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Now that the dust has settled and everyone has weighed in, there are still some interesting questions lingering regarding Kotaku's brief brush with Sony-imposed exile.

You go, Ko.

In case you haven't heard by now, you can find links to the drama here. In short, Kotaku wanted to publish a juicy rumor about the PS3, and Sony didn't want them to. Kotaku published it anyway, and Sony told them they were effectively blackballed. Then both made up and everything returned to normal.

Dan Hsu over at 1UP threw in his two cents, most notably these comments:

"I can't tell you how much grief we go through with game companies each month because they are so used to so many journalists kissing their asses and doing what they want. We even had one major publisher's president tell us that they like working with certain other outlets because "We can control the marketing message with them." It's so frustrating to do what I feel are honest previews, tough reviews, and get-to-the-truth interviews and have the game companies tell us that EGM is "not cooperating" and want to work with us less and less. Why deal with EGM's bullshit when they can control the message elsewhere?"

It's possible to apply a simple model of economics to what he is talking about. For a website or publication, they survive first and foremost on their readership. Sure, advertising dollars matter, but if no one is looking at the ads, it's all for naught. While journalistic integrity for the sake of integrity is of course laudable, there is an even deeper and more primal reason to stand up against coercion from game companies: economic survival. If readers believe in your integrity, they will be very, very loyal. And that keeps you afloat.

By the same token, Sony is simply following its interests as best it can. Would they have backed down if the blackballing hadn't become a huge story? It's hard to say. By standing their ground, Kotaku did a huge favor to journalists everywhere, empowering them to do the same if the situation arises.

Let's go back to the economic model I was talking about. Take for example two gas stations that sit across the street from each other. If one station lowers its prices, customers will shift to them, forcing the other station to follow suit. Now apply it to game journalists. If you are honest and bash a company's game or publish something they don't want out there, and they then decide to work with other journalists, those other journalists have effectively lowered their price. At the same time, by making readers loyal through your integrity, you have lowered in price as well. And so in this field we have two competing resources aside from money: reader loyalty and game company loyalty.

In the end it would seem that reader loyalty is a more valuable resource, because as long as you have readers, game companies will desire to work with you. Unfortunately, as Dan Hsu points out, some journalists go for the less valuable resource. The Kotaku-Sony resolution may be an indication of a natural trend toward reader loyalty. If every journalist jumped on board and didn't allow for "marketing control," the game companies wouldn't have anywhere else to take their business, and so would have to suck it up and deal with the sometimes adversarial relationship with the press.

Hey, thanks: Kotaku and 1UP.

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