Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: Sponsored Sites That Trump Traditional Journalism

Thu, Jul 3, 2008

Aside from the occasional, unintentional leak, publicists basically control games journalism as we know it today. They can't tell us how to think or stop us from criticizing their games, but to a large degree, they determine who gets what and goes where when they please. How?

In mid-2007, Gamasutra likened the publicist/journalist relationship to a giant information spigot:

The folks with their hands on the valve—the ones who tell games journalists about upcoming games (or don't), set up interviews with the game's developers (or don't), and eventually send out early review copies of that game (or don't)—are the publicists, or in the insider lingo, PR reps (public relations representatives).

But the question some publicists -- I mean, PR reps -- are currently asking themselves is not who, what, where, when or how, but why. Why bother dealing with journalists at all when you can just release the information yourself? Why spend time and effort to disseminate a message across multiple media when your audience will happily come to you, picking up every last crumb from the banquet table of information you represent? Why make your most devoted fans targets for the banner ads of your competitors, when you can instead build a community around your own news -- and direct that community back to your own games?

Today, we highlight just a few of the many places you can get news straight from the horse's mouth... before us journalists get our grimy, largely unbiased paws anywhere near it.

Major Nelson

Title: Major Nelson
Poster Child: Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox LIVE
Established: May 2004
Sample Scoops: Xbox 360 Vision Camera release date, Planned fix for Xbox 360 1080p problems

Considered the granddaddy of corporate gaming/marketing blogs, Major Nelson was started in May 2004 as an "unofficial experiment" by Larry Hryb, who became Director of Programming for Xbox LIVE early that same year. His blog currently plays host to an overwhelming number of Xbox LIVE content update announcements, and a weekly blogcast where the Major interviews a variety of producers, developers and other notable names in gaming.

For more news, and more marketing madness, see also: Gamerscore Blog

PlayStation Blog

Title: PlayStation.Blog
Poster Child: Patrick Seybold, Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media
Established: June 2007
Sample Scoops: PS3 Firmware Update 2.4 announcement, Metal Gear Solid 4 LE bundle availability

Just over one year old, the PlayStation.Blog is your sleek, one-stop shop for PlayStation Store updates, corporate spin, favorable press, and advance warning about the latest firmware updates. Also worth visiting for the occasional interviews and testimonials by the producers of PlayStation-bound titles.

Capcom Unity

Title: Capcom Unity
Poster Child: Seth Killian, Senior Community Manager
Established: February 2007
Sample Scoops: Clock Tower and Onimusha movies dated, RE5 to have simultaneous cross-platform release

The Capcom Unity blog is mostly an entertaining horn toot, with plenty of fanart and favorable press, but also the occasional developer update. California Bay Area based gamers should keep an eye out for possible invitations to the Capcom HQ. For now, the real draw at Capcom Unity is the legacy Ask Capcom forum, where the helpful Christian Svensson (Vice President of Strategic Planning & Business Development) has invariably and authoritatively answered fan questions for over two years.

Criterion Games

Title: Criterion Games
Poster Child: Alex Ward, Creative Director
Established: March 2008
Sample Scoops: Burnout Paradise announced for PC, Burnout Paradise to get motorbikes

The Criterion Games blog began to form and engage a thriving Burnout Paradise community... months after the game's release. The focus is entirely on ongoing development, and generates an unprecedented amount of news about the impressive and varied improvements (and additional, thus far completely free DLC) Criterion continually adds to the game. Nearly all Burnout news comes out of the blog, and Criterion staffers are on hand in the forums not only to answer questions but also solicit fan feedback and requests. I hate to sound biased, but in my honest opinion, Burnout Team ROCKS.

Team Fortress 2

Title: TF2 Official Blog
Poster Child: Robin Walker, Director
Established: June 2008
Sample Scoops: TF2 Heavy to be next class updated with new weapons, achievements

The official Team Fortress 2 blog just opened last week, but it already has one announcement you couldn't find anywhere else, and for which machinegun-toting players of the cartoony shooter will be very glad. It also promises considerable insight into the team's thought processes as they continue their tweaking, balancing and updating. Sadly, there's currently no comments function.

Infinity Ward

IAMfourzerotwo

Title: Infinity Ward Blog (a continuation of IAMfourzerotwo)
Poster Child: Robert Bowling, Director of Communications/Community Manager
Established: June 2008 (December 2006)
Sample Scoops: CoD4 Variety Map Pack free for PC, Infinity Ward renegotiates deal with Activision, may obtain new IP

Robert Bowling a.k.a. fourzerotwo has provided a conversational, well-written series of Call of Duty updates to Infinity Ward fans for some time now, and his latest post indicates that they may well bypass traditional PR in favor of the Burnout approach. We're keeping a close eye on this one.

Like what you read? We've got four more noteworthy 'journalistic' endeavors for your perusal at part two of "Straight From the Horse's Mouth."

Burnout, Call of Duty 4, Capcom, Criterion, Gamerscore, Infinity Ward, journalism, Major Nelson, Microsoft, PR, Sony, spin, Straight From the Horse's Mouth, Team Fortress 2, Valve

This post was written by:

Sean Hollister - who has written 825 posts on GameCyte.

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Straight From the Horse’s Mouth, Part 2 | GameCyte Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
[...] today, ThreeSpeech’s huge potential bias is not remotely newsworthy — as we explained last week, there are any number of useful corporate gaming blogs that utilize the resources of their [...]

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