Gaming Press: Journalists or PR conduits?

Gaming Press:Journalists or PRconduits?

I ask this question after the entire gaming press was either scooped by a teenage blogger or intentionallyfailed to report on the Bungie/MS split. I personally find it hard to believe that not one gamingjournalist in the industry caught wind of this huge story. After all splitting from a multinational corporation can't be easy or done in a short period of time. From some of the articles I've read this process started more than a year ago.If a gaming journalist knew about this story don't they have the responsibility to report what they know?

So I ask is the purpose of gaming press just to forward press releases and canned previews to gaming fans or are they genuine journalist that actually report on the news of the gaming industry.

I'm also wondering if anyone else feels that the gaming press failed it users in this situation.

Gaming Press:Journalists or PRconduits?

I ask this question after the entire gaming press was either scooped by a teenage blogger or intentionallyfailed to report on the Bungie/MS split. I personally find it hard to believe that not one gamingjournalist in the industry caught wind of this huge story. After all splitting from a multinational corporation can't be easy or done in a short period of time. From some of the articles I've read this process started more than a year ago.If a gaming journalist knew about this story don't they have the responsibility to report what they know?

So I ask is the purpose of gaming press just to forward press releases and canned previews to gaming fans or are they genuine journalist that actually report on the news of the gaming industry.

I'm also wondering if anyone else feels that the gaming press failed it users in this situation.

tazmane

There's this thing called a "non-disclosure agreement". The only reason we started hearing rumors before the news broke was that the NDA expired.

First of all, I'm pretty sure Microsoft and Bungie both tried their hardest to keep this secret because it could have dampered the sales of Halo 3. Also, sites were reporting rumors of this a week or two before it was officially announced, so the gaming press wasn't completely clueless to it.

Either way, I'd rather the gaming press focus more on the games themselves than stuff like this anyway.

You would have heard news of this a lot sooner had it not been for the NDA. And I would truly like to see someone break an NDA with Microsoft. I mean, it would be funny and at the same time I would feel really bad for the person.

I would never in my life, or next one want to get into a legal fiasco with Microsoft. And I would never wish this to happen to my worst enemy. The gaming journalists and a lot of others new about this from the get go, they just couldn't release any information on it.

There's this thing called a "non-disclosure agreement". The only reason we started hearing rumors before the news broke was that the NDA expired.

gameguy6700

I guess I've never heard of the press (1UP/Gamespot/etc) signing some blanket NDAs with big developers and publishers. If they do then so much for the freedom of the press. I've had to sign a few and they where all very specific in nature. But this goes back to my question are they really reporters or do they just forward press releases. To me it would be very foolish to sign some NDA that made ask a company such as MS for approval to release any kind of information.

I'm not talking about when big gaming sites do reviews or previews. Just the reporting of the happenings of the game industry.

I guess I've never heard of the press (1UP/Gamespot/etc) signing some blanket NDAs with big developers and publishers. If they do then so much for the freedom of the press. I've had to sign a few and they where all very specific in nature. But this goes back to my question are they really reporters or do they just forward press releases. To me it would be very foolish to sign some NDA that made ask a company such as MS for approval to release any kind of information.

I'm not talking about when big gaming sites do reviews or previews. Just the reporting of the happenings of the game industry.tazmane

[QUOTE="gameguy6700"]

There's this thing called a "non-disclosure agreement". The only reason we started hearing rumors before the news broke was that the NDA expired.

tazmane

I guess I've never heard of the press (1UP/Gamespot/etc) signing some blanket NDAs with big developers and publishers. If they do then so much for the freedom of the press. I've had to sign a few and they where all very specific in nature. But this goes back to my question are they really reporters or do they just forward press releases. To me it would be very foolish to sign some NDA that made ask a company such as MS for approval to release any kind of information.

I'm not talking about when big gaming sites do reviews or previews. Just the reporting of the happenings of the game industry.

I was talking about the NDA's that MS's and Bungie's employees had to sign. The press can't find out about something like a corporate break-up in the works if no one says anything about it. The only reason the rumor got started a week or two ago was because the day the NDA expired a bungie employee emailed a friend and told them what was about to go down.