Friday Rant
By SteveAn article at Gamasutra, “PR And The Game Media: How PR Shapes What You Think About Games,” by Robert Ashley and Shawn Elliott, kind of bugs me. Not because it’s a bad article. It gives a fair overview of the relationship between PR and the game media, and how it’s a wee-bit too chummy. You’ll get no arguments from me on that point. 
(I do think it misses another, possibly bigger issue; the relationship between the press and developers. That one is often much stronger and more back scratching than the one with PR, particularly with members o the press that have less of a financial interest in a publication’s ad sales. One funny sidebar: I once had a publisher suddenly start “recommending” a certain writer review their products; as a result, I stopped using that writer. He or she has now gone on to bigger and better editorial shilling, on TV no less.)
What bugs me about the article—and most other, similar ones—is that it holds print magazines to a completely different standard than it does websites.
For example, the article says, “Advertising dollars from game publishers and hardware manufacturers pay for the production of the popular gaming magazines.”
Well, OK. Everyone knows this is true. But why single out print for this? Aren’t most websites equally reliant on advertising for revenue, a lot of it from game companies? Magazines have a few other revenue streams—subscriptions and newsstand sales—that could, in theory, be profitable on their own. (In reality, they aren’t.) And websites do a better job of appealing to non-endemic advertisers (i.e. ones that aren’t game companies). So how are they different in this area?
The article has a PR rep talking about a “six-page spread,” but where are the comments about securing the week-long, front-page coverage on a major website?
Here’s another quote: “But in allowing a publication access to a game and the people who created it, publishers exert a subtle influence. The greatest tool in their arsenal is the exclusive, often taking the form of a sought-after cover story for magazines.”
This is true. The exclusive is a valuable tool for publishers and the press alike. Even Washington gets in on it; Bush is almost exclusively interviewed on FoxNews nowadays.
“In this age of instantaneous online news distribution, print publications rely on exclusivity deals with game publishers to give them a leg up on the electronic competition,” it continues.
In other words, it’s a print publication problem.
Hello? Websites also rely on exclusivity deals with game publishers to give them a leg up on each other. There’s the week-long feature, or ones that get the most prominent position on the homepage for more than a day. A lot of those specific items—length, placement, promotion, etc.—are negotiated by websites with PR reps in exchange for access.
The only anecdote that shows the press in a positive like is the one about Kotaku, and that’s only because its editor chose to go public with something most editors have probably dealt with on a number of occasions but never felt any compulsion to go public with; the request to squash a story, and the fear of retribution. (And isn’t it amusing that Kotaku produces weekly content that thanks their advertisers by name; this week, Bioshock gets a shout-out. Imagine if a print magazine did such a thing. People would be outraged. Outraged!)
Certainly, we should all celebrate the brave editors of Kotaku for sticking their necks out and daring to print a preview about a service that was coming to a console before it was officially announced. It was positively Bernstein and Woodward-esque in its importance. Lives were saved! And at what risk? They might lose out on an exclusive God of War III preview? How would they deal with that? Imagine the cost! Again, lives would be lost!
Sony’s reaction was stupid and immature, and Kotaku’s public response was self-serving. (At least as a first step; if Sony followed through with its empty threats—hey, it could use the publicity—I’d say publish away.)
The article even acknowledges how silly all of this is, saying, “Of course, this isn’t a matter of life or death. We’re talking about entertainment here, not the war in Iraq.” But it didn’t stop the writers from spending nearly a quarter of the story talking about Kotaku.
Anyway, there’s a fundamental disconnect with pieces like this. Everyone likes to take potshots at print and its waning influence, while at the same time point out its corruption. Let’s assume that it’s all true, that print is corrupt. Who cares? It has less influence than the web. And if we’re to assume the game industry is buying off print journalists, why would they target print if it’s less influential than online? Why wouldn’t they target websites?
My head just exploded.
(And here’s a funny bit o’ irony; now that I work for a game company, do I need to fear the retaliation of the press if I choose to write or say something negative about it in public?)
August 11th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Hey Steve, very good comments indeed. Part of the reason why the piece seems quite print-focused is that it was originally slated to appear in a print magazine. We attempted to adapt it somewhat, but as you can see, its print-centric nature still shone through a bit.
Personally, I think that the web still comes under less scrutiny for PR people attempting to get ‘exclusives’, etc, because a lot of PR folks still ‘get’ magazines a lot better than they get the web, and because you can control print exclusives more easily in terms of information.
Indeed, there seem to be relatively few, if any web game announcement exclusives - right? What you _do_ get is timed interviews that were embargoed to the announcement, and may be given to outlets that the PR peopel know, but the information disseminates at the same time. Still, I agree that it’s the same basic idea.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
There are only a handful of major games a year that are worth the big cover reveal. Is it a big issue, particularly if everyone agrees that print is less important?
Every game has dozens of “exclusives” parceled out to every entity on the planet—print and web—and each one has the same negotiations, with the same potential issues brought up in the article. Everyone fixates on the announcement because it’s a big deal, but those articles closer to release probably traffic just as strongly. (And end up having a bigger PR impact than the one two years from release.) If the reveal cover story is a big deal, isn’t the “exclusive hands-on playtest of Bioshock” a week from release at Gamespot? Or the “week of Halo 3″ at IGN? (These are just made-up articles.)
