BlackListed

[Callate]

The announcement of games before an official company press release, particularly if it comes along with other leaked information (game dialogue scripts etc.) does have the potential to do the company and their product harm. It may be that the company is timing the news release with an eye towards their stock price or investor disclosures; it may be that they're concerned that releasing information- even a final title- before all elements are laid in stone reduces their ability to change or cancel the title without repercussions.

On one hand, blacklisting is a dickish response, arguably even a petty and self-sabatoging one. On the other, there's a certain irony to it that I can sort of appreciate: "Oh, well, it looks like you don't think you need official response from us anyway...!"

I'm not going to pretend that such a minor scoop, bought at such a cost, is journalism's finest hour or something. And the implication that this is some sort of shining example of They Who Shall Not Be Named not really being interested in ethics in journalism is... Well, let's see, how did I describe blacklisting?

 

[drakonz]

Bethesda and Ubisoft should never be the arbitrators of what we the consuming public do and do not get to read about their business practices or games.

And they're not. This is about leaks of trivial information that would've been released on their terms. At least if you believe Kotaku's story. It's about when this information is given to the public, not whether.

There is no service done to the consumer here, by publishing information early that the consumer would've gotten anyway. The articles lack notability. That's one of the big reasons why people aren't willing to defend Kotaku over the articles. It was a shitty move on Kotaku's part, it served absolutely no one except for their own bank account.

When you publish information that the origin of that information doesn't want published, you'll ruin your business relations with that origin. You need to find a reason that actually outweighs that before publishing a piece, or they will be fully justified in cutting ties with you.

I'm just going to leave a quote here that I think sums up my attitude towards this whole thing, really....

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."


- George Orwell

I will just leave you with the question. Do you actually want gaming journalism? Or public relations hype train?

Even if it's an outlet that I don't particularly care for, I think this kind of chicanery on the part of the developers ultimately hurts the consumer more.

are you seriously defending kotaku move of leaking game something that in comparision is usualy done in big medias on celebrities by trash media(rumours, dirty pictures and other personal attacks that are done just to generate views)?
there is nothing good for consumer about what kotaku did it was move done for short term profits and its not what good journalist would do at all and you are ruining george orwell name just by including him in kotaku's defence and compledly altering orginal and true aim of the sentence you are quoting

 

[Defective_Detective]

Bethesda and Ubisoft should never be the arbitrators of what we the consuming public do and do not get to read about their business practices or games.

And they're not. This is about leaks of trivial information that would've been released on their terms. At least if you believe Kotaku's story. It's about when this information is given to the public, not whether.

There is no service done to the consumer here, by publishing information early that the consumer would've gotten anyway. The articles lack notability. That's one of the big reasons why people aren't willing to defend Kotaku over the articles. It was a shitty move on Kotaku's part, it served absolutely no one except for their own bank account.

When you publish information that the origin of that information doesn't want published, you'll ruin your business relations with that origin. You need to find a reason that actually outweighs that before publishing a piece, or they will be fully justified in cutting ties with you.

I'm just going to leave a quote here that I think sums up my attitude towards this whole thing, really....

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."


- George Orwell

I will just leave you with the question. Do you actually want gaming journalism? Or public relations hype train?

Even if it's an outlet that I don't particularly care for, I think this kind of chicanery on the part of the developers ultimately hurts the consumer more.

are you seriously defending kotaku move of leaking game something that in comparision is usualy done in big medias on celebrities by trash media(rumours, dirty pictures and other personal attacks that are done just to generate views)?
there is nothing good for consumer about what kotaku did it was move done for short term profits and its not what good journalist would do at all

The leaks were not the equivalent of irresponsible paparazzi photos. Not even close. They weren't an untruthful or malicious rumor, a non-contextual photograph or a baseless personal attack on anybody. It was an inconvenience for a PR team.

If the Escapist published a leak from an anonymous source from Valve about Half Life 3 development, would you call it bad journalism because the Valve PR team were miffed?

