Thank you Kotaku, and a call to Blackball Sony
March 1st, 2007As if on cue, Sony has confirmed (via Kotaku) our fears about publishers bullying journalists with demands that, typically, lead to journalists simply cozying up right next to their bullies.
While I won’t recap everything that’s in Kotaku’s excellent post about what happened, essentially what happened is that Kotaku heard a rumor relating to something Sony was developing, Kotaku contacted Sony for a response, Sony threatened Kotaku that they would lose all priviliges they originally had with Sony if they went forward with the story/rumor, Kotaku published the story, and Sony, as they had threatened to do, blackballed Kotaku.
Kotaku, thankfully, demonstrated outstanding journalistic integrity by refusing to be bullied into burying a rumor that they heard from outside sources. Again, thank you Kotaku.
And Sony continues their horrific PR streak with possibly their worst outing yet (I’m tempted to count it as 2 strikes, but to be fair, I’ll count it only as 1, and they’re up to 8).
It’s completely ridiculous that Sony would do this. Why didn’t they just go with the standard “We don’t comment on rumors”? Why the hell do they think they’re so damn important that someone can’t report on a rumor that they hear about them? We’re not talking about U.S. interests or national security here or something, this is about freaking VIDEOGAMES.
In any case, Sony thinks that this is bad news for Kotaku. Well, I can tell you something Sony: your customers and fans want good, objective journalists. While we have only just started this website, I can honestly tell you that if we had any upcoming appointments or engagements scheduled with Sony, I would cancel them.
To game journalists: you want to boost your cred substantially in the gaming community and actually show you have journalistic integrity? Join me and Blackball Sony right back in support of Kotaku. I’m talking about everyone , IGN, Gamespot, 1up, Gamespy, Joystiq, Destructoid… everyone. Cancel all of your appointments and press events, refuse to use demo units (you’ll just have to wait for the retail copies), and report only on news that Sony releases publically. Sony thinks they don’t need you, so see how they like it when you’re not there.
This should be in effect until Sony apologizes not just to Kotaku, but to the entire gaming community. I know we have a few readers out there, so I encourage you to contact all of your favorite sites and tell them to blackball Sony. I will definitely be doing the same.
Posted in Idiocy, Industry, Jeff, Journalism, Sony |
March 1st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Yes, Sony should definitely be punished for trying to protect their investments from the gaming paparazzi. Good game.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:45 pm
ninjelephant:
Give me a break. Sony has NDA’s with everyone working for them… Someone leaked this information, that’s who they should be firing and potentially suing. Kotaku has every right, via the first amendment, to post that crap. Sony could’ve easily just said “No Comment” and it would’ve come and gone as a rumor until whenever Sony decided to confirm it. What they did now was, not only essentially confirm the rumor, but show the world that they think the press should do whatever they want… Well, guess what… Kotaku had the balls to prove them wrong.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:48 pm
you truly are an idiot.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Yes, thank you for that insightful comment. I feel horrible now.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Sony didn’t “Fire” or “Sue” Kotaku. They just elected to use their own “right” to severe their own established relationship with them. They chose to stop dedicating time and money to a “company” (yes that’s what Kotaku is at this point, even if they hide under the guise of “bloggers”) that was doing things they felt were very detrimental to their own interests.
Sony did nothing wrong. It wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing they could have done - but I don’t believe it was wrong.
As for Kotaku, I can’t think of any reason they’re any better than the paparazzi in the movie world. They ultimately do the exact same thing. Of course that’s what their readers want, or they wouldn’t exist in the first place.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:07 pm
ninja, are you some kind of industry shill?
First of all, kotaku isn’t anything like celebrity paparazzi. They have a website with news and commentary. How is that anything like accosting celebrities with cameras?
And do you enjoy reading coerced PR material in the guise of unbiased information and reviews? Apparently you do.
Maybe ignorance is bliss to the Sony fanboy.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Ninjelephant-
Well, I disagree a bit with your analysis.
Lets try and put this into a different realm of journalism.
Lets say we have a Wall Street Journal Marketplace journalist who covers the automobile industry. They hear from an anonymous source that Ford will be introducing a mid-sized car that gets 200mpg and can do 0-60 in 4 seconds. The journalist decides to call his/her Ford contact to try to confirm the rumor. Ford says “If you publish anything relating to that, our relationship is done and you can never contact us again.”
