Credit: Bethesda
"News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising." ~ William Randolph Hearst
The big story in games journalism and the video game industry right now is Fallout 4. But right on its heels we have a post by Kotaku's editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo that's generating some much-needed conversation about game journalism and the video game industry at large.
"A Price Of Games Journalism" details how, for the past two years, Kotaku has been blacklisted by video game publisher Bethesda for publishing a report in 2013 about the existence of the then-under-wraps Fallout 4. And for the past year, the publication has been blacklisted by Ubisoft after Kotaku published leaked images and details about Assassin's Creed Syndicate (then called Assassin's Creed Victory.)
"This has happened at a PR and marketing level, leaving any developers at those companies who do want to talk to us or who do want to facilitate Kotaku coverage of their games to do so on the sly," writes Totilo. "It is, after all, PR and marketing who try to control how big-budget video games are covered. If they or their bosses don’t value an outlet, that outlet is left out.
"We’re far from the only gaming media outlet that has been blacklisted," he continues. "It happens to smaller outlets. It happens to ones like Kotaku with millions of readers, too. It’s not an uncommon occurrence in gaming media, though it’s seldom discussed publicly."
There are two important things in this snippet. First, that PR controls the flow of information to outlets like Kotaku and Forbes Games; and second, that when blacklisting and other acts of retribution occur, they're seldom discussed publicly. The first is absolutely true, and I would argue that the video game industry is particularly egregious in this regard. The second is also true, since many outlets don't want to make a bad situation worse.
The entire piece is a worth a read. It's something that I think needs to be said, and bad practices like cutting off the press simply because they're posting stories you'd rather not see, need to be called out.
But Totilo anticipated a blowback, and plenty of readers are indeed cheering the publishers' decision to "punish" Kotaku.
"They will see this kind of reporting as upsetting, as ruining surprises and frustrating creative people," writes Totilo. "They will claim we are “hurting video games,” and, as so many do, mistake the job of entertainment reporting for the mandate to hype entertainment products."
Here's why that way of thinking is wrong, and why Kotaku---in spite of whatever feelings you may have about them---is in the right here. Indeed, it is my great hope that many other publications and journalists follow Kotaku's lead.
Let's look at each of these bad arguments one by one.
Kotaku just sounds like a scorned lover, petty and immature.
Sure, if you think the relationship between journalists and the industry should be a romantic one, or "friendly" even in a more platonic sense, maybe that's how they sound. But I think that's a pretty weird way of thinking about the relationship between the press and industry.
Some readers really do believe that even discussing the blacklist is tantamount to spilling the beans on a romance gone sour. But it's a journalist's job is to spill the beans. When a scorned lover does it, it's gross and pathetic. When a journalist reports on bad industry practices? That's the whole entire point.
In fact, the relationship between media and the industry we cover is oppositional by necessity. It can be amicable, absolutely, but journalists and PR exist on two sides of a never-ending battle over information.
I respect PR and the industry, but when they do something newsworthy it's my job to cover it, for better or worse. Unless I have explicitly agreed to sit on information until an agreed upon date, it's my job to bring information to the public.
If a company or an individual retaliates against me for doing this, it's my job to report on that, too. These companies hold power by holding all the information and access hostage---and that's their right. I agree to their terms and they give me access and information. And just like they have the power to shut that access down, I have the power to tell the public what's going on. Kotaku is doing their job here, nothing more and nothing less.
But come on, this isn't how we treat our friends. It's not nice to find out someone's secret and then go announce it to the world. Why rain on their parade?
Journalists and their subjects are not "friends" any more than they are lovers. We have a relationship, but it's not a friendship, no matter how much I like and admire the people I work with in PR or in game development.
Here's what the relationship actually is: hostile symbiosis.
The industry gets hype and coverage of its products and the media gets its readers and its clicks. That symbiosis can only exist if both sides agree to some terms. One of those terms is that the media should be fair in their coverage, and give opportunities to their subjects to set the record straight; the other is that it's the media's job to expose blunders, deceits, and information about the industry. If media simply hyped the industry's products, it wouldn't be journalism at all. And if anything, game journalists agree to more terms than they should. Embargoes aren't a big deal, but sometimes the terms are downright crazy. And publishers play plenty of games, handing out review copies to different "tiers" of publication at different times, arranging "exclusive" interviews and previews with the biggest outlets, and so on and so forth.
PR may want us to all be little more than free advertising, but it's ridiculous to punish an outlet simply for doing its job. Kotaku spends plenty of time talking up video games that its writers enjoy, including games made by Bethesda and Ubisoft. That they also do their job and report on leaks and other information the publishers would like kept secret is something readers should embrace, not disavow.
(Update: Read Jason Schreier's post about this as well. A brief excerpt:
"Over the past few years, one of the things that’s bothered me most about covering the video game world is the PR-cultivated illusion that video game publishers and journalists are buddies, that they’re on the same team, working together toward the same goals....
