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Thursday, February 08, 2007 |
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These Aren't The Games You're Looking For. Move Along. Move Along.
"It's just a weather balloon." Though I haven't heard a PR person deliver this line yet, I'm sure it's not far off.
As many of my colleagues who cover the world of gaming know, getting a publisher to acknowledge the existence of a game that it hasn't officially announced via press release or media alert is pretty much futile. A decade ago, it was all a lot easier. You could call up virtually anyone involved in the creation of a videogame and get a straightforward response. Developers would often happily oblige sharing details about their next title in development, no matter if a publisher signed on or not.
But then things changed. Publishers -- especially public companies -- worked hard to erect walls around the development teams and star designers, lest they inadvertently release something that hadn't been run by shareholders and could impact share prices or give the competition the heads-up. This was an expected development, even though the gaming industry's pursuit of leaks and news control is much more fervent than its older brother in Hollywood. Again, no surprise. You don't tell Spielberg "don't talk about Indy 4, fool!" -- but if CliffyB acknowledges the potential-maybe-possible sequel to a game that ended in a cliffhanger, the red phone with the colorful Windows logo will no doubt start ringing. With the exception of names like Miyamoto or Kojima, game designers aren't afforded the same autonomy over their projects to operate outside the controlled PR environment. Not that movie PR reps aren't pulling their hair out when someone like James Cameron comes out and openly comments about his next movie -- but it nevertheless remains an accepted part of movie making and buzz generation.
But I digress, this isn't really what I wanted to talk about. Let's go back to the quote in my headline. What gets me is when you're staring straight at the two robots you're looking for and someone waves their arm and says they're not it. But there's no rumble in the background; no blurring of the mind. You're still staring at the robots and you start stuttering: "But... But, that's them."
It happens every week in the world of gaming coverage -- and even more so with companies like ours that wear multiple hats. For example, IGN's teams don't only write about games, they also provide pre-formatted data about games to the end user. One such data point is how suitable a game is for a certain age group: you guessed it, the ESRB rating. In order to obtain an ESRB rating, a game publisher has to get footage and other documentation of its game in front of the ratings board. It's pretty much a mandatory step in the process of creating and publishing a retail game. The game is far along and almost ready to go out, it gets submitted and assigned a rating, the ESRB rating is fed to retailers, magazines and websites, and they all display the rating so their readers and buyers know what age group the game is appropriate for.
Here's where things get tripped up -- and where the famous handwave pops up again and again: a publisher submits a game for an ESRB rating that's yet to be announced by its PR team (and doesn't tell the ESRB to hold back distribution of the rating, which it can and will do); everyone gets the ratings feed; unannounced games get added to games databases and retail lists -- including IGN's external data feed to Muze (which in turn supplies big retail chains). Here's were things get all Jedi. The editor in charge of following up on the story calls the publisher for comment. The publisher says a variation of one of the two: 1) "We don't comment on rumors and speculation." 2) "That title's not on our radar."
I value our partners at PR greatly and sympathize with their challenge to control information flow, but there's got to be a way to fix this process. The notion that an ESRB listing is a "rumor" is insulting. The ESRB will rate a game if the publishers asks it. It doesn't go around and pick random titles and assigns a rating based on lucid dreams. A title listing is either a mistake or it's a confirmation that a game is actively being considered for release. The issue isn't one of overeager press or the ESRB "leaking" titles, it's the age-old multi-headed setup of the promotions engine at the big game publishers.
First of all, the process for obtaining an ESRB rating and the separate release of "prebook" information to retailers needs to be part of a chain of events, not run in parallel. A game should be announced to the public, then rated, then exposed via retail channels. ESRB ratings and retailers are services geared towards the public -- the process is broken if a publisher cannot reliably put 1, 2, 3 in a row. This is not an issue unique to the US and its ESRB, by the way. The same happens occasionally with PEGI in the UK, USK in Germany, and even with Japanese CERO ratings. The nature of the press in Japan is just such that they don't report it.
Secondly, publishers need to empower their PR teams to say "no." It happens once in a while that titles get "announced" that aren't real. "No comment" is either "yes, it's true," "no, it's wrong," or "I don't know." If the title doesn't exist, saying "no, it's wrong" does not cause any damage. It effectively ends rumor mongering before it gets out of hand and causes potential disappointments.
Lastly, publishers need to empower their PR reps to say "yes." Not to pick on KOEI, but how ridiculous is the fact that you can look up the ESRB rating for Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV for Wii's Virtual Console, but the publisher is unable to say either "we'd like to release it, but aren't sure yet," or "yes, it's coming." The game is more than 10 years old. It'll likely be downloaded by fewer Wii owners than read this blog. Where is the damage in acknowledging definite or tentative plans to release this title as a download? Will the potential of adding $8,000 of revenue to the publisher's fiscal year send shareholders into a frenzy? Will the planned announcement of this title (no doubt on a Monday morning at 5:00 am) send shockwaves through the ranks of strategy fans worldwide? Or is the worry that Matt and Bozon will be less surprised when they download the title from Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel for the first time and are introduced to a mysterious franchise they never even knew existed?
There are secrets worth keeping... and there are truths worth admitting. If secrecy is that important, publishers need to fix their information flow. But if there is no damage in telling the truth once in a while, how nice would it be if the bearded man stopped waving that hand in front of your face and just gave you the damn robots?
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