Even if you say “But it’s about print,” the only example of “fightin’ the man and risking screwing up this cozy relationship” focuses on a website. What I take away from this—and it’s admittedly my defensive print-loving brain speaking—is that blogs in particular and websites in general are the only ones brave enough to risk the wrath of PR. Which is goofy. (The article even veers off to talk about Major Nelson, and direct contact with fans, which has nothing to do with print.)
August 11th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I just remembered one incident: We were sued by a (still in existence) publisher for running a preview that “screwed up” their exclusive with another publication.
What was really goofy about this incident is that they invited us to see the game and gave us all of the resources; they asked us to pull the article at the last second, which we couldn’t/wouldn’t do.
Because of that lawsuit, we didn’t cover their products for years.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I know who it was! I know who it was!
August 11th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
“What bugs me about the article—and most other, similar ones—is that it holds print magazines to a completely different standard than it does websites.”
Damn good point. Notice how it’s never print magazines with a story like this. When, if anything, print has more safeguards against this sort of thing than your average “shared-blog” website. Subtle “printism”? Oh yeah, big time.
August 11th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
“Notice how it’s never print magazines with a story like this.”
Print can’t really cover itself; that is, you can’t expect PC Gamer to cover Games For Windows. There’s such an obvious conflict-of-interest and bias there that any article would be questionable, no matter how well done.
Gamasutra (or Game Developer) is unique in that it can cover the media, as it’s not really “the media” because of its developer-centric approach, so therefore it’s not a direct competitor.
Like it would champion developer rights, whereas PC Gamer should champion gamer rights.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I think we had this conversation at GDC, didn’t we?
One reason why I think print is usually held to a different standard is that the reader/observer is well aware that he/she is paying for the opinion. Therefore, the reader is more sensitive to the idea that the coverage it is getting isn’t on the up and up. If something is free, you generally worry about the PR filter in a different way.
And, online, the cry of “BIAS!!!” is so routine that no one takes it all that seriously anymore. You either assume that some sites/writers/editors are irredeemably corrupted or you just move on as if it doesn’t really matter. We are so used to being told not to believe anything we read online that we are shocked to discover that sometimes you can’t trust what you read in print.
August 12th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
(And here’s a funny bit o’ irony; now that I work for a game company, do I need to fear the retaliation of the press if I choose to write or say something negative about it in public?)
The free publicity would sell games anyway. Either way they push it in the press, you would win. Well, unless it got you fired. That wouldn’t be good. You just made a 5000 mile trip (5000?). You don’t need to make another one.
August 12th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Indeed, there seem to be relatively few, if any web game announcement exclusives - right?
Gamespot owns Bio Shock coverage, and has had it from the very start, including the initial reveal years ago.
We are so used to being told not to believe anything we read online that we are shocked to discover that sometimes you can’t trust what you read in print.
I’d be willing to bet that my dictionary has more typos of critical nature than HowStuffWorks.com has ever made. Maybe you were looking for a different standard, but I think I just gave a big bonus to digital editing and context sensitive reasoning either way. Well, maybe I didn’t do anything at all, but it was profound in its nothingness.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“Gamespot owns Bio Shock coverage, and has had it from the very start, including the initial reveal years ago.”
I didn’t know this. But check this quote from Gamespot’s “BioShock Q&A - Final Impressions from GameSpot and Final Thoughts from Ken Levine” article:
—-open quote—-
GS: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to add about BioShock?
KL: Well, first, I want to thank GameSpot. You guys were the first to believe in the game and ran the first story on it. If not for that story (and the outpouring of support from the community), we might never have sold the game to a publisher. The press and the public can make a difference. They can help show publishers that there’s cool stuff out there that might not be something they’re 100% comfortable with.
—-close quote—-
So Ken says Gamespot is partially responsible for the success of BioShock, or rather for (then) Irrational Games’ ability to secure a publisher. If Gamespot indeed owned the exlusive rights for BioShock (back to 2004), then Ken really is pandering to this relationship.
(Side Note: I’m not as media-savvy as others in this thread. How could Irrational be pitching exclusivity rights, etc., to Gamespot before even securing a publisher? I know this was also the case with STALKER - they had the original preview in PCG circa ‘02, yet THQ hadn’t yet picked them up.)
August 20th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
[…] just more to consider in the quagmire of PR/media, PR/developer and developer/media relations, media exclusives, and all sorts of issues regarding games journalism. I really don’t know what the answers […]
August 27th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Just for reference, when I said “Gamespot owns Bio Shock coverage”, I wasn’t speaking in a literal sense. For all I know, there may have been some sort of financial purchase for publication rights. All I was saying is that they were there first, and they have basically a media market share majority holding. People look at Gamespot for Bio Shock coverage, because they’ve had more of it than anybody else and at earlier dates. Then again, I’ve been gone so long that maybe nobody will read this late post…
August 27th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I read the late post! And it is appreciated…