Probably because you wrote articles based upon information they wanted to keep secret, obviously. Press sneak fuck didn't come from nowhere.
Probably need to get over it one of these days.
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Bethesda backtracks on its controversial review policy
- Thread starter Deleted member 249
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Probably need to get over it one of these days.
Also, there was a thread a couple of days ago with a video talking about High Voltage Software and how that company still feels reprocussions of leaks from 10 years ago. So there are impacts to leaks like that, you can understand why a company with tens of millions of dollars on the line would be pissed about what you did. You were entitled to do it, but you can't be surprised at their response.
Also LOL, why don't you just ask him yourself if you're that upset. I imagine the reason nobody is asking them that question on your behalf is that nobody really cares. You can still just buy Bethesda games and review them, talk about that. All it does is stop you getting early access which is a benefit of a good relationship. One you clearly don't have with them. No big deal.
I mean, I can understand it in terms of why they would want to do it. But that doesn't make it a good thing to have done. (And Kotaku is also already pretty darn big!)
A reporter shouldn't be beholden to a company's marketing plans.
Quality reporting – i.e. breaking news – has always been damaging to important actors in the field. Blacklisting outlets that do quality reporting has a chilling effect that is bad for that field of journalism as a whole, and consequently for us, the public. We should be annoyed at Bethesda for putting them on a blacklist. Bethesda being "within their rights" doesn't take that away.
And that company isn't beholden to a reporter potentially costing them loads of money in their eyes.
No, freedom of the press, is not related because this is between two non-governmental entities. Freedom of the press is the right of the press to express freely without the state or government interfering with that right.
A Kotaku and Bethesda disagreement is something else entirely. I am only disagreeing with your use of the phrase. Like when the alt-right complains about their free speech is oppressed because Twitter disabled their channel or YT takes down videos. Private entities have no such obligation to protect a person right to speak freely.
Bethesda's gonna be disingenuous to the bitter end.
I remember them sending out pre-release copies of Skyrim to streamers after enacting this stupid policy with the words: "We want everyone to experience the game at the same time".
And now they're being shitty as the roll back their dumb mistake.
I remember them sending out pre-release copies of Skyrim to streamers after enacting this stupid policy with the words: "We want everyone to experience the game at the same time".
And now they're being shitty as the roll back their dumb mistake.
Freedom of the press also protects them from being sued for publishing stolen information.
Again, I completely understand. What I don't understand is how anyone expects Bethesda to smile and shake hands with the very outlet that leaked internal documents and details about their upcoming games, damaging their marketing plans and costing them who knows what, and then blames Bethesda when they don't do that.
Let's be honest here. Jason's story on Fallout 4 didn't expose some terrible thing Bethesda did to its employees (like some of the other excellent pieces he did) or a reason why the game got canned. All it did was leak details that Bethesda were always going to eventually reveal. Only thing is that Jason did it before Bethesda was ready by 2 years. Jason, and in turn, Kotaku, made money off of Bethesda's internal documents and marketing plans. Bethesda didn't like that, and they chose not to deal with an outlet that chose to do that. We can sit and argue all we want about who's in the wrong here, but Jason asked why Bethesda thinks its acceptable to blacklist them because of the leak, and I'm just saying that this is what I believe the reason to be.
That comic is pathetic for several reasons and has very little to do with what actually happened here.
Plus, we weren't just blacklisted for reporting that Fallout 4 was real, information that was very, very newsworthy at the time given the existence of the Survivor 2299 hoax. We were blacklisted for reporting on that + Doom's troubled development + Arkane being saddled with the Prey IP (then calling out Pete Hines for saying in an interview that Arkane was not working on Prey).
Glad to hear it. In typical Pete Hines fashion of course.
Basically this. I love Kotaku and Jason's work but they're playing the victim just like Pete is here. It's not "being their marketing department" by not releasing Fallout 4 info before they were ready for it.
Bethesda's reasoning and justification is obvious. I'm just saying it's not a respectable justification and therefore doesn't warrant an understanding attitude. The mature thing to do would be to accept the leak as part of the game and then to get over it, perhaps taking a bit of responsibility yourself to prevent similar internal leaks in the future if they're really that harmful to the company (I assume you agree).
Not really.
As someone fluent in corporate-ese, the "we constantly iterate blah blah" is code for "we made a mistake." And the bit about "tired of seeing the policy brought up in reviews" is the data-driven justification for the policy reversal.
It's worded the way it is to avoid hurt feelings within Bethesda towards whomever it was who instated the policy in the first place, who was probably someone higher up—likely someone at Zenimax.
Yes that's true and irrelevant to the comparison I was making.
I never said Bethesda is duty bound to report to the press. I was making the comparison to a politician like Trump refusing access to certain outlets.
When Bethesda tries to manipulate press coverage for it's own gain, we are totally within our rights to criticize those actions.
You mean the site who at the time was building a reputation of not being professional?
I wonder why.......
