Rumor: Microsoft in Talks to Buy Silent Hills, Make it Xbox Exclusive - Update

Callate

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Minecraft might- might!- be worth "billions" of dollars. Silent Hill?

No. Not even if they could get the version with Kojima and Del Toro moving again. Millions, maybe- with that very specific combination. Beyond that, I don't think the IP is all that valuable right now. The last few games have topped out at "underwhelming" in most eyes.

Sorry, guys. I say this as a fan of the games when they still had numbers. I liked what I saw of P.T.. But I don't think we're suddenly going to see some eleventh hour angel investor save the franchise. About the best we can hope for is some Kickstarted "spiritual successor".
 

vagabondwillsmile

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Steven Bogos said:
Rumor: Microsoft in Talks to Buy Silent Hills, Make it Xbox Exclusive
Source: Rooster Teeth [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACGy46iB58k]
Hairless Mammoth said:
So it's been crushed. I kinda feel sorry for Silent Hill fans.

I gotta hand it to Phil Spencer for not giving us the "[Insert megacorp here] does not comment on rumors or speculation" line. Konami, as they've currently been acting, would probably have taken weeks to respond and might have given us that empty corporate phtrase. And they likely would have used the rumor to drum up hype for Silent Hill Crush Saga.
Ryan Hughes said:
circularlogic88 said:
Rumor has been dismissed.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/30/xbox-boss-denies-microsoft-purchase-of-silent-hills-for-xbox-one
Done and done. I wonder when people will learn, and more particularly, when The Escapist will learn to not trust nor even report on these wild rumors. Seriously, just take a look at the conversation here and how often unhealthy it was. This does no one any good.
Hey, it gives us something hypothetical to talk about over the weekend, even when the rumor has been officially crushed and especially with news going quiet because of E3 being 2 weeks away. If anyone is gullible enough to buy this big of a deal coming from an anonymous source, they'll eventually learn to be skeptical (at least I hope).
No surprise. Minecraft aside, "billions" of dollars sounds just absurd; and SH is no Minecraft in terms of net fortune-making. Equally absurd - no one at Rooster Teeth, and no one at The Escapist bothered to make a call? Send an e-mail? Ask an insider? "Rumor" in the headline is no absolution from any and all obligation to diligence. If an opportunity was taken to contact MS or Konami, it should have been indicated. In the absence of any indication of an attempt to verify, the reader is left to assume something like the following: Wild and crazy rumor? PRINT IT! NO NEED TO CHECK IT OUT! WE'LL FIND OUT WHETHER OR NOT IT'S TRUE LATER TOGETHER! If that assumption is incorrect, the reader need not make any apology as the onus is on the news outlet to ensure the reader never makes such an assumption. During the Rooster Teeth video they simply mention, "We do trust our source" @ 04:27 (CLEARLY there is no reason to investigate such a large acquisition). So they just ran the story and sat on their hands. As Rooster Teeth ran the innitial rumor, they are more to blame than anyone else. Shame on Rooster Teeth, and they should be embarrassed. As far as I'm aware, only IGN indicates that they bothered reaching out to anyone.

On the one hand, the naive me sees an attractive and divisive rumor that was turned in anonymously just because, followed by gaming news outlets harmlessly and mindlessly running the story. On the other hand, the jaded, cynical, skeptical me sees Rooster Teeth click-baiting and subscriber-baiting. Either way, this kind of (apparently) blind rumor circulation is where journalism ends, and tabloid print begins. And: "...Microsoft is trying to but the property for 'billions' of dollars." Damn it if there isn't a typo in the introduction.
 

Razhem

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Konami seems to be outright dropping the videogame market though

Hope they just sell their IPs and dissapear.
 

Laughing Man

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Yeah, but, see, that's the thing. Minecraft is one of the biggest surprise hits to come out of the indy development scene ever.
If Minecraft continues to make money at the rate it did last year it will still take 8.5 years for MS to recoup it's investment? I am sorry I don't care how big a success story it is their is no way it will continue making 300odd million a year for 8 years straight.

