Kotaku - Someone Doesn't Like Us

Kotaku has made an editorial in which they complain about being blacklisted by Bethesda and Ubisoft, apparently because they published about games in development while the publishers did not want that and label this as 'The price for gaming journalism'.

For the past two years, Kotaku has been blacklisted by Bethesda, the publisher of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. For the past year, we have also been, to a lesser degree, ostracized by Ubisoft, publisher of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and more.

In those periods of time, the PR and marketing wings of those two gaming giants have chosen to act as if Kotaku doesn’t exist. They’ve cut off our access to their games and creators, omitted us from their widespread mailings of early review copies and, most galling, ignored all of our requests for comment on any news stories

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The truth is that we’ve been cut off from Bethesda since our December 2013 report detailing the existence of the then-secret Fallout 4. Ubisoft has been nearly radio silent since our December 2014 report detailing the existence of the then-unannounced Assassin’s Creed Victory (renamed Syndicate). When we ask representatives from either company for comment or clarification regarding breaking news, we hear nothing in response. When we ask them about their plans for upcoming games or seek to speak with one of their developers about one of their projects, it’s the same story. Total silence.

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And there is this:

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.

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To me the whole thing is over the top and that stating this is "The price of journalism" is a bit much. If publishers don't want to talk to sites, so be it. There is no obligation for developers of publishers to interact with Kotaku or anyone else and if you like a game so much, you could also consider buying it.

Then again, that last sentence might just be my frustration as we never receive keys either

What do you think?

Thanks Eye for pointing this one out.

More information.

The more transparent the practices of big publishers become, the better.

Who cares (about Kotaku's woes, not your post)? There's no obligation, real or even implied, for publishers to deal with Kotaku. If Bethesda thought they would sell significantly more games by cooperating with them, they very definitely would. Do you think that in real journalism the subjects of negative stories rush to share everything with journalists?

So...because they have no journalistic integrity, some companies no longer deal with them. They're crying about this? I'm totally okay with Ubi and Bethesda not providing them with anything.

I am an avid reader of Kotaku, and I know well these articles they are referring to.
One article is an exciting sneak-peek of an upcoming game (AC:Unity). Absolutely no damage-dealer, in fact, it is the opposite.

The other is a gossip about a major company's internal issues (they have issues? you don't say!). Since this is a gossip, it is as harmful as the Sun's gossip articles about e.g. Queen Mum's back pain problems.

Well, since all big companies believe that the Holy Duo of Marketing and PR is everything, such practice is a pretty big issue in their eyes.
For us, well.... it is not

screeg said:

Who cares (about Kotaku's woes, not your post)? There's no obligation, real or even implied, for publishers to deal with Kotaku. If Bethesda thought they would sell significantly more games by cooperating with them, they very definitely would. Do you think that in real journalism the subjects of negative stories rush to share everything with journalists?

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Choosing not to communicate with an outlet that may have featured negative stories about you is definitely newsworthy, I think. It would be the same in politics. I, for one, do care.

Kotaku is run by a bunch of 11 year old kids. go figure.

It's kind of a sad piece. He's right to make note of what happened, but it seems a bit delayed and I didn't see good reasoning why. Yet it's about entertainment reviews, not hard news. The situation is worth talking about and needs to be said, but Totilo's making an over dramatic case of it than need be. And he sounds petulant.

I take it back. It's a reasonable position to take given their subject.

crpgnut said:

So…because they have no journalistic integrity, some companies no longer deal with them. They're crying about this? I'm totally okay with Ubi and Bethesda not providing them with anything.

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Well there's certainly no obligation for either company to deal with them, but what lack of integrity are you referring to? The outside sources? Kotaku isn't under any ethical obligation to withhold information. The companies are mad that they essentially published leaks, not that they violated a contract or agreement. I don't see the ethical issue on the part of the journalists. The sources are almost certainly ethically out of line, but the strong interest in informing the public the journalist bears is usually greater than protecting a company's trade secrets. There are exceptions and sometimes judgment calls, but usually the public's interest in having accurate information and truth (properly sourced) is the main thing.

Honestly the ethical problem is the need to minimize or eliminate those kinds of burdensome agreements: publishing embargoes, etc. There's less of a problem covering product releases by companies (see breathless Apple coverage and any given fashion show), but requiring contract signatures and blackouts is a significant issue. I feel it would be better for reviewers' independence to refrain from agreeing to most of these. Complying with a request not-to-publish till a certain date is less problematic. Signing a contract or engaging in a quid pro guo for access to the company is.

duerer said:

The other is a gossip about a major company's internal issues (they have issues? you don't say!). Since this is a gossip, it is as harmful as the Sun's gossip articles about e.g. Queen Mum's back pain problems.

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It's still newsworthy. Especially if the company is publicly traded, then significant internal problems can have a financial impact and influence the actions of shareholders. Even a privately held company can have impacts on the region in which they're located.

The answer is a little bit more complex than saying that it is the right of the publisher not to talk to journalists. Indeed this is the right of the publisher but this also gives power to the publisher to influence what is written on their games. "If you write something negative, I will stop giving you information on my games." This can have a financial impact with readers getting their news from another newspaper of website, leading to less advertising revenues, etc...At the same time publishing news brings money to newspaper and websites.
As for many other things, it is a question of balance between what you can say and the impact of saying it. In the case of Kotaku versus Bethesda and Ubisoft, I don't see the impact that publishing news had on the games. This did not diminish in any way the revenues from the sales of the games. This could have had if the games had been bad but it's not the journalists' fault when companies publish crappy games.
This is a childish attitude from the games companies and behind the retaliation aiming at controlling the information there are immature corporate PR departments doing a sloppy job. The companies could have stopped giving information on the games subject of the news published by Kotaku (even that is childish) but to stop entirely talking to Kotaku is ridiculous.

