in, for real, not typing "lol" at something moderately amusing, audibly chuckled.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Did they? "At the expense" I mean. I'd like to see either Bethesda or Ubisoft try and convincingly argue that press leaks before their (already needlessly expensive) launch parties actually cost them money in the sales of these games. This isn't a business issue, and even if it was they'd still be shooting themselves in the foot over nothing. They're mad, why? Because Kotaku spoiled the surprise? How does that cost them anything, especially when, as was stated right at the beginning, neither of these pieces of news was a surprise?

Kotaku made money, yes, by telling people something they all already knew. That speaks volumes for how little respect we have for decent coverage of the medium, but I don't blame them for capitalising on it when they can, and I'd love to see anyone try and draw a line between those lyrics and anyone choosing not to buy these games when they otherwise would have, so the publishers are just being infantile.

Ok you have just spent 100k on your big launch at the show and some bloggers come along and leak the item early so they get more ad revenue. So it's no longer the lead item and you no longer get the huge amount free coverage that the launch party setup to generate. There is a reason why there are launch parties and its not for the sake of it. Its there to be the top item across multiple media around the world when it comes to games at the moment of choosing of the business doing the launch . Kokutaku fucked that up for their own economic benefit so they will get put out in the cold lose the economic benefit of review copies and have to wait until they can buy it retail. Cause/effect.

Except you (and the publishers) are missing the bigger picture: Their games still were the lead news item (or, Fallout 4 was in any case, and people just being plain burned out on Assassin's Creed is another thing that's definitely not Kotaku's fault). Hell, that why they were leaked in the first place. They still got all the attention. If anything, the leaks probably got the word out to the three people left in the world who weren't already anticipating it and netted even more attention. They could literally just not have spent 100k in the first place, leaked the story themselves and achieved exactly the same result. That, I think, is the real bee in their bonnet. They're not mad because Kotaku lost them money, because they didn't. The only money that was lost was money that they willingly spent themselves on something pointless, and even then they were still free to capitalise on it. They're not even mad because Kotaku made money of their backs, because why should that matter to them when at the end of the day their games are still dominating the press cycle?

They're mad because Kotaku made them look like idiots, and when their reaction to that is to do the one thing any PR manager worth their salt will tell you never to do as a company reliant on media, it only proves that they are idiots.

 

[Gorrath]

Ha ha, it's funny because it's tragically true!

It would be if there was a breach of ethics to be discussed that no one was discussing. The most I've seen is people claiming that Ubi and Bethesda refusing to share information with Kotaku is "shady." No explanation as to why it's shady other than because it may in some way impact Kotaku's ability to do hard hitting investigative journalism, despite neither publisher having any onus to help Kotaku with that or Kotaku being the kind of outlet that does much, if any, of that. So maybe the reason the "ethics in journalism" people aren't all over this is because there appears to be no ethical breach on the part of any party involved? In which case, how is the comic "tragically true"?

 

[Fappy]

Blacklisting an outlet over a leak seems like misplaced blame. You should be taking a hard look at yourself, your staff and your information security rather than getting salty that someone shared what slipped through the cracks. By shunning an outlet as large as Kotaku they are limiting their audience, which doesn't really seem worth it at all. It's just bad business.

Sure, you could consider what Kotaku did as dickish, but they were well within their rights to publish the info. The simple fact is, they shared info they knew their audience would want. When it comes to enthusiast press, that's one of the few metrics you can use to judge an outlet's merit.

My best guess would be that they did it to ensure that this didn't happen again, in case there was something they really did want to keep secret, like the development of a game no one has covered yet.

But information security is their responsibility. It doesn't matter who they blacklist. If there's still a risk info will be leaked somewhere outside the company someone will happily follow Kotaku's example. As long as there are leaks there will always be someone around to break the news to the world. It gets clicks, and that's really all that matters in the end. To many, it's worth getting blacklisted by one company.

 

[Albino Boo]

Except you (and the publishers) are missing the bigger picture: Their games still were the lead news item (or, Fallout 4 was in any case, and people just being plain burned out on Assassin's Creed is another thing that's definitely not Kotaku's fault). Hell, that why they were leaked in the first place. They still got all the attention. If anything, the leaks probably got the word out to the three people left in the world who weren't already anticipating it and netted even more attention. They could literally just not have spent 100k in the first place, leaked the story themselves and achieved exactly the same result. That, I think, is the real bee in their bonnet. They're not mad because Kotaku lost them money, because they didn't. The only money that was lost was money that they willingly spent themselves on something pointless, and even then they were still free to capitalise on it. They're not even mad because Kotaku made money of their backs, because why should that matter to them when at the end of the day their games are still dominating the press cycle?