 

[Lightspeaker]

This is absurd. Sorry, but it is.

What Kotaku has done is, in effect, the games equivalent of a "celebrity spotted doing something" story. They poked around and got someone to pass them information they shouldn't have and then splashed it all over their website to try and draw in the clicks. And then the people involved in the story have refused to have any future dealings with them as a result. This is a pretty much normal state of affairs in journalism and there are no ethical violations involved. This happens CONSTANTLY in actual journalism.

You want an example involving a genuine story that isn't something you'd have merely found out about anyway and was the result of investigative journalism? In 2004 the BBC aired a documentary making allegations about Jason Ferguson's football agency and the influence of his father in getting players to sign up with the agency. As a result of that Sir Alex Ferguson refused to talk to the BBC for seven years; despite being actually obligated to by the Premier League and therefore incurring a fine for every time he refused to do so. Guess what? It wasn't an ethical breach there either, despite being explicitly against the rules of the league to refuse.

Yet in this case the BBC absolutely DID have good reason to present this information and it led to the breaking of ties between the club and the agency if I recall correctly. In contrast there is little to no actual reason for Kotaku to release the info they did. Who did it serve? What was the point? To let people know things a little bit earlier than they would otherwise? There's an obligation to present stories that are in the public interest, but things that are in the public interest is NOT the same thing as what the public is interested in. Just because a lot of people would have liked to know about Fallout 4 being in development early doesn't make it morally right and just to release that information if its leaked to you; because at the end of the day nothing was gained. People merely found out a bit earlier and the publishers got wound up because their big announcements were sabotaged.


It is fundamentally dishonest to try to frame this as some kind of ethical breach or damaging to games journalism. This isn't an exposé on terrible working conditions or a culture of abuse within a company, it isn't a noble cause or a hill worth dying on to get the word out. Its a nasty little weasel of a story that was purely for sensationalist purposes about information that was going to come out ANYWAY when the publishers felt the time was right. Kotaku isn't The Times, its the equivalent of The National Enquirer. I'd no more expect actual hard-hitting journalism from Kotaku as I would expect it from Take A Break magazine.

People saying that publishers refusing to deal with Kotaku is damaging to actual investigative journalism in the game industry is like saying celebrities refusing to deal with the National Enquirer directly hurts the ability of the BBC to cover the Syrian refugee crisis. Its just an absurd notion. This is hardly a blackout of all non-friendly media coverage on the part of Bethesda or Ubisoft.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Bethesda and Ubisoft should never be the arbitrators of what we the consuming public do and do not get to read about their business practices or games.

And they're not. This is about leaks of trivial information that would've been released on their terms. At least if you believe Kotaku's story. It's about when this information is given to the public, not whether.

There is no service done to the consumer here, by publishing information early that the consumer would've gotten anyway. The articles lack notability. That's one of the big reasons why people aren't willing to defend Kotaku over the articles. It was a shitty move on Kotaku's part, it served absolutely no one except for their own bank account.

When you publish information that the origin of that information doesn't want published, you'll ruin your business relations with that origin. You need to find a reason that actually outweighs that before publishing a piece, or they will be fully justified in cutting ties with you.

I'm just going to leave a quote here that I think sums up my attitude towards this whole thing, really....

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."


- George Orwell

I will just leave you with the question. Do you actually want gaming journalism? Or public relations hype train?

Even if it's an outlet that I don't particularly care for, I think this kind of chicanery on the part of the developers ultimately hurts the consumer more.

are you seriously defending kotaku move of leaking game something that in comparision is usualy done in big medias on celebrities by trash media(rumours, dirty pictures and other personal attacks that are done just to generate views)?
there is nothing good for consumer about what kotaku did it was move done for short term profits and its not what good journalist would do at all

The leaks were not the equivalent of irresponsible paparazzi photos. Not even close. They weren't an untruthful or malicious rumor, a non-contextual photograph or a baseless personal attack on anybody. It was an inconvenience for a PR team.