Yeah I guess. I mean, Ubisoft gets its stuff leaked all the time and I don't remember them reacting as severely as this.
On the other hand, Ubisoft continues to get its stuff leaked all the time, while Bethesda continues to keep a surprisingly tight lid on the stuff they reveal and announce (excepet for the occasional 4chan leak, but those are usually ignored until proven otherwise). So maybe this is working to their benefit after all. Can't say personally considering I've no involvement to any party.
Pretty sure it has been like this since late last year with TEW2 and Wolfenstein 2. IGN got their review copy a few days early. Bethesda just never really said anything about it, but one of the IGN staff said so in their comments that the policy isn't there anymore since they've got their copy early. You only need to look at the date on TEW2 review to see that they got it early since part of it is marked the 12th and it came out on the 13th.
Edit: They are. So you can say they've reacted as severely as this.
I thought Ubisoft was the other Publisher that blacklisted Kotaku?
Edit: They are. So you can say they've reacted as severely as this.
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I don't think the policy hurt them as bad as ERA seems to think it did. Prey had a highly visible demo that did them no favors, and TEW2 had so little time to garner attention from announcement to launch, and was released into the holiday maelstrom.
I think post- No Man's Sky, it's a smart policy. Games can be significantly different (from a review perspective) on Day 1 than review code, you're adding another build milestone at crunch time, multiplayer isn't well populated, etc., and Metacritic doesn't allow for score revisions. The risk is obvious, and I don't think the reward necessarily is.
I think the attitude was the biggest problem. I don't think a company has sounded so arrogant since 90's Nintendo or 2000's EA.
That sounds miserable. Is it supposed to be like Borderlands or something?
I think post- No Man's Sky, it's a smart policy. Games can be significantly different (from a review perspective) on Day 1 than review code, you're adding another build milestone at crunch time, multiplayer isn't well populated, etc., and Metacritic doesn't allow for score revisions. The risk is obvious, and I don't think the reward necessarily is.
I think the attitude was the biggest problem. I don't think a company has sounded so arrogant since 90's Nintendo or 2000's EA.
That sounds miserable. Is it supposed to be like Borderlands or something?
Why do we hold games journalism to a higher standard only when it's convenient? As a community we get upset when game reviewers plagiarize; we expect more. But Kotaku gets blacklisted for years for actual journalism and this is okay? Does nobody remember what happened when Disney tried to blacklist the LA Times? If you don't like what's leaking out of your studio, fix it. Don't shoot the messenger.
poor bethesda that had a game leaked huh, must have fucked up all their marketing :(
ffs stop defending this absurd shit, it's pathetic
I'm not defending anything. Jason wants to know why nobody asks about him being blacklisted. It's because nobody cares.
Also lots of people worked extremely hard to have that work undermined by kotakus need for a few clicks. It's not just big marketing corporations.
Many outlets aren't given access to Bethesda products, what makes kotaku entitled to them? Kotaku are free to report on whatever they want about Bethesda, they just aren't given free Bethesda products to review.
Agreed.
They've been rotten as fuck when it came to reviews for a long while. Blacklisting Kotaku for simply reporting on facts (ahead of their press schedule ) is another example.
Arkane and Machine Games have borne the brunt of their idiocy.
Edit: autocorrect
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If your example of having a work undermined is the prey leak then yeah, that's not a real thing.
Yeah, no.
You could say this of undermining other people's works when Bethesda/Zenimax fucked Human Head's work. That would be worth it. Not Kotaku doing their job.
yep
they kept putting out great games and didn't let anyone review it
to bad when one of their games scores lower than usual we'll have to do this whole thing over again
About time, I think a few days - week of review hype would have really helped Wolf 2, Dishonoured 2 and TEW 2.
Their mega franchises are too big to really be affected by "bad" reviews too, so the policy was just making their job harder, for no real gain considering how well some of their stuff did review wise.
Their mega franchises are too big to really be affected by "bad" reviews too, so the policy was just making their job harder, for no real gain considering how well some of their stuff did review wise.
It was a dumb policy they should've never done. I'm pretty sure its one of the reasons that their single player games didn't do that well. You can't blame reviewers for explaining to their readers why the review is late. That's going to happen and that's something they should've thought about before implementing that policy.
To report substantial video game news, which Kotaku does occasionally. However, IMO I don't think that they should automatically get a free pass or blind-eye turned for leaking news that was going to come out eventually as part of a marketing plan. They did so under a guise of "revealing truth" but let's be honest with ourselves here, it's really for pageviews. I can appreciate Totilo standing up for his writers as an editor, but just like it felt right for them to release Fallout 4 information, it is within the rights of Bethesda to "blacklist" (loosely used term) Kotaku for review codes. Dramaticism on both sides as far as I'm concerned; Bethesda for being so inflexible and not just leaving it alone and Kotaku for continuing to cry foul under the banner of "truth" and "newsworthy" when they really wanted the first hot take that could've proved harmful to a consumer surprise and brand marketing.