Notch totally owned MS when he sold them Minecraft and like I said their isn't that many companies stupid enough to pay over the top money with no hope of ever making the cash back, MS just happens to be one of those companies that has done it time and again and while the rumour has been dismissed, like I said if it had been anyone other company linked to buying IPs at massively overinflated prices I wouldn't have believed it but MS has always been the exception.
 

Remus

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insaninater said:
Also, silent hill's cancellation is a good thing if you ask me, it means konami has to start from scratch, and being forced to take a stab in an original direction is how art moves forward. A fresh slate is a good thing in this situation.
You're assuming Konami will be making anything but pachinko machines after the next Metal Gear. If they stop videogames all together and sell their IPs, it'll be better for everyone involved.
 

Starke

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Laughing Man said:
Yeah, but, see, that's the thing. Minecraft is one of the biggest surprise hits to come out of the indy development scene ever.
If Minecraft continues to make money at the rate it did last year it will still take 8.5 years for MS to recoup it's investment? I am sorry I don't care how big a success story it is their is no way it will continue making 300odd million a year for 8 years straight.

Notch totally owned MS when he sold them Minecraft and like I said their isn't that many companies stupid enough to pay over the top money with no hope of ever making the cash back, MS just happens to be one of those companies that has done it time and again and while the rumour has been dismissed, like I said if it had been anyone other company linked to buying IPs at massively overinflated prices I wouldn't have believed it but MS has always been the exception.
Microsoft obviously believed they could turn it into something far larger, with actual marketing. Again, I can gleefully say it was a miscalculation on their part. But throwing that kind of money after a dead franchise would be downright delusional, even by their standards.

Remus said:
insaninater said:
Also, silent hill's cancellation is a good thing if you ask me, it means konami has to start from scratch, and being forced to take a stab in an original direction is how art moves forward. A fresh slate is a good thing in this situation.
You're assuming Konami will be making anything but pachinko machines after the next Metal Gear. If they stop videogames all together and sell their IPs, it'll be better for everyone involved.
Konami isn't going to be selling their IPs, because we're going to be seeing Silent Hill slot machines, Castlevania Pachinko machines, and Metal Gear Solid Texas hold 'em systems from them in the future.
 

jklinders

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Starke said:
jklinders said:
My eyes started to glaze over at the word billions. Unless it's in a currency far lower than yen, no video game franchise is worth that much.

I call bullshit.
One billion yen equals roughly eight million US dollars, so... two or three billion yen wouldn't be that insane a price tag for an IP with a decent history behind it.

But, you know.
Yeah, my maths skipped a zero there. Doesn't change the notion that someone really missed the mark in posting this as "news" here. I could troll twitter for mushroom inspired bs too and call it "news." But people would call me stupid or insane for that.
 

jhoroz

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The Know/Funhaus consistently proving to be the worst thing to happen to Roosterteeth with each shitty clickbait video released at a time.
 

Starke

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jklinders said:
Starke said:
jklinders said:
My eyes started to glaze over at the word billions. Unless it's in a currency far lower than yen, no video game franchise is worth that much.

I call bullshit.
One billion yen equals roughly eight million US dollars, so... two or three billion yen wouldn't be that insane a price tag for an IP with a decent history behind it.

But, you know.
Yeah, my maths skipped a zero there. Doesn't change the notion that someone really missed the mark in posting this as "news" here. I could troll twitter for mushroom inspired bs too and call it "news." But people would call me stupid or insane for that.
At least I can say, something cooked up while on 'shrooms would be, at least, entertaining. This is just... meh.

I get where RoosterTeeth posts this garbage. But, I don't get where The Escapist is looking at that story, does no critical thinking, and says, "yep, sounds legit." Before posting it.
 

Therumancer

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I did read the update about this being false. That said I've heard other, similar, rumors out there which I'll get into in a second.

For starters the "Silent Hill" IP is worth quite a bit, it's something that goes beyond just the video games, which have been successful enough on their own to generate a large cult following, and while I could be wrong even with some of the lamer efforts they have all apparently made money which is why it's been kept going. Silent Hill spawned multiple limited run comic series (doing well enough where more were made), and also TWO movies both of which were successful. The first Silent Hill movie cost 40 million to make and grossed over 100 million, the second movie only made 20 million but still managed to gross over 50 million despite being panned (I just double checked the movies on Wikipedia). The biggest problem with Konami is it hasn't leveraged the IP very well, or taken care of it, it has a huge amount of potential that with better management and a good creative team could make a lot of money, even Silent Hill's big "failures" have turned a profit, I mean that universally panned movie made over twice as much as it cost.