Actually it is. It is snippets of a game presented without context. It is straight tabloidism.

 

[runic knight]

I can see where you're coming from about thinking they are hypocritical so that's fair enough. I don't quite see it the same because the standards for the two are different. I sort of expect politically charged comics to do this sort of thing while I want it the hell away from journalism. But I can hardly complain of your view that the act's are shitty no matter who engages in it.

At face value, I guess you could say it is ethics in journalism adjacent and therefore relevant? It's seems a mere semantic distinction to call it business ethics. If, say, Ubi had tried to sue the pants off Kotaku for publishing what they did I think it'd be a huge deal for us as gamers and people interested in seeing journalistic standards in the industry improve. After all, gaming journalism would be directly impacted by the unethical approach Ubi would be taking in this scenario and so would be relevant despite not being an issue with the outlet's ethics. Close enough for horseshoes, I'd say.

For your last paragraph here, the Blacklist against Kotaku occurred because they got some inside info on games that were being worked on by Ubi and Bethesda. After releasing this info, Ubi and Bethesda got pissed and quit talking to Kotaku. Kotaku didn't do anything unethical by releasing the info; that's their job as an outlet, even if the publishers didn't want the info released. So Kotaku did nothing ethically wrong but it did piss the publishers off and so they quit communicating with Kotaku, as is their own right. The whole thing is barely news, let alone an ethical scandal to shock the internets.

It isn't even quite that it is shitty no matter who does it, Though admitedly, clickbait garbage is, it is merely that they seem to use that as part of explanation why they dislike kotaku gawker yet engage in it themselves. At that point it isn't about any sort of ethical requirement on their part, merely they are not consistent to me.

I made the distinction I did between business and journalism ethics simply because of what you put so well in your last paragraph there: namely, who is committing the "unethical" action. In this case it is the business, not the journalists, so right off the bat it can not really be an ethics in journalism concern. The actual ruling on the action being an ethical breach or not doesn't even matter much in regard to that I think.

I do sort of have to disagree a little though, this is newsworthy. Sadly for kotaku not as an ethical crusade to rally behind, but rather as a sign of the state of games journalism in general that it has reached a point where publishers not having a popular games news site in their favor is the exception, not the norm. In that regard, it is newsworthy of just how bad the status quo of the industry is. Kinda doubt that is a story the news itself would run though.

 

[vallorn]

Why is this even important? I just...arghh! So many comments for such a tiny issue! This...baffles. Ugh, back to the wine it is then!!

Ever seen the comments thread for White Guy Defence Force? I think that's what they were trying to do with this strip what with trying to summon The Shitstorm In Yellow (GG V AGG) to the comment thread... Still, it did get a lot of people discussing how Games Journalism functions which is always good for peeling back the paper thin veneer that most outlets put up!

 

[runic knight]

It isn't even quite that it is shitty no matter who does it, Though admitedly, clickbait garbage is, it is merely that they seem to use that as part of explanation why they dislike kotaku gawker yet engage in it themselves. At that point it isn't about any sort of ethical requirement on their part, merely they are not consistent to me.

I made the distinction I did between business and journalism ethics simply because of what you put so well in your last paragraph there: namely, who is committing the "unethical" action. In this case it is the business, not the journalists, so right off the bat it can not really be an ethics in journalism concern. The actual ruling on the action being an ethical breach or not doesn't even matter much in regard to that I think.

I do sort of have to disagree a little though, this is newsworthy. Sadly for kotaku not as an ethical crusade to rally behind, but rather as a sign of the state of games journalism in general that it has reached a point where publishers not having a popular games news site in their favor is the exception, not the norm. In that regard, it is newsworthy of just how bad the status quo of the industry is. Kinda doubt that is a story the news itself would run though.

What the devs did wasn't unethical at all. It was a free choice. Why should Kotaku get special treatment, which is what access like that is. They don't have to give every mickey-mouse publication access, and that's only fair.