Edit: changed press releases to review codes
Couldn't be helped as it wasn't even leaked internally but externally. If I recall, one of the casts took it home and her Husband leaked it.
Again, save for Dishonored 2, TEW2 and Wolfenstein 2 weren't affected by this because the review policy was gone by then. I honestly don't know why News Sites didn't report on it when it was something they hated.
Proof. Would be nice for longer even then. Not sure if that has improved.
Phantom Thief, not sure if you want to put that in, but I figured I'd let you know anyways.
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They couldn't actually post the reviews until day 1 though right? Just were able to get a copy early. I think that period where reviews are out, but the game isn't could have really helped some of them sell better out the gate.
Though I guess, it's not clear if they'll change that I guess.
The issue has always been more about review copies not being sent out until the day of. Not saying that reviews not being up before the release date hasn't been an issue, but it wasn't anything compared to this. Still, I understand the reasons for them not allowing reviews up before the release date, even though I don't completely agree with it all (some of it I do).
Bethesda was the only one with this policy I think. A lot of Publishers have the policy of waiting until the release date for sites to put up their reviews.
This isn't new. Both TEW2 and Wolf 2 had advance copies for reviewers. People need to find a different scapegoat for poor sales.
Reducing it to the Fallout 4 leak isn't doing your argument any favours when everybody knows why Beth got pissed at Kotaku.
This rationalization of Bethesda's Kotaku blacklist is kind of a disturbing phenomenon in this thread. You can find what Kotaku did problematic, but even if Kotaku did fuck up, no one should be advocating for blacklisting as the solution. This level of attempted publisher control on a journalistic outlet was the entire reason gamespot melted down, and rightly so. There is zero excuse for black-listing... it's never, ever justifiable, and particularly in this case given Kotaku has tried to (and I think successfully) made some major changes in the past 5 years.
EDIT: jschreier himself said it much more eloquently below.
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I'd like you to elaborate if you're keen on doing so. And I don't view my argument as a reduction so much as it is a substantiated example of why a developer would choose not to interact with a news outlet that could potentially harm their future brand. I have a very middle-of-the-fence attitude about the whole thing but trying to cherry pick around the "Fallout 4 incident" doesn't make what actually happened any less true or invalid.
Sucks that it ruined some dsles for SP games but in general I think it was a stupid issue.
It made people think the games were bad which they weren't.
It made people reacy negatively because they couldn't wouldn't buy the game day 1.
I understand with hie fast paced everything is but I still think it is a bit stupid.
It made people think the games were bad which they weren't.
It made people reacy negatively because they couldn't wouldn't buy the game day 1.
I understand with hie fast paced everything is but I still think it is a bit stupid.
I can't definitively say why Bethesda blacklisted us (because they have ignored our emails and calls), but it happened at the end of 2013, a year that included a few major stories from me involving them:
1) I reported on the development hell of the new Doom game: https://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-show-how-doom-4-got-off-trac-468097062
2) I reported that Arkane was being saddled with the Prey IP despite some of them not wanting to make a Prey game: https://kotaku.com/we-hear-the-people-behind-dishonored-are-now-working-on-510646344
3) I reported that, despite Pete Hines denying it in interviews, Arkane was indeed making a Prey reboot: https://kotaku.com/leaked-e-mails-suggest-bethesda-misled-gamers-about-pre-1149092622
4) I reported that, despite the massive Survivor2299 hoax that fooled many people, Bethesda was indeed making a Fallout 4: https://kotaku.com/leaked-documents-reveal-that-fallout-4-is-real-set-in-1481322956
I stand by all four of those stories, and all of them had news value - none of them were simply leaks for the sake of leaks. Bethesda is of course entitled to do whatever they'd like, but their now-nearly-five-years-running blacklist sets a terrible precedent and suggests that the company is only willing to work with outlets who play ball, which is embarrassing.
1) I reported on the development hell of the new Doom game: https://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-show-how-doom-4-got-off-trac-468097062
2) I reported that Arkane was being saddled with the Prey IP despite some of them not wanting to make a Prey game: https://kotaku.com/we-hear-the-people-behind-dishonored-are-now-working-on-510646344
3) I reported that, despite Pete Hines denying it in interviews, Arkane was indeed making a Prey reboot: https://kotaku.com/leaked-e-mails-suggest-bethesda-misled-gamers-about-pre-1149092622
4) I reported that, despite the massive Survivor2299 hoax that fooled many people, Bethesda was indeed making a Fallout 4: https://kotaku.com/leaked-documents-reveal-that-fallout-4-is-real-set-in-1481322956
I stand by all four of those stories, and all of them had news value - none of them were simply leaks for the sake of leaks. Bethesda is of course entitled to do whatever they'd like, but their now-nearly-five-years-running blacklist sets a terrible precedent and suggests that the company is only willing to work with outlets who play ball, which is embarrassing.
Jason himself wrote in this thread. He replied to you. You can refer to his post instead of conveniently ignoring it.