I've been hearing multiple groups have been bidding on the IP, although nothing as reliable as was put out there, this mostly from chatter in various games and talking to fanboys and the like. Supposedly both Universal and Warner Brothers have had their eye on the IP for various projects ranging from wanting to do more movies to TV shows, not to mention that both allegedly want the IP for their theme parks (Universal has Universal Studios in Hollywood and Orlando and Warner Brothers has connections to Six Flags). Apparently back in 2012 when the second movie came out Universal used Silent Hill along with Resident Evil for it's "Halloween Horror Nights" and Silent Hill in particular went over pretty well supposedly they wanted to use Silent Hill again this year for their 25th Anniversary but have had trouble negotiating the rights. What's more given their work with the props and the movies it's been theorized that they might want to open a full time horror-themed area to replace "Marvel" in "Islands Of Adventure" given that the license will inevitably expire and Disney will of course want Marvel for their own parks. Turning the Marvel section and perhaps the "funnies" section into a permanent version of Halloween Horror Nights themed after Silent Hill is something that has allegedly been under discussion. According to this rumor Warner Brothers wants it too, but has more of an eye towards TV shows, but also figures it could also be used by Six Flags.

As far as my source goes, I was talking about going to HHN last year and mentioning I was vaguely considering going this year again if I can afford it, and I ran into someone in an MMO (yeah I know) claiming he works for a company that designs Roller Coasters and Universal supposedly wants to scrap "The Incredible Hulk" when they renovate and replace it with a hanging monorail coaster inside of tubes where images can be projected, and one of the big themes they are interested in is "Silent Hill", and he claims he's also received queries about such a potential design from Six Flags who seem to be under the impression Warner Brothers might wind up having the rights.

At the end of the day it's likely BS, but the point is that it seems probable that the rights are out there in the wind, and there are probably a number of people interested even if Microsoft wasn't one of them. The price tag of billions (multiple) seems unlikely but I could potentially see the IP going for as much as a billion dollars given that it made close to a hundred million dollars in profit off of the two movies alone, not to mention the video games, comics, and anything else I'm not thinking of. What's more given the success of things like "Under The Dome", "Lost", and other things, I could easily see someone producing a decent TV series about a group of people stuck in the town where surreal things happen, and of course they can justify throwing in some action. I also suspect fans would give it another shot for a movie, especially under a new creative team, and as much as people complain about some of the games the simple hype the new game was getting shows the audience is there if someone wants to put in the effort.... in short it's a proven IP.
 

Therumancer

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Gizen said:
circularlogic88 said:
80% complete? Doubtful. If you have a game at 80% complete, you don't pull the plug on it after investing so much money and manpower with nothing to show for it. Konami can't afford to make those kinds of moves like Blizzard could with their Titan project.
This is actually not necessarily true. There are plenty of examples of games getting canned at stages of near completion. There was an article here on the Escapist about a week ago about how Star Fox 2 got canned when virtually done already, or if you want something more recent, Star Wars Battlefront 3 was cancelled in a near-finished stage as well.

The rumour mill has also been churning with reports that Konami's upper management are actually full of vindictive, cocky, arrogant pricks, and some of their past actions would lend credence not only to this, but also to a history of poor business decisions. Considering some of their other recent actions, it's looking very much like Silent Hills wasn't cancelled because it was bad or wasn't going to sell, but because management was looking specifically to spite Hideo Kojima. This isn't even the first time something similar to this has happened. When Keiji Inafune left Capcom, they cancelled a number of Mega Man titles that were in development at the time simply to be assholes. Considering that the majority of Konami's revenues come from pachinko machine sales, not console games, and a history of being assholes already established, it's very possible that Silent Hills WAS 80% done at time of cancellation.
Allegedly the game was supposed to be out at the end of this year, or so I was hearing, which also reinforces the possibility of it being 80% done. HOWEVER it should also be noted that other than PT there was surprisingly little information about it. I'm not sure if Normal Reedus was even ever called in to do the game from the way things sounded. At this point few people likely know what the actual state of the game was, and they don't seem to be interested in talking. The way this went down it could easily be either close to 80% done or just at the concept stage.
 