"We’re in the business of telling stories, and often that means working together with devs and PR people in ways that are beneficial to everyone.
"But we’re not on the same team. And we’re certainly not in a relationship.")
But isn't Kotaku just making PR peoples' lives difficult?
Yes. The job of PR and marketing is to sell a product even if it's crap. The job of game journalists is to find out if a product is crap so that consumers don't buy it. If in that process we make the lives of PR people difficult, it's not because we want to make their lives difficult, it's because we are doing our job. Lucky PR people work for good companies with good products and reasonable expectations. It's not our fault if you work for a company who is okay with releasing crappy, buggy products and we call them out for it.
Okay fine, but isn't Kotaku biting the hand that feeds it? How can they be surprised to get their access revoked?
Honestly, I doubt Kotaku is surprised by this at all. Unfortunately, this type of thing is all too common.
But let's think about that concept of "biting the hand that feeds it" for a moment. There's a notion that, since Kotaku and other game outlets receive "free stuff" from the publishers that we shouldn't do anything to upset them or, at the very least, we shouldn't be surprised when "free stuff" goes away.
Nonsense. The free stuff in question, at least at a respectable outlet, amounts to free games. (I don't believe journalists should accept free travel and accommodations, as then you really do start to enter into an ethically questionable relationship.)
Anyways, the whole "free" part of the equation is pretty unimportant to game critics. What matters is that they're early. What matters is that we get copies before the game goes live.
Everyone wants a day-one or earlier review: the publication, the game's developer and publisher, aggregators like Metacritic, and the readers themselves. And in order to get that out the door, we need early copies.
Even then it can be a great challenge. Playing a game that takes dozens of hours in time to get a review written and posted by embargo can be very nearly impossible, especially if you don't get it early enough. Reviews get rushed this way. We see it all the time.
It's not wanting "free stuff" that motivates us, it's wanting to fulfill this agreement we all have. And by "we all" I'm including readers.
We all have an agreement that benefits publishers just as much as it benefits press just as much as it benefits readers. Withholding access is a self-defeating mechanism, because all those previews and interviews and reviews benefit publishers, too.
Imagine if every single game outlet joined together tomorrow and said: "We're not going to hype your games anymore. We don't want your review copies. We won't attend your preview events anymore and we won't attend your review bootcamps either. We'll publish our reviews and previews at our leisure."
This would be a huge setback for the industry, for developers and publishers.
Yes, it's fun to get an early copy of a game. But it's also my job. It's my job to play that game and report back to you about how it plays. It's also my job to publish something if gets leaked. I'm not biting the hand that feeds me. PR may control the spigot, but I don't need to drink from the tap. And that's why Totilo writes that "In some ways, the blacklist has even been instructive—cut off from press access and pre-release review copies, we have doubled down on our post-release “embedding” approach to games coverage. We’ve experienced some of the year’s biggest games from street level, at the same time and in the same way as our readers."
And I agree. I do my best to be respectful of the companies I work with, but I will never, ever shrink from telling it like I see it for fear of being cut off. I would hate to have my access to games and TV shows revoked because I say critical things about them, but if that's the price of journalism, so be it. My job isn't to be nice, it's to be honest. End of story. And truthfully, I think a lot of companies and PR people, even if this creates a hassle for them, respect that.
Okay, reporting useful information makes sense. But leaks aren't useful information, so Kotaku posting them isn't doing a journalist service...
Sure, not every leak is going to be terribly useful. Sometimes a leak turns out to be bad information. Sometimes it's little more than a leaked screenshot or the release date of a game. But that's really not the point.
A journalist's job is to provide the public with information. Sometimes we analyze or create a narrative with this information. Sometimes we simply share it because we know that on the whole, information can be useful and while it's the job of the corporations we cover to keep secrets, it's our job to share them.
If a journalist covers politics, and discovers a candidate is going to make an announcement about quitting his campaign next week, the journalist's job isn't to wait for the candidate to make the announcement, it's to report that information right now. If a journalist covers games and gets a batch of leaked screenshots or learns that a game is in dire straits, it's their job to report that also.
Granted, there are times when the public good is weighed against total transparency. Sometimes publications have to weigh the outcome of a story against questions of national security or an ongoing police case. Sometimes law enforcement or the government will seek to prevent a publication from going to press with information. But this is almost never going to be the case with video games.
It's also a journalist's job to verify and back up their information with as much evidence as possible. We should also make every effort to reach out for comment, to provide both sides of a story.
But it's not a journalist's job to sit on information and keep that information private, unless they've agreed to some sort of embargo or to going off the record. Breaking these sorts of agreements is bad form, since you've agreed to keep some information secret until an agreed upon time. If Kotaku had agreed to an embargo and then leaked the information, this would be a much different story. But that isn't the case here.
Likewise, "gotcha" journalism or journalism that twists the truth to fit a story is bad form and should be criticized.
