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

....

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.

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.

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.