Therumancer

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Starke said:
jklinders said:
Starke said:
jklinders said:
My eyes started to glaze over at the word billions. Unless it's in a currency far lower than yen, no video game franchise is worth that much.

I call bullshit.
One billion yen equals roughly eight million US dollars, so... two or three billion yen wouldn't be that insane a price tag for an IP with a decent history behind it.

But, you know.
Yeah, my maths skipped a zero there. Doesn't change the notion that someone really missed the mark in posting this as "news" here. I could troll twitter for mushroom inspired bs too and call it "news." But people would call me stupid or insane for that.
At least I can say, something cooked up while on 'shrooms would be, at least, entertaining. This is just... meh.

I get where RoosterTeeth posts this garbage. But, I don't get where The Escapist is looking at that story, does no critical thinking, and says, "yep, sounds legit." Before posting it.
Well Rooster Teeth does seem to have some industry connections, and as was pointed out they have broken news before. They are more reliable than a lot of my weird "from some guy I talked to while gaming on the internet" (I jump around between a lot of MMOs), however I have also been right about some weird stuff in the past.

To be fair if a company denies something it doesn't mean they are telling the truth. We've seen the gaming industry in particular deny things only to find out they were correct. The people making statements and denying things might even be being honest to the best of their knowledge. That said if Microsoft was interested, it seems likely they couldn't cut a deal they wanted. It wouldn't surprise me that there are a lot of people interested in the Silent Hill IP, especially with rumors that Konami wants to move out of developing video games seriously. Given that Silent Hill has been very successful across a wide array of media, ranging from movies, to comics, to theme park attractions, I'd imagine a lot of different kinds of companies might be interested in it. Microsoft for example would likely only want the license to make console exclusive video games. In theory if someone like say Warner Brothers who might allegedly be interested got it, then we're looking at an IP they could potentially leverage into movies, TV shows, and of course video games since it would give them a big IP other than Batman to work with. Universal is the same way and was the subject of the last rumor I heard, and I mostly relay it because Universal seemed to have success working with the IP before. I wouldn't think billions (with an s) would be on the table, but when you consider that even the panned Silent Hill movie (the second one) made 58 million on a 20 million dollar budget I could see some pretty high end bidding going on based on it as an IP that goes beyond it's value simply as a video game series. As I said I could potentially see it selling for as much as a billion dollars as the two movies alone made about 10% (almost 100 million) in profit between them before you even get into the comics (there were multiple limited series, so it apparently did okay there), and of course the video games.
 

Therumancer

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Starke said:
jklinders said:
Starke said:
jklinders said:
My eyes started to glaze over at the word billions. Unless it's in a currency far lower than yen, no video game franchise is worth that much.

I call bullshit.
One billion yen equals roughly eight million US dollars, so... two or three billion yen wouldn't be that insane a price tag for an IP with a decent history behind it.

But, you know.
Yeah, my maths skipped a zero there. Doesn't change the notion that someone really missed the mark in posting this as "news" here. I could troll twitter for mushroom inspired bs too and call it "news." But people would call me stupid or insane for that.
At least I can say, something cooked up while on 'shrooms would be, at least, entertaining. This is just... meh.

I get where RoosterTeeth posts this garbage. But, I don't get where The Escapist is looking at that story, does no critical thinking, and says, "yep, sounds legit." Before posting it.
Well, there is always that rumor about all those people that allegedly disappeared leaving PT running on their systems, and how Konami spent a fortune to get the FBI to sit on it. Not to mention the one about the entire focus test group that had to be committed, the one that they supposedly checked into the Connecticut State hospital, which is odd given that it's been closed for so many years and the state can't decide what to do with the land since bidders keep falling through, yet allegedly the paperwork supported it. Given the alleged costs here it's quite possible Konami wants to drop the IP because of a literal curse... or keep it contained by ceasing development. If the rumors are true it's the biggest paranormal sinkhole of a video game since what happened with Alan Wake and the reason why we'll never get a #2 (which I'm sure your all familiar with).

