First off, I've got a few p/reviews up at GameSpy today. They are:
Now, having gotten that out of the way, I ORIGINALLY had a preview go up today for Driver: Parallel Lines (PS2) from Atari. It's one of the games I covered while in Austin last week. The only problem is, every preview was cleared to go up today EXCEPT the new Driver game. Apparently, Atari had granted an exclusive elsewhere, meaning no one else was supposed to put a preview until September 7th. I've ranted before about these embargoes, but I feel the urge to rant just one more time.
The thing is, we as journalists are generally all playing the same builds of a game when we write our previews. So, when we all have to wait for one place to get an exclusive, it gets a little frustrating. Think about it for a second. This preview that I wrote up last week will be a month old before it ever sees the light of day. Sometimes, I can understand waiting a few days for one reason or another. I can even reasonably see holding a review until the day the game is released ... but there's no reason why I should be writing up something today that will be obsolete by the time it hits the press.
I know that press embargoes are a necessary evil of the journalistic world ... but all I'm saying is that they need to managed a hell of a lot better than they are right now. When you force someone to write/publish a piece based on older material, it's generally not going to turn out well for those involved.
And in other news, I'm finally setting into motion for the first major swag bag giveaway. If all goes well, it will be up by the end of the week, so keep your eyes peeled.
1 comment:
Press embargoes may be in the future of the comic industry as well. Wizard seems to be leading the pack securing exclusives and causing items to be embargoed on the web until the magazine's release date.
Then again, Wizard is also the company that lets things slip ahead of time in their con press releases or online.
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