What is the journalist’s responsibility here? The public would certainly like to know about a product like that, but he/she should just accede to the Ford’s demands?
So, why should it be any different for Kotaku, and why does that make them the “same” as Paparazzi? It’s not like they were hounding Sony executives and employees for information, they were simply tipped.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Allanon,
Ironically I think Sony is a horrible and arrogant company. So much so that I refuse to buy a PS3, even though I’m a technology whore who generally picks up every gadget I can get my hands on.
That said, no - I’m not an industry “shill”, but I do own a small technology company which I’ve dedicated the last 5 years of my life to building. Both my company and my clients have a huge potential of being hurt drastically by these types of situations, so it is in fact something I’ve put a lot of thought into.
As for my enjoyment of reading PR propaganda - not at all. But it’s simply not that black and white. I believe it is ok for a company to maintain control over information until they feel it should be released. For example, do I feel that as an iPod user, I have the RIGHT to know about upcoming Apple products? No, I sure don’t. What I do want, is once it’s released I want to hear opinions on it, I want to hear it ripped apart if its bad, or praised if it’s good. I want editorials from bloggers and journalists who both have, and don’t have relationships with the companies. And that’s just one example of where I think they add value. There are plenty of other things for journalists to do.
Honestly, from the perspective of someone who developers products and understands the huge amount of work, effort, and money that goes into releasing them - I don’t see any value in releasing ‘rumors’ like this. That is of course, beyond the fact that people love sitting around and reading them all day…and of course giving Kotaku plenty of clicks.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Nobody’s saying Kotaku didn’t have a first amendment right to publish that info. However, Sony ALSO has the right to ask for their debug unit back and cut off Kotaku’s access. They were up front about it. They told them, if you publish this leak, this is what we’re gonna do. Kotaku published it, and Sony made good on their word.
I see no problem here. Kotaku’s PS3 and access to Sony’s info are rights rather than privilages.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Jeff,
Actually I think your analogy is a direct mirror of what happened here, and in that case I don’t think it is the public’s business what Ford is working on, any more than my iPod example, Sony’s release, or any other product being developed.
What you’re ultimately saying is that because the public wants to know, it makes it right. More directly, because the public wants to know, and it’s a journalist’s job (in your words, “responsibility”) to keep the public “informed”, than THAT makes it right. Personally I don’t believe it’s that black and white.
It’s a journalists responsibility to keep the public informed about things they want to know. I’m sure the public would like to know Angelina Jolie’s home phone number, or Bill Gate’s ATM PIN number… Does that mean it’s right for a journalist to obtain and distribute it? What if they don’t hound for it, but rather someone hands it to them… Does that make it right? And yes, of course that’s private information – but in the case of confidential information within a company, it’s really no different.
So let’s take it back to business, but a step further. What if I was a journalist who reported on Widgets. What if I was handed information about a completely new Widget being worked on by Widget Corporation of America (WCA), by a disgruntled employee who missed a promotion to Senior Director of Extremely Advanced Widget Design. Now lets say this particularly Widget is revolutionary, something that WCA invested millions and millions of dollars into – and the unique aspect of it would give WCA a first mover advantage in the Widget market, assuming their competitors didn’t get knowledge of it before they got a chance to release it… Obviously the widget consumers would just love to know about this crazy new widget 6 months before it comes out. Does that make it right for the journalist to report on it? Does satisfying the rumor lust of consumers outweigh the competitive consequences? I’m curious on your take.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Let’s put this in another light…
“No, I don’t want to do my homework, Mom!”
“Honey, if you don’t do your homework, you can’t play any more Xbox for the rest of the night.”
“Waaaaaaaa!!!!” Little Johnny tosses his pencil on the table and moves toward the Xbox. Just as he powers it on, the light on the television blinks out. Shock fills his eyes as he looks over at his mom, who smiles, waving the power cord at him as she rolls it up and puts it in her pocket.
Kotaku was requested to not post a rumor, and was given a consequence of their actions. They posted the rumor, and they got what was coming to them.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Sefea and Ninjelephant and everyone-
Thank you all for your great comments so far… keep them coming.
Perhaps in my initial response, I jumped the gun a bit with my anger… but I think what triggered the anger is still somewhat relevant (I’ll get to your widget example momentarily).