I agree, I was just clarifying that it didn't even matter if it was ethical or not when it came to trying to link it to journalistic ethics, since it was never an issue of journalists acting ethically or not, when the publication decided to blacklist, it was the publication acting, thus not "journalism ethics" in the least.

Personally, I wish all publications were severed in such a fashion and that the media and the publishers were distinctly separate entities and not so difficult to tell where the head of the one ended and the ass of the other began.

 

[Calbeck]

Meanwhile, in the next room over, the 18-month battle continues to rage...

 

[Tono Makt]

What Kotaku did wasn't unethical journalism, it was stupid journalism. It was the equivalent of posting spoilers - like the people who posted the Suicide Squad video from ComicCon or where ever it was first posted. Sure, maybe there was some investigative journalism done to get the scoops, but in the end, they didn't release much (if anything) that wasn't either going to be released by the companies themselves or edited out later on.

The only positive is that it gets Kotaku clicks. The negatives are being played up to be far greater than they actually are - spoilers suck, but I'd say a good 99% of the people who were likely to buy the games aren't going to change their mind based on what little information that Kotaku released, as compared to the rest of the games. So I don't see this hurting sales, at all. Does it give "free advertising" to the games? Eh... yes. But again, 99% of the likely consumers aren't going to be affected one way or another by the game, so the effect of the "free advertising" is likely impossible to actually measure, same as how it's likely impossible to measure how much the sales could be hurt by this. (likely not at all.)

The biggest negative is what's happened - the companies decide to say "Screw you." to Kotaku for posting the spoilers, and freezing Kotaku out of future information. Blacklisting Kotaku. Maybe this will have a negative impact on the companies too; as I don't have the games in question, I can't say how big these spoilers were. Obviously it's not "Luke, I am your father." level spoiler given how many people are defending Kotaku, but maybe it's Leia kissing Luke level spoiler, or maybe it's just Chewie laughing at something level spoiler that we're trying to say is actually telling people that Han's upset that Leia kissed Luke (when there wasn't enough context in the spoiler to make that a genuine inference).

In any case, it's a selfish dick move on the part of Kotaku, and it might end up being a hypersensitive dick move on the part of the companies too. Two wrong's don't make a right, and it's going to take a bit more time to see if the companies are in the wrong for what they've done.

(oh, and the discussion on ethics in games journalism around this issue? All around the GamerGate tag, though to be fair, many posts aren't tagging it. You have to go through the conversations to see the discussions. And while it would be fair to say that a sizable portion of the discussion so far is merely "#Schadenfreude, Kotaku", there's a fair bit of actual back-and-forth between neutrals and GG supporters about whether the companies are in the right here or not.)

 

[Tono Makt]

Meanwhile, in the next room over, the 18-month battle continues to rage...

No, someone called in a bomb threat and the discussion moved to a new place entirely. That's why it's empty in there.

 

[meiam]

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."


- George Orwell

I will just leave you with the question. Do you actually want gaming journalism? Or public relations hype train?

Even if it's an outlet that I don't particularly care for, I think this kind of chicanery on the part of the developers ultimately hurts the consumer more.

But the companies wanted that information to be printed, just not at the time Kotaku decided to do it, so isn't it still just public relationship? Except it's crappy journalism and crappy public relationship at the same time. If the game had been canceled and kotaku was leaking it after, that would be perfectly justified. But this is like if someone is all excited about coming with a big news about themselves, so they prepare a big event to tell everyone about it and just before it someone else show up and tell everyone.

 

[LobsterFeng]

I'm on to you Grey. You just know how to expertly craft your comic description so that people will bombard your comment section with their opinions.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Kotaku is part of the "Gawker-verse", right?

I struggle to consider anything that comes from Gawker or its affiliates "journalism", gaming or otherwise. Most of their articles are just rehashing other people's articles, and they make snarky and smug comments about it, and then the commenters make more snarky and smug comments and post GIFs about how awesome they think they all are.