See, who needs 'Shrooms.


Someone should make a video game about a cursed video game. :)
 

Therumancer

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Starke said:
[

Konami isn't going to be selling their IPs, because we're going to be seeing Silent Hill slot machines, Castlevania Pachinko machines, and Metal Gear Solid Texas hold 'em systems from them in the future.
Well, that remains to be seen. To be honest given the limited use they would be getting out of the nostalgia factor of cancelled IPs, I'd think the wise thing they would do is sell the IPs, but cut some kind of deal for usage rights in that context. That way they get a ton of money from the sale, but can still make the gambling machines, but do nothing else with them which is all they would want. This wouldn't limit the buyers very much since those after the IPs aren't likely going to be going into the gambling business.

At any rate, the best we can hope for in the near future is that some disgruntled employee will release a partial build (if they were close to completion) sort of like the old cancelled "Fallout 3", which will at least give us a taste of what might have been. Unless someone buys the rights to finish the game, it's unlikely to ever be finished.

Personally I've been hoping this whole "Silent Hills" cancellation would turn out to be some kind of giant publicity stunt to get people revved up, but it doesn't seem likely.
 

CrystalShadow

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OK, so this is already proven false, but it just struck me how much of a game of 'chinese whispers' this headline is... >_>

I mean, the escapist says that rooster teeth claims that an anonymous source says that microsoft is...

Is it any wonder this kind of reporting has so little credibility? XD
I mean, that's just asking to be wrong...
 

Starke

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Therumancer said:
Starke said:
Konami isn't going to be selling their IPs, because we're going to be seeing Silent Hill slot machines, Castlevania Pachinko machines, and Metal Gear Solid Texas hold 'em systems from them in the future.
Well, that remains to be seen.
Not really. While, I'll admit that specific combination set is just me wandering and snarking, there was already an electronic Contra themed gambling device. I think it was slots, but I'm honestly not certain. So saying they're planning to milk the rest of their existing IPs in the gambling sector isn't much of a stretch.
 

Therumancer

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CrystalShadow said:
OK, so this is already proven false, but it just struck me how much of a game of 'chinese whispers' this headline is... >_>

I mean, the escapist says that rooster teeth claims that an anonymous source says that microsoft is...

Is it any wonder this kind of reporting has so little credibility? XD
I mean, that's just asking to be wrong...
Well, that's what sources are all about. You either know people, or people who know other people. To be honest investigative journalism died long ago, and I don't think it ever applied to geek media. In this case the source was a group that has shown itself to have reliable sources in the past.

That said, we can only speculate on whether it was right or wrong. In a case like this Microsoft isn't likely going to admit to what it was doing even if it was correct. They are just going to sent someone out there who isn't privy to the truth and believes what they are told to represent the company. Gaming companies in particular are caught in lies all the time. Rooster Teeth's source could have been right and the deal was just never made, we'll never know. The qualifier was that the same source they claimed to use here was one who broke other X-box news that proved to be accurate.

At the end of the day one has to protect sources, I do it all the time and it makes me popular (not) as does anyone with half a brain. If someone gives you private information the best way to ensure they will never tell you anything again is to reveal how you came upon a piece of information. The big trick to having sources is whether or not you wind up being vindicated in the long term. One of the problems today is that people expect proof, especially on big issues, and really by definition that can't happen, since the bigger something is in the context of whatever is being discussed the less of a chance you can be told where that information came from. If the information wouldn't get someone in trouble it would already be revealed. This basic reality means that people tend to have serious cases of cognitive dissonance nowadays and simply refuse to accept anything that isn't in accordance with what they want to think to begin with. When big things break inevitably there is someone sitting there going "I told you so" while everyone else is caught by surprise.

