altnameJag said:
Ukomba said:
Ok, lets have a discussion.
Seems like two articles published to drive site clicks, not some brave stand against a publisher. No law was broken and so there isn't any ethical issue to talk about there. On Bethesda and Ubisoft's end, neither are required to give anyone review copies. It also isn't that they pulled their review copies for a bad review, but for leaked information and so there is no ethical issue there either. So not really sure what to discuss. I can't even think of any reason to give them a thumbs up for epitomizing good ethics in this case, seems like they just wanted the traffic and it bit them, it wasn't some brave stand against censorship or something.
Interestingly, "Ethical" and "Lawful" are
not actually synonyms. Most ethics guidelines talk about things that, yeah, are
technically legal, but still things you probably shouldn't do.
I mean, there's no
law that says I can't find out someone's personal information and broadcast it via public forums in places where people who don't like them tend to congregate, or advocate that a company fire someone because they like/don't like a video game I don't like/like, but it's
decidedly unethical to do so.
So who actually decided its an ethical standard that a publisher HAS to send out review copies to everyone who claims to be a games journalist?
Getting review copies is a privilige, not a right or an ethical standard on part of the publisher. Companies have no ethical obligation to support enthusiast press with their products for review and outside the gaming industry this level of dependancy is allmost never the case for good reason.
Furthermore Bethesda and Ubisoft have not refused to send out review copies to other outlets who are critical of their games in the past or currently. They picked kotaku out for a reason. Perhaps they have decided that associating with kotaku or supporting them is no longer in their interest because it harms them?
Maybe because kotaku wrote one to many slanderous hitpiece about them to often? Its one thing to uncover and condemn shady practices, its another to accuse a publisher/developer of having mysoginistic tendencies or of being sexist like it happened to ubisoft.
There are alot of valid reason why these two publishers would refuse to work with kotaku anymore. Kotaku merely claims it was because of these two leaks. But perhaps what we see is merely the start of big publishers turning their back on Gawker and Kotaku alltogether.. one can only hope.
altnameJag said:
Never said they had a right to free stuff, just lamenting at the apparent response of "well of course that wa gonna happen. Suckle up to that dev teat and play nice, that's the only way to be ethical." But you can't tell it it doesn't "hinder" Kotaku, not getting advance copies of games so a review can be out on launch day.
So what youre argument boils down to as far as i understand is:
"WONT ANYONE THINK ABOUT POOR KOTAKU?"
To wich my answer is: Has kotaku ever given any two fucks about anyone they wrote a slanderous hitpiece against?
Look they claim to be full fledged journalists, they should act like full fledged journalists and accept the consequences of their actions.
You cannot actively work to harm companies and then hold open your hands for free review copies, this isnt how the world works. Either you go full independand or you stop accusing people of horrible things without any proof or evidence. Something that kotaku does every day.
Actively false things like that 100% factual article based on Fallout 4's intro? Wha? I get the feeling this isn't about the leaks that were actually linked.
Remember that its only kotaku that claims thats the reason why they are being ignored? Kotaku whos also called the "fox news of gaming journalism"?
But while we are at it how about an example:
How about accusing Ubisoft of being sexist for not having female playable assasins in assasins creed unity? Its one thing to report about shady DLC or microtransactions, but accusing someone of mysoginy simply because they didnt put something in the game that you want to be in the game? Thats slander. And you would find that in any other industry the publisher would have cut ties with such a reviewer asap.
Besides advance books, free music, and preview movie screenings? Those are all things you know. In the entertainment journalism industry.
Yeah and these are given out not because the creators are ethically obligated to hand these out by any means, but its in the interest of THE AUTHOR to get word of his new work out, he directly benefits from it and the reviewer benefits from it.
But once the reviewer starts talking shit and raises baseless accusations that have nothing to do with reviews you can bet that said reviewer will no longer receive advance books, free music or be invited to preview movie screenings.
Bethesda and Ubisoft have simply decided its not in their interest anymore to supply kotaku with their products for free anymore or give interviews to an outlett that is openly hostile to them.
They cut ties with kotaku cause kotaku is harming them more then its worth it to them. And if kotaku was really a journalistic outlet they would be okay with it instead of whining and trying to incite a shitstorm against these two companies to blackmail them into supporting them again.