What it looks like Sony did here was try to essentially bribe Kotaku into not publishing a story. In general, I think most people frown upon bribery, because it essentially challenges your objectiveness and impartiality. The extent to which you believe Sony was basically trying to bribe Kotaku probably affects how angry you are with it.
Sony’s PR track record isn’t exactly fantastic either, which certainly doesn’t help. I documented in a post yesterday all of Sony’s PR failings, and the reason why people are so pissed at them is because it’s essentially easily provable that Sony is lying to them, and that Sony essentially takes its customers for granted. With this latest episode, it makes it seem like Sony takes the journalists covering them for granted as well. Perhaps it’s intended, since their recent record is so bad with them… but however you slice it, while it looks like bribery coming from Sony, it would probably look bad coming from any company.
As for the widget example… the simple solution to this has already been developed: the patent. People had heard rumors for months about Nintendo’s “revolution” before it came out… motion controls, virtual reality, you name it… Nintendo, to our knowledge, didn’t threaten to cut off all communication if a site reported on the rumors… likely because they had patents going, and because it’s a lot easier just to say “No comment”.
Also, we’re not talking about someone leaking entire blueprints and design documents… we’re talking about a really general rumor… People have been talking about an Apple iPhone for probably years… Now, Apple doesn’t have the greatest PR track record either, but did Apple go around banning the WSJ for even mentioning that Apple was “rumored” to be working on an iPhone (which I’m sure they, as everyone else, did)?
March 1st, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Jeff,
Apple is a great example. They don’t threaten to cut off press benefits, they just throw out lawsuits like Halloween candy. You can ask ThinkSecret.com about that one.
Ok, bribes… This is an interesting one, it can be looked at from multiple perspectives. For example, weren’t they accepting bribes all along by taking debug units, invites to activities, etc? Wasn’t having a relationship with the company (which is what is being broken) what gave Sony the ammo to start this? If they wanted to be impartial they shouldn’t have had this relationship in the first place – which is what Sony ultimately gave them today.
I find it funny that a lot of people are saying Sony should have offered them an exclusive in exchange for not releasing the information. I don’t think these individuals are thinking this through, as ironically this, which would set a precedent for other blogs ultimately blackmailing companies like Sony. They could dig up confidential information, and make a simple call along the lines of “I won’t release this if you give me an exclusive on X…”. Is that right?
As for the Patent premise…. This is a whole other discussion, as our (speaking from the perspective of a US citizen) intellectual property system and the related legalities are a complete mess in my opinion.
From a large companies perspective, this is one pseudo defense they have, but ultimately it’s not always an effective one. Our patent system does in fact produce many leaks, and much unnecessary early competition. The problem is that patent protection and early mover’s advantage are ultimately very different things, offering different benefits to different people.
First of all, my idea or product may or may not be something that is realistically patentable given either the product itself, or my own circumstances as a company. For example, by my patent leaking publically (and instantly to my competitors) to another company, they may be able to copy my idea and change it just enough to avoid infringing on my patent. They can possibly rush production and get out as fast if not faster than I can. This is complicated by the fact that not all companies are created equal. What if I’m a little company creating a unique product, and the company who steals my idea is Microsoft. Sue them! Right? Wrong. If I tried to sue Microsoft for stealing my idea, chances are I’d go out of business long before the lawsuit ended (or even started). Lawsuits are EXTREMELY expensive, much more so than the average small company (no matter how cool our ideas) can afford.
For a small company a patent may not be an option at all. When I started my company we strongly considered patents, so much so that we spent $250/h to meet with an IP attorney about the subject, only to be told we couldn’t afford it. It turned out that each patent we’d need would cost us $10,000-$30,000. That was more than I made that year.
So, the only solution I have is an early movers advantage (and ironically in today’s market, trying to get bought by the company that would otherwise steal my idea). For me this is literally speaking from personal experience – I’ve personally gone through everything I said above. Thankfully my direct product isn’t sexy enough that blog sites are going to rampage us, but unfortunately the products we work with very much are.
And yes, you’re not talking about blueprints – that’s correct. But we are talking in generalities, about amendments and freedoms of press and so on. We’re not talking about drawing lines, but rather complex concepts. And I can take this not very much further, to another blog site like Engadget.com which HAS in fact hurt my business in the past due to leaks not all that different from the example today.
