On the Catherine announcement: a letter to the games industry
Lewis Denby March 1, 2011 - 10:07 am
Dear games industry,
It has come to my attention that, recently, there has been a bit of confusion about the concept of lying, and how that makes us feel about you.
It started with the whole saga about a possible Dragon Age 2 demo. On this occasion, when an internal GameStop memo leaked, revealing a demo release for the end of February, you went on-record to say it didn’t reveal this at all. Instead, you said, it was badly worded. There would be no Dragon Age 2 demo publicly available.
A few hours later you announced that there’d be a public Dragon Age 2 demo.
This time, games industry, it’s about the release of weirdo Japanese puzzle game Catherine. Last week you categorically stated that you had no plans to release it outside of that country. But you were lying, weren’t you? Because just a few days later, you’ve sent word that Catherine will be released in Europe and North America, this summer, on Xbox 360 and PS3.
Games industry, you so frequently claim that the gaming press cannot be trusted to report the facts in a clear manner, that we take your developers’ quotes out of context, and that we’ll post anything we can in order to drive traffic to our site.
However, if you actually lie to us when we ask you for a piece of information – not decline to comment, or vague us off, but actually lie, you guarantee that what we print is going to be deceptive, misleading to our readership (and, by extension, your player base), and untrue.
It is disrespectful, games industry. You do not have to make a comment about everything you’re asked. Or, if you don’t want something to leak, you can give us the correct information under a non-disclosure agreement, as sometimes happens. But instead, you supply us with deliberately false information, which we print, and when the truth comes out, everyone gets annoyed with everyone, and you sit there looking all innocent like a little baby.
This needs to change, or we are going to fall out.
Yours sincerely,
Games journalism
Comments (8)
Marketing and PR people are snakes.
“By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself.
No, no, no it’s just a little thought. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they’ll take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do.
Aaah, no really, there’s no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers. Okay – kill yourself – seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you’re going, “there’s going to be a joke coming,” there’s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It’s the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, “he’s doing a joke…” there’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend – I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi… Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing, he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.”
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
“Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now, he’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research – huge market. He’s doing a good thing.”
Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
“Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill’s very bright to do that.”
God, I’m just caught in a fucking web.
“Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market – look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar…”
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you?
“What didya do today honey?”
“Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight.” [snores] “Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?” [snores] “Yeah, you know the mums will love it.” [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don’t ya, this is your world isn’t it? ” – Bill Hicks
Good call.
When all else fails to capture how you feel, there is always Bill Hicks routines.
Is it really people supplying false information, or is it a case of different people inside large organisations not communicating properly with each other?
Either seems plausible.
Well either way, the buck still falls on the company. Unfortunately not everyone that makes comments about what is going on at a company may be as informed as others. However a company needs to make sure that if they have staff speaking on its behalf, that they get it right.
Are you people fucking retarded? When was the last time you asked a question about UNRELEASED information and gotten an exclusive answer? When was the last time Apple or fuck, any companys PR team gave out exclusive shit to RUIN their public announcement?
Grow the fuck up.
Actually companies do it all the time, it just depends what fits in with their marketing.
If a company does not want certain content released, then when they are asked specific questions they should be straight, and let the person asking know that they are not able to confirm/deny or answer the question. It’s really very simple, and would not create as much confusion. There are ways of handling it, that would be beneficial for all those involved with the industry, including but not limited to the companies and journalists.
It’s not good for any company if they are releasing information which is bad/not accurate/confusing, as that information gets published on various sites. It doesn’t serve the industry well either. Whether or not each person working in the industry cares for each other or not (individual to individual, company to individual, company to journalist/other media, etc), there should still be a level of industry respect to get the right information out.
btw… companies leak information all the time (even Apple) when it suits their purposes, it’s how most know about things coming out, long before they are officially announced by the company, it’s what helps create buzz for the product, and some of the fastest and easiest marketing.
I really don’t see the problem. People love drama, why do you think anyone watches the Bold and the Beautiful or Days of Our Lives? Not all of them can have brain-damage. I pay no attention to sports news until there’s a scandal which validates me to judge those who get paid in the hundreds of thousands to take drugs and have sex with under-age girls.
And when we think about it, the only ones they are going to hurt are themselves. Advertising improperly will hurt sales and cause rifts with journalists, and the ensuing news stories will be that much more interesting, that much more juicy it’ll make for entertainment.
As long as no innocent party gets hurt, then we’re pretty much fine and can sit back and watch controversy unfold.
I can’t blame marketers or PR. The reason those positions exist is because the people who fall for their bullshit exist in abundance. Leave them in their little habitats, predator and prey, and try to do as I do, sit in the crowd and applaude their little charades.