Their piece about "embargoes of embargoes" is a good example of the usual nonsense Kotaku gets up to. It was a straightforward request that they tried to make sound bizarre and complicated in order to generate controversy and fuel clicks.

It's not that publishers don't want to talk to gaming sites, they don't want to talk to you because you act like entitled children.

I do check Kotaku here and there.
It's a silly site to be honest and their "journalists" have some odd criteria what to put. For example, one was fascinated with cheats in Sims 4 and there were several articles about those, one is fascinated with anime so retarded I wouldn't suggest it to my worst enemy while completely ignoring great stuff.

However, Kotaku ALWAYS writes about bugs and calls out developers for broken releases, ALWAYS criticizes pay2win scamware, ALWAYS suggests people not to preorder stuff and doesn't discriminate content so you'll find plenty of nudity mods for different games in their articles.

It was just a question when certain publishers will blacklist them.
Which, IMO says something else. While not a site of superb quality, Kotaku is not sellout like IGN.

Kobu said:

Their piece about "embargoes of embargoes" is a good example of the usual nonsense Kotaku gets up to. It was a straightforward request that they tried to make sound bizarre and complicated in order to generate controversy and fuel clicks.

It's not that publishers don't want to talk to gaming sites, they don't want to talk to you because you act like entitled children.

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The piece:
http://kotaku.com/regarding-post-release-review-embargoes-yesterday-i-1657482663

A very similar piece from Polygon:
http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/11/7193415/assassins-creed-unity-review-embargo

In a word... you're wrong. It's not petty or silly to talk about that and take that position. If there's a reader interest in gaming or entertainment at all, it's if the publisher is trying to hoodwink players into forking over money for a bad game. The sites recognize this and if the terms are too onerous (that is, post release embargo terms), then they see that as a publisher potentially attempting to make an end run around reviews in the interest of sales. Of course declining those terms is a good thing to do. The childishness is not on the sites' part but on the publishers' part who may be trying to swindle you.

Well these companies spend a lot of dollars (sometimes millions) on marketing and carefully crafted campagin with a very tight calendar. Even more than that these kind of "secrets" are known to many journalists, you'd be naive to think that there aren't any journalists that know what is the next Assassin's creed, Far Cry or Elder Scrolls before they are revealed. They have contacts in the industry and know way more that what they report on because they understand how the game is played even when no NDA are signed.
If Kotaku doesn't want to play the game for something that is basically the equivalent of a "FIRST" in a comment section they shouldn't be surprised...

joxer said:

It was just a question when certain publishers will blacklist them.
Which, IMO says something else. While not a site of superb quality, Kotaku is not sellout like IGN.

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Thank you.

I find a lot of their coverage petty, silly, and dramatic but on these things they do make an effort to keep things aboveboard.

Bedwyr said:

The piece:
http://kotaku.com/regarding-post-release-review-embargoes-yesterday-i-1657482663

A very similar piece from Polygon:
http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/11/7193415/assassins-creed-unity-review-embargo

In a word… you're wrong. It's not petty or silly to talk about that and take that position. If there's a reader interest in gaming or entertainment at all, it's if the publisher is trying to hoodwink players into forking over money for a bad game. The sites recognize this and if the terms are too onerous (that is, post release embargo terms), then they see that as a publisher potentially attempting to make an end run around reviews in the interest of sales. Of course declining those terms is a good thing to do. The childishness is not on the sites' part but on the publishers' part who may be trying to swindle you.

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Please address what I wrote and not some tangent you want to pontificate upon. It's even linked in the OP, but here it is again:

http://kotaku.com/fallout-4-review-embargo-gets-embargo-1740855250

It's two demands. One to not make announcements of when reviews will run until Nov. 6. One to not post reviews until Nov. 9. Debate all you like on the merits of either, I don't care. What the letter says is not hard to understand, and the fellow posting it chose to not address the substance of it in any meaningful way. It's just one example of the drivel common to the site, and the one that happened to be linked in the OP.

The problem is that Stephen Totilo is the only Kotaku employee who is actually a journalist with ethics. All the others are just annoying hipsters.

So Bethesda blacklisted Kotaku and put them on same list as RPGCodex. Good, that means Kotaku is actually worth reading.

Kobu said:

Please address what I wrote and not some tangent you want to pontificate upon. It's even linked in the OP, but here it is again:

http://kotaku.com/fallout-4-review-embargo-gets-embargo-1740855250

It's two demands. One to not make announcements of when reviews will run until Nov. 6. One to not post reviews until Nov. 9. Debate all you like on the merits of either, I don't care. What the letter says is not hard to understand, and the fellow posting it chose to not address the substance of it in any meaningful way. It's just one example of the drivel common to the site, and the one that happened to be linked in the OP.

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Ah, I mistook what you meant. I thought you were referring to the more substantive piece on post-release embargoes.

To address your point: Yes, that's kind of a one-off "So this thing happened to press outlets. Just saying." There's not much to it, but it did prompt speculation and ultimately the piece Totilo wrote. So yes in a small way, they can be petty.

However your point: "It's not that publishers don't want to talk to gaming sites, they don't want to talk to you because you act like entitled children" is still wrong. The reason Bethesda is walling them off is because they refuse to agree to post-release embargoes terming them extraordinary and not in the interests of the readership. That happened *before* the bit you cited. That bit was Jason Schreier being coy about what had already happened that *does* have merit.

What should have happened is Totilo making his post earlier.

Sounds to me like they're mostly crying about not getting free copies of the game. Too bad. I'm devastated.

Never really cared for Kotaku, haven't been reading.

So they published info from a supposed leak and turned out to be true and then they were black listed. No big deal really.