Game Industry Rant: An Open Letter to Sega
I'm going to break down the fourth wall here for a second and let you in on some industry information. Game journalists get a lot of email. Most of it is complete trash, it's usually a PR company trying to tell you that their most recent game (usually with a title like Mageknight: The Reckoning or Knightmage: The Fightening) is coming out. Over and over again. It's difficult to sift through the good news and the awful news, and recently a major company has made it even harder: Sega.
I understand that no matter what press release comes into game journalists' inboxen, it will get posted to some blog somewhere. Just by the sheer fact that there are SO MANY game blogs out there, someone will be aching for a story and will post your news. That's fine. When you abuse that system, that's when I take issue.
Sending out press releases when your hot new game finally releases first screenshots is appropriate. Sending press releases every single day with brand new screenshots is an abuse of the system, no matter what the game. Sega, for the past six months or so, has been spamming my inbox on a daily basis and I'm a bit fed up. On one hand, I'd like to keep good relations with the company as they do send us games for review. On the other hand, I'm really tired of getting daily updates on The Incredible Hulk game. It's not a highly anticipated game, yet they are treating it as such. Perhaps it's my own jaded mind, but when I see a press release I turn on my bullshit meter.
Most PR companies are full of shit. It's true. Take, for example, the weekly emails Nintendo sends out in order to announce new Wii Virtual Console games. Whoever writes the copy has to come up with an appealing description for each new title, no matter how incredibly awful the game. They have to find some way to drum up hype for a poor product, so they usually revert to hyperbole.
An amazing jaunt through a highly imaginative world with stunning graphics and gameplay!
The blockbuster franchise returns with the most action-packed story yet!
You can tell these are lies because of all of the lying. You can feel the desperation in the copywriter's voice. During the last holiday season, I literally got one email a day from Sega PR telling me that a brand new gameplay video for Mario and Sonic Go To the Olympics was released! Oh yay! It's a lackluster idea of a game, banking on the fact that people enjoy Mario and Sonic and will buy anything with those two attached. Do they honestly think I am going to want to post their new gameplay video and screenshots every single time they send them out? Even if it was only half of the time, I wouldn't post them.
This is the worst way to generate hype. Currently, all new Sega releases are on my shit list. PR, like all things in life, requires restraint. You want to promote only your best content, and keep that promotion rare. Keep us chomping at the bit for your game-related media, don't try to shove it down our throats.
The icing on the cake? Sega seems to have hired another PR company to help them with email blasts for The Incredible Hulk. Just today I received two emails, one from the new company and one from Sega proper, with the exact same press release.
Too bad I didn't care the first time.
