The long arm of Sony

I was hoping I wouldn't be writing anything more on Sony for a little while. Unfortunately they've just made another enormous faux-pas. I've tried to bring up the positive possibilities in some of what has generally been regarded as bad news over the last week as well as showing the clear mistakes. It's far too easy to blindly criticise every move by the company at the current climate and it seems to be the 'in thing' to do across all forms of gaming media.

But this is an amazingly short-sighted move by Sony. In 'blacklisting' Kotaku they've really shown their true colours and risked what little respect they had from many consumers, in the blogosphere and beyond. After all, contrary to what Dave Karraker arrogantly states, blogs are not something which need to be helped along and not a medium which anyone in their right mind would disregard. Links with companies are of course needed as is the case with all tech-journalism, but the relationship works both ways.

Sure, anyone can setup a blog, there's plenty of them out there (this included) which have no affiliation with anyone or anything. But blogs have evolved over the years and and the medium is accepted and utilised as a legitimate journalistic outlet by even mainstream and traditional press (BBC, Reuters, New York Times, Guardian, the list could go on and on). Most 'core' or 'hardcore' gamers not to mention people within the games industry read and participate in blogs, often to the detriment of traditional print media. But the discussion of the validity of blogging as journalism doesn't really need to be gone over again, although there are still discussions and even legal proceedings. Even Sony themselves must take the medium seriously else they wouldn't have given this rumour the credence they have with their threats and final actions towards Kotaku. In my mind they would have been better ignoring the piece and we would probably all have forgotten about it within a day or two. If the rumours prove to be right, then Kotaku could have patted themselves on the back, but to be honest they would have gained little else nor spoilt Sony's party or the end users experience. If on the other hand they proved to be wrong then Kotaku would have looked a bit silly for a short time but lost little else. Instead the story has become much larger than it needed to have been and Sony have only succeeded in drawing attention to not only the rumours but the way in which they see their relationship with the media. Something which I suspect will not be forgotten for much longer.

Media should not be a platform for simple regurgitation of press releases or a heavily controlled ground for psuedo-opinion pieces. It does no one favours, apart from I guess, the short-sighted PR drones who can pimp themselves up to their superiors. Rather, truly good PR is about building and forging relationships with your audience through the good and the bad. Not attempting to control through thinly veiled rewards and punishment. This is something which Sony seem totally committed to showing they do not understand. And very successfully so far too.

UPDATE: Sony and Kotaku have agreed to play nicely with each other again. It looks like someone somewhere realised they over-reacted and while the damage has already been done this reversal in stance is undoubtedly a positive move from Sony.