Agreed! And Kotaku has done lots of that kind of journalism, too. They're part of Gawker, after all. How can we trust them?
I'm not saying you should, though Totilo's post should go a long way toward earning reader trust, in my opinion. I know Kotaku is a controversial publication, and I know I've had my disagreements with them in the past. But that's sort of beside the point. We're not discussing whether or not this is some sort of "karma" for bad things Kotaku may have done in the past. We're simply discussing what's right within this context. Is it right to publish leaks and other information companies prefer to keep secret? And is it right to blacklist journalists for doing their job? I would say yes to the former and no to the latter regardless of whether this was Kotaku or the New York Times.
But this screws up plans for creative people who are doing their best to make video games for us to play. That's mean!
Well, it might screw up plans for the marketing team and the PR people, but there's no reason that early leaked images are going to screw up the game itself. If anything, these types of leaks can build hype and get people talking about a game.
Sure, it's not in the strict time-frame that these companies had hoped for, but it isn't the end of the world either. If we learn the release date or the title of the next Call of Duty game before Activision wants us to, the sky won't fall for that company. Its PR team will simply find a new way to work with the circumstances (and they have practice by now, since Call of Duty is leaky as hell for some reason.) Some PR people will spin straw into gold; others will get upset and retaliate. I simply believe that the former is better business than the latter, especially for the long-term.
In fact, I would bet good money that some leaks aren't leaks at all, but rather part of subtle marketing campaigns, or at least that some companies turn a blind eye to leaks when they see that they can be used as viral marketing. But that's another story altogether.
It's about ethics in game journalism.
For the past few years I've been covering video games and looking at the industry, games journalism, and gamers themselves and how the entire trifecta gets along. It began with Mass Effect 3, and it continues to this day, from one question and controversy to the next. In this new era of #GamerGate, things have gotten super weird, though. A lot of people who claim to care about "ethics in game journalism" are criticizing Kotaku over this. And that's pretty absurd. You can dislike Kotaku all you like, but at least have the decency and the brains to be consistent in your quest for ethical journalism. Which, by the way, is exactly what Totilo's post is all about.
What I've come to believe is that most game journalists are not corrupt, but there is often too cozy a relationship between those covering the video game industry and the people and companies they're covering.
That coziness isn't necessarily one born out of greed or bad intentions, however. The real truth at the bottom of this well is simple: PR controls access, controls information. Theirs is the hand on the spigot, and those of us on the other end try very hard to walk a tightrope. On the one hand, to be truthful and sincere in our reporting; on the other, to be respectful and do our best to maintain a good relationship with PR and the industry at large. This isn't particularly easy, but it's the relationship we all find ourselves in. And when we push too hard, when we upset a developer or a publisher too much, in this particular industry it can mean being blacklisted or pushed into the bottom tier when it comes to receiving review copies, access to interviews, and so forth. Because the video game industry is too secretive, too controlling, too obsessed with maintaining their very careful narrative. And we journalists are too worried that we'll piss somebody off instead of simply doing the right thing, covering our bases, and telling it like it is.
A game publication has a responsibility to its readers first and foremost. As Totilo notes, "We serve our readers, not game companies, and will always do so to the best of our ability, no matter who in the gaming world is or isn’t angry with us at the moment."
Maintaining a good relationship with the industry is important, too, but not at the cost of doing the right thing. If I, as a journalist, vet my sources and give the companies and individuals I cover a chance to tell their side of the story, then the only wrong I can do is not give my readers the information they deserve.
A good PR team will treat leaks not as a crisis, but as an opportunity. Leaks go viral. Leaks build hype. Even controversy can help a game get more attention. Good PR will bend the circumstances to fit their agenda; lousy PR will retaliate with petty retribution.
So as you read this, as you discuss Kotaku, I hope you can look beyond your dislike for any of the personalities involved. You may not like Kotaku, you may not like Totilo, you may not like me. None of that matters. All that matters is that we understand what each of our roles in this is. A journalist's job is to tell the truth to their readers, even if that upsets the powers that be. A company can retaliate for this, too. That's their right. But just because it's their right, doesn't make it the right thing to do.
After all, while Bethesda is quite literally retaliating against Kotaku for posting leaked information about Fallout 4, Kotaku is not, in turn, punishing Bethesda with a bad review of that game. Their review is actually quite positive, giving the game a big green YES. They could have been petty and retaliated in the same way, but they chose not to. That matters.
Nor do I think Bethesda and Ubisoft are somehow "bad guys" for any of this. I think they're wrong but I think both companies do plenty things right also, and I respect and admire what they do well even while condemning bad actions. It's a nuanced world we live in, folks. Them's the breaks.
Shout out with thoughts in the comments.
I've reached out to both Bethesda and Ubisoft for comment and will update this post if and when they reply. Neither company responded to Kotaku's request for comment.