They're mad because Kotaku made them look like idiots, and when their reaction to that is to do the one thing any PR manager worth their salt will tell you never to do as a company reliant on media, it only proves that they are idiots.

Oh for god sakes man mainstream tv news goes to e3 and reports on it. They do not report on an internet game blog. Guess what more people from a wider demographic watch the news than read Kotaku . The more people hear about your game the more people buy it. That's the bigger picture

 

[sageoftruth]

Blacklisting an outlet over a leak seems like misplaced blame. You should be taking a hard look at yourself, your staff and your information security rather than getting salty that someone shared what slipped through the cracks. By shunning an outlet as large as Kotaku they are limiting their audience, which doesn't really seem worth it at all. It's just bad business.

Sure, you could consider what Kotaku did as dickish, but they were well within their rights to publish the info. The simple fact is, they shared info they knew their audience would want. When it comes to enthusiast press, that's one of the few metrics you can use to judge an outlet's merit.

My best guess would be that they did it to ensure that this didn't happen again, in case there was something they really did want to keep secret, like the development of a game no one has covered yet.

But information security is their responsibility. It doesn't matter who they blacklist. If there's still a risk info will be leaked somewhere outside the company someone will happily follow Kotaku's example. As long as there are leaks there will always be someone around to break the news to the world. It gets clicks, and that's really all that matters in the end. To many, it's worth getting blacklisted by one company.

True. Beware the dreaded Streisand effect. Looks like they still have a lot to learn about internet publicity.

 

[CaitSeith]

So good job, Kotaku.

You're still shit though.

Truer words have never been said...

 

[Davroth]

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

Yeah... as much as people seem to be eager to declare Kotaku some kind of bastion of investigative journalism, I think if they are to be held to journalist standards, they clearly neglected to minimize harm. Like seriously, they published that stuff to satisfy their readers curiosity. There was no noble goal here, it was just for clicks.

But then again I don't consider Kotaku to be a journalistic outlet, and them getting blacklisted from big name publishers fazes me about as much as when a random youtuber doesn't receive a review copy for the new CoD or something like that. They don the mantle of the journalist only when it's convenient for them. I have no respect for that.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Stab in the dark: this issue was just a pretense for cutting ties to a website that can get very politically hostile. It attacks games, developers and those that play them. Yeah, ***** about my bitching about "SJW crap" all you want, but do you really think Ubisoft is happy with backseat bloggers taking every misstep in diversity personally and getting up in arms, as well as a nudge-nudge tweet and email the company about how you think I'm right and they're aweful people for doing what they did.

Reporters access is based upon trust and respect, not just of its sources, but its audience. When Kotaku was the big name, they could get away with a lot, but not their rep is up there with Fox news for credibility, and companies don't have to put up with them anymore, or may even see doing so as a hindrance. Why deal with a site your main audience doesn't go to anymore and doesn't truest when they do if there are other outlets to go to.

Hence, I can't feel sorry for Kotaku. It went against the desire of its sources, probably in large part to have some big click generating exclusive and now they have to pay the price. Someone needs to teach Kotaku about the concept of Goodwill and how important it is to a business.

 

[McMarbles]

Ha ha, it's funny because it's tragically true!

It would be if there was a breach of ethics to be discussed that no one was discussing. The most I've seen is people claiming that Ubi and Bethesda refusing to share information with Kotaku is "shady." No explanation as to why it's shady other than because it may in some way impact Kotaku's ability to do hard hitting investigative journalism, despite neither publisher having any onus to help Kotaku with that or Kotaku being the kind of outlet that does much, if any, of that. So maybe the reason the "ethics in journalism" people aren't all over this is because there appears to be no ethical breach on the part of any party involved? In which case, how is the comic "tragically true"?

This is literally big corporations throwing around their weight to discourage a site reporting what they don't want them to report. I know it's not about an indie developer's sex life or about someone airing a criticism of a game that you don't agree with, but you can't see how maybe this is kind of unethical?

 

[CaitSeith]

Ok, what i don't get is why WOULD there be any discussion about ethics in game journalism here?
That discussion is generally about whether or not game journalists are acting ethically, not whether or not someone else is doing something ethical towards game journalists.
Sure there can be a discussion whether or not game publishers are acting ethical, but that question has been clearly answered with "No and they never did" a long, long, long, looooooong time ago.

In fact it kinda is. If a journalist have leaked news, should he write about it? Or should he be quiet and remain out of trouble? Who should be more important for him? The readers? Or the corporations? IMO, it depends. If he have leaked news, he should verify the source so he doesn't publish false information.

There are more topics on ethics in game journalism than journalists' personal agendas.

PS: Besides, there is people who still see publishers as mere victims of unjustified criticism.