The comments on the Kotaku article are hysterical too. People are trying to compare this to a company getting angry because you exposed that they had illegal hiring practices or were dumping toxic waste in the river.

 

[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.

Oh, yeah, publishing stuff that's in the public interest. How terrible.

If you didn't realise what one of the primary purpose of the press is, it's to report on news that their readers will find interesting, informative and entertaining.

What the heck are you even talking about when it comes to "minimizing harm". Exactly what harm was done to anybody? I don't care much for Kotaku either, but I like the idea that people will accept developers only permitting access to simpering PR regurgitators or paid-for Youtubers that act as outsourced PR firms even less.

They reported on leaked documents on projects that were clearly not ready to be shown to the public yet. To claim it's in the public interest to know of them is ludicrous. There's tons of very good reasons why those leaks shouldn't be dragged out into the public before they are ready to be shown. Projects get scrapped and remodelled all the time, and the leak might as well not be accurate anymore by the time the product gets actually announced. That happens all the damn time.

What they did wasn't some great feat of investigative journalism. Someone tipped them off and they just published it. And nothing they reported on in that regard really warranted it. You might as well just make stuff up and it would have the same value. Since whatever you get leaked prior to the an official announcement might as well have /nothing/ to do with anything. Again, if you believe Kotaku ran these articles for anything but clicks, you are deluding yourself, and probably haven't read the articles in question, I'd guess.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."

- George Orwell

Yeah, well, there is literally always someone who doesn't want something to be printed, so by that logic, everything is journalism. It sounds nice, but isn't really useful as a categorisation of journalism.

 

[Erttheking]

You'd think something so mundane would be easy to agree on. But this is the internet, there's only a discussion if people are engaging in trench flame warfare. In other words.

http://i.imgur.com/YYLbZfZ.jpg

 

[IceForce]

What they did wasn't some great feat of investigative journalism. Someone tipped them off and they just published it.

You mean like this?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

>Panel 1

>actual news

Except that's a lie. Kotaku declared video games dead and has been publishing bullplop for years, even before GG. The blacklisting was 2 years ago.

>Panel 2

>ethics in videogame journalism

You mean how Kotaku's unethical bullplop likely caused them to be blacklisted? Sure, let's talk about. Oh, but you wanted us to DEFEND kotaku, right?

>Panel 3

>nobody

Except us. We've been talking about it since day 1. And no one care about kotaku, GG or neutral, because kotaku is a crap tabloid that has so many writers who have breached ethics standards.

Edit: In addition,

Cartoonists for The Escapist imply that GamerGate doesn't want to talk about the Kotaku blacklist issue.

I guess they didn't bother to check the hashtag, or KotakuInAction, or 8chan's /gamergatehq/, or anywhere else that allows GamerGate discussion. I couldn't get away from all the talk of this Kotaku controversy if I tried.

 

[StatusNil]

What they did wasn't some great feat of investigative journalism. Someone tipped them off and they just published it.

You mean like this?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

Nope, that's not just some unrevealed product hype, that's an article concerned with the public good. You know, examining the progress of a hugely hyped crowdfunding project that has started selling virtual spaceships that don't exist yet in virtuality for a game that doesn't exist yet for thousands of real dollars. That would be a major difference.

Meanwhile, those dastardly Internetters have got their grubby mitts on this piece of "Critical Miss" art and vandalized it! http://i.imgur.com/gMeoI4o.png

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

What they did wasn't some great feat of investigative journalism. Someone tipped them off and they just published it.

You mean like this?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

Nope, that's not just some unrevealed product hype, that's an article concerned with the public good. You know, examining the progress of a hugely hyped crowdfunding project that has started selling virtual spaceships that don't exist yet in virtuality for a game that doesn't exist yet for thousands of real dollars. That would be a major difference.

Meanwhile, those dastardly Internetters have got their grubby mitts on this piece of "Critical Miss" art and vandalized it! http://i.imgur.com/gMeoI4o.png

Ooh! Let me join in with an equally accurate one! http://imgur.com/S0yPJr9