Square looking to give the term “embargo” a whole new meaning. I agree with the Kotaku author when he says they should be purchasing adspace if they’re looking for this level of collusion.
When I was taking photos of E3 booths I was yelled at for taking a picture of the FF12 display. I tried to reasonably point out that it was kind of silly worrying about shakycam footage of a game that’s already released in Japan but they were quite insistent!
That’s pretty insane. I like how he tosses in the barbs about S/E’s relevance, that’s a nice touch.
I’ll be the unpopular guy and agree to a certain extent to some of their requests. While some of those demands in the e-mail are quite unreasonable, certainly, the request to not produce music, CG or spoilers, I can understand. Square Enix can’t do a whole lot about Youtube and 2ch and individual users talking about the game, but they can about major websites.
Music, obviously, they want to sell their soundtrack and that gets hard if you make the music available like Galbadia Hotel does, it’s the same kind of thing as that whole MP3 debate, which I shall not take a side on, but only to say it’s much harder to sell enough copies to make a game soundtrack to make it profitable, but it doesn’t stop gamers from bitching at you if you don’t.
CG is a little less obvious, but posting entire scenes I can grudgingly agree with in that it’s one of the things you get when you buy a Square Enix game, it’s one of their selling points. I wouldn’t want to honor it, because it’s kind of lame, but there you are. I couldn’t agree, however, with offering snippets of CG. It’s a little similar to how all sorts of people watched subs of Advent Children before it was released in the US. We’ll never be able to tell if people didn’t buy it when they watched the fansub, but it certainly hurts their selling power.
Spoilers are an entirely reasonable request. I don’t really see how you could have a problem of a company asking you from avoiding spoilers of important plot material until the game is released.
All the other stuff is too much (it seems like they’ve got some sort of advertising going on and don’t want it to be interrupted) and quite ridiculous.
Square Enix and some other companies do a lot more bullying of small people in Japan than this (we can’t even post screenshots AT ALL, EVER!) so it needs to stop somewhere, because it is most certainly isn’t right, but I’d like it if 1up gets hurt over this, because the site sucks and I don’t really care about their rights.
BTW, I have the game and I didn’t know that those two characters were playable, thanks for the warning when you posted the e-mail, appreciate it, 1up. I would have liked to find that out on my own (and I imagine Square Enix thinks others would to).
-Kitsune
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!
etc
The letter that blogger wrote is exactly the kind of over-worded crap I have to read as a professor all the time. This is supposed to be my summer vacation.
That’s exactly what I was thinkin’ when I read that letter, too.
He coulda simply kept it to:
Dear Square-Enix:
What the fuck EVER. We already bought the Japanese version, jerks, so IN YOUR FAT DUMB FACES. 8900 yen later, we gonna do what we like!
Yours 4-ever,
1UP
I didn’t say it was too long .I said it was over-worded. There’s a big difference.
Compaines want to treat the magazines and gaming webistes like its their own personal PR department. I’m glad 1up has basically told them to shove it.
One problem is that this was not worded as a request. The language used (“I feel it is necessary to highlight some key areas that you should not include in your coverage”) reads like a line from an internal company memo circulated within a PR department by upper management who expect their directions to be followed to the letter.
I’m not sure why it would be considered appropriate for game companies to be in the business of dictating editorial policy to the news sources that cover them. What I found most troubling about this was that the source of the complaint didn’t appear to be the larger picture “game companies shouldn’t tell us how to cover their games,” but instead was “this particular command is stupid because the game has already been released in Japan” - it came off as though such specific directions from game companies aren’t uncommon and are typically rigidly adhered to (which I guess is probably the case).
Yeah I already think the gaming press bends over too much for game publishers, fuck square. Release the game in the US (and/or worldwide) at the same time or deal with it.
olaf
While he has a valid point that CGW doesn’t cover consoles now, Mr. Smith is sadly ignorant of CGW’s history, and incorrect, when he states:
Oh, how wrong he is. I was there. I argued it about it in the editorial meetings. I read the inflamed letters. Surely some of you fogeys remember CGW’s infamous “PlayStation section” experiment.
His point stands, but the “hasn’t devoted a page” is very wrong.
But hey, he was, what, 12 when we did that? :)
Reminds me of Blizzard PR’s request not to pass around a publically available investor presentation. Of course, this is different; Square-Enix is simply trying to embargo information in a certain territory because they are releasing there at a different date. Welcome to “The World Is Flat”, Square-Enix; information goes across borders almost instantly and you’re fighting a losing battle. Get over it.
Bruce
Yeah maybe 10 or so years ago when we didn’t have dozens of gaming publications online could a request like that work. But seriously Square Enix is pretty dumb to think gamers can’t find out everything about a game released in Japan first. Of course there are the people who order games from Japan and can understand Japanese.
I agree that the more infomation released(outside of major plot spoilers) is always good for a game. The more gamers know about the game(mechanics, gameplay ,etc) The easier for them to decide whether or not they are going to buy it.
I work for a non-gaming website that has editorial copy for various clients and see crap like this all the time. Sure, you can ignore it, but then your client (Square/Enix) can just stop working with you.
I wonder who would feel the sting more if Square/Enix stopped sending 1UP evaluation copies of it’s games.
Clearly his way of saying “shove it” needs some serious work. :P I think he needs to read all of the PirateBay MPAA response e-mails to get a clue as to how to be clear and succinct about what he really feels.
I prefer not to have things spoiled at all. Square/Enix and I both know that fucking cunts with columns invariably blow major plot elements with alarming regularity. Present compant excepted, of course. From movie critics to friends recommending books, it is easy to forget what you didn’t know before you experienced the little bit of nothing about which you so now excitedly piss ecstatic.
I think a list of plot elements not to spoil is a nice idea. You don’t have to follow it, it’s a free country, but I don’t read reviews for movies in the paper anymore since some fuckstick from the New York Times shit on two surprise twists in two separate movies in the same weekend.
I mean shit, don’t even read the page you linked to in its entirety if you are anticipating any upcoming sequels.