That said in this case Rooster Teeth's sources are better than mine. The only solid information I have comes from some guy claiming he designs roller coasters for parks all around the world. Well that, and a somewhat broader idea od the value of the Silent Hill IP than most people, but simply because I looked it up, in considering how much it's worth and what Konami could reasonably expect for it people tend not to look past the video games. If you check Wikipedia for example you'll notice the two Silent Hill movies didn't cost all that much to make, and turned a nice profit even the latter one which was panned on almost every level. Between the two of them they made like 100 million dollars largely because the movies weren't that expensive for movies and didn't need to be blockbusters to make a decent profit. When you look at that combined with none of the games in the series ever failing to make a profit supposedly, and the apparent success of the comics and such, you could see how if Konami plans to sell they might demand a billion dollars (without the S). I mean the movies alone made a hundred million for the investors and that was just a sideline. The last movie made I think 58 million and only cost 20 million to make back in 2012, that was only three years ago. Anyone thinks the IP is something that should be sold for cheap is kidding themselves, and as I said, my "source" seemed to imply that there are multiple people interested in it with plans to do more with the IP than just make video games.... but I'm rambling and just saying what I've said in other posts.
 

CrystalShadow

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Therumancer said:
CrystalShadow said:
OK, so this is already proven false, but it just struck me how much of a game of 'chinese whispers' this headline is... >_>

I mean, the escapist says that rooster teeth claims that an anonymous source says that microsoft is...

Is it any wonder this kind of reporting has so little credibility? XD
I mean, that's just asking to be wrong...
Well, that's what sources are all about. You either know people, or people who know other people. To be honest investigative journalism died long ago, and I don't think it ever applied to geek media. In this case the source was a group that has shown itself to have reliable sources in the past.

That said, we can only speculate on whether it was right or wrong. In a case like this Microsoft isn't likely going to admit to what it was doing even if it was correct. They are just going to sent someone out there who isn't privy to the truth and believes what they are told to represent the company. Gaming companies in particular are caught in lies all the time. Rooster Teeth's source could have been right and the deal was just never made, we'll never know. The qualifier was that the same source they claimed to use here was one who broke other X-box news that proved to be accurate.

At the end of the day one has to protect sources, I do it all the time and it makes me popular (not) as does anyone with half a brain. If someone gives you private information the best way to ensure they will never tell you anything again is to reveal how you came upon a piece of information. The big trick to having sources is whether or not you wind up being vindicated in the long term. One of the problems today is that people expect proof, especially on big issues, and really by definition that can't happen, since the bigger something is in the context of whatever is being discussed the less of a chance you can be told where that information came from. If the information wouldn't get someone in trouble it would already be revealed. This basic reality means that people tend to have serious cases of cognitive dissonance nowadays and simply refuse to accept anything that isn't in accordance with what they want to think to begin with. When big things break inevitably there is someone sitting there going "I told you so" while everyone else is caught by surprise.

That said in this case Rooster Teeth's sources are better than mine. The only solid information I have comes from some guy claiming he designs roller coasters for parks all around the world. Well that, and a somewhat broader idea od the value of the Silent Hill IP than most people, but simply because I looked it up, in considering how much it's worth and what Konami could reasonably expect for it people tend not to look past the video games. If you check Wikipedia for example you'll notice the two Silent Hill movies didn't cost all that much to make, and turned a nice profit even the latter one which was panned on almost every level. Between the two of them they made like 100 million dollars largely because the movies weren't that expensive for movies and didn't need to be blockbusters to make a decent profit. When you look at that combined with none of the games in the series ever failing to make a profit supposedly, and the apparent success of the comics and such, you could see how if Konami plans to sell they might demand a billion dollars (without the S). I mean the movies alone made a hundred million for the investors and that was just a sideline. The last movie made I think 58 million and only cost 20 million to make back in 2012, that was only three years ago. Anyone thinks the IP is something that should be sold for cheap is kidding themselves, and as I said, my "source" seemed to imply that there are multiple people interested in it with plans to do more with the IP than just make video games.... but I'm rambling and just saying what I've said in other posts.
Yeah, I understand the point you're making. I wasn't being that serious. It was just a sudden, kind of odd, random realisation.

The 'chinese whispers' thing of course implies that for every extra step in the process you add an extra layer of confusion and the potential to miscommunicate things.

Still, not important. I do understand why sources have to be anonymous in a lot of cases.