And don’t worry about jumping the gun with your anger – that’s what blogs seem to be all about these days. ~(:
Ok, I really really need to take my dog to the dog park before she pees on my foot. I look forward to a response.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:34 pm
agreed on the PR thing. Sony needs to fire pretty much everyone in that department, cause UGH >:(
March 1st, 2007 at 7:41 pm
You can shut the fuck up and quit with the Sony rebellion. Both have kissed and made up. Now Dont you look stupid. And if you want to know, kotaku called sony about the issue. Ill tell everyone I meet to steer clear of this biased shitty ass site for real. lol.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/sony/sony-and-kotaku-makeup-240922.php
March 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Ninje-
Again, thanks for your great response. Its great to have the perspective of someone in your position, and you’ve definitely made me have to think about it. I hope you’ll continue to return to our humble site. =)
I could probably make a few responses, but I think in the end we’ll probably have to agree to disagree here… as we could probably go on all day.
And of course, I’d like to think that because of my efforts here, as soon as it began, it ended… Sony and Kotaku have made up. I’ll have another post up soon.
Seafea- I assume you are responding to my comment on Kotaku, so yes… especially now that Sony and Kotaku have made up and are basically back to where they were before, except that now Sony looks far far worse then they did before (when a simple “No comment” would’ve avoided the whole thing). Sony needs to seriously revamp their entire PR staff.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:56 pm
jimmy,
The reason Sony changed course was because they realized how playing the bully made them look bad. Unlike ninja’s hypothetical situation, Sony isn’t losing any competitive advantage when Kotaku prints a rumor days before the official announcement.
So if anybody looks stupid, it’s you for being such an ass. There was plenty of insightful commentary in this threat, and your comment was not part of it.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Thanks for another insightful comment Jimmy. Unfortunately, I’m unable to make updates to my blog with my mind yet, so while I did see the update, I have been unable to post about it yet (I did comment about it in here though, apparently while you were trashing my site).
And according to Kotaku’s post, Sony called Kotaku… not the other way around. This has been a PR disaster for Sony, any way you slice it.
And for the record, if I’m biased, it’s only against Sony’s ridiculous bad PR machine. I’m indifferent when it comes to the PS3 right now, but at the same time, my most anticipated game right now is God of War 2. When the PS3 gets games that interest me, I may even buy that too. But, I, of course, can still criticize them as I do Nintendo and Microsoft.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I got my words switched with kotaku callling sony. My bad for that. Ill stick to everything else though.
“want to boost your cred substantially in the gaming community and actually show you have journalistic integrity? Join me and Blackball Sony right back in support of Kotaku. I’m talking about everyone , IGN, Gamespot, 1up, Gamespy, Joystiq, Destructoid… everyone. Cancel all of your appointments and press events, refuse to use demo units (you’ll just have to wait for the retail copies), and report only on news that Sony releases publically. Sony thinks they don’t need you, so see how they like it when you’re not there.”
Get the fuck outta here with that shit. “Join be and rebel against sony”
what a fucktard.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
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March 1st, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Jeff,
Thanks for the great conversation. Although I’m an avid reader, generally I avoid posting on blogs and such primarily due to people like little Jimmy.
After a day or two of reading the comment logs of sites like Joystiq and Kotaku, I’d be willing to bet Time would have rethought their “Person of the Year”.
I’ve got you guys bookmarked.
NE
March 1st, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I couldn’t agree with you more there… I often wonder why I even bother responding to these people… And really, it’s my blog, I could just erase them… hm… censorship vs. civil conversation… =)
March 1st, 2007 at 11:19 pm
hehe. Actually I just now found out that Sony and Kotaku made up. I was more commenting on how Sony seems to have this massive streak of bad PR/marketing decisions going.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
[...] a flurry of activity on Thursday, I disappeared for awhile. While it may surprise you that this site [...]
March 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
[...] Sony’s horrible PR track record, they manage to outdo Nintendo in the PR game for GDC and hopefully stop the bleeding. Will [...]
March 11th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“After a day or two of reading the comment logs of sites like Joystiq and Kotaku, I’d be willing to bet Time would have rethought their “Person of the Year”.”
I about spit milk on my keyboard there. Good one.
The comments are the very reason I stopped going to Joystiq. That and absolute hack that is Vlad Cole. Kotaku is not nearly as bad, having a system where not just anyone can post, and posters get actively banned for being too “jimmy”.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
actually, kotaku comments are almost as bad, if not equally so, as joystiq.
oh, and sorry about your keyboard, cisco. Even if it’s four months late XD