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Man, this brings back memories from when I lived in Seoul, South Korea as a kid. More »
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Who benefits from Blizzard's controversial decision to use players' real names in forum posts? War Rock publisher GamersFirst hopes it will, issuing an official press release to let gamers know it's all still anonymous there. More »
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Gamers get tons of swag, and we post just about all of it here on Kotaku. But there's one thing we've never shown off. More »
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This is what greeted me when I arrived at the Sheraton down the street from PAX to meet with Klei Entertainment CEO Jamie Cheng regarding the company's latest game, Shank. More »
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I know, I know — just one more thing about Batman: Arkham Asylum and I swear I'll shut up. But there's actually an Arkham Care website setup for the game. More »
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Once was a time Sonic games were just as good as Mario games. Some may even say better. That time, however, was back in the 1990's. And it's been a while since the 1990's. More »
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Earlier, The RAM Raider accused Eidos of trying to fix review scores for Batman: Arkham Asylum, a claim Eidos categorically denied. Now one magazine's exclusive review fits all the conditions said to have been made. More »
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Longtime silent champion/nitpicker of the British gaming press, The RAM Raider, has a post on their blog highlighting Eidos' latest alleged public relations faux pas, this time involving review scores and cover placement for the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum. More »
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Poor Europe. Americans have long been spoiled with up-to-the-minute PlayStation info straight from the horse's mouth, in the form of the PlayStation.Blog, while Europeans got...Three Speech. Yuck. Today, that changes! More »
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This morning, Frank PR - the company handling the game's PR in the UK - announced boldly that Tony Hawk: Ride would be a 360 exclusive in the UK. Which, uh, is not true. More »
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There is no "i" in team. There is one in your new Nintendo handheld. (There's two in "Wii", but I digress.) GoNintendo asked Ninty straight up what's with the I, and got an answer. More »
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Stupid PR stunts are nothing new to this industry. We've had goats blood, we've had free, but troublesome gas. And now, we have a misguided attempt to have people name kids after a "game" character. More »
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Oh look. It's Eidos. In another PR cock-up. Which we're posting not for the magnitude of it – it’s just a magazine reader poll – but for the ineptitude of it. More »
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Don't think you guys realise just how many press releases get crammed in our cramholes on a daily basis. And just how many of those press releases are batshit crazy. So let's take a look! More »
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You know, we get asked the following quite a lot: "hey, you guys should find out about [some game]". It's asked like finding a lot of stuff out in this indsutry is easy. Well, it's not. And you know why it's not easy? Because of games PR. The slick-haired filter between what we want to know and what game companies get to tell us. While some (some) are proud gamers and are also super-helpful, others are clueless, and some - the worst kind - are lying shitbags. Want to know more? Brandon Sheffield's written a nice piece over on GameSetWatch, giving you guys a helpful breakdown on how games PR works, what's wrong with it and what he thinks can be done to fix it. More »
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Fresh off declaring war against the humble R4 cart, Nintendo have issued yet another statement to the press outlining the progress they're making against software piracy, which has to be the 3rd or 4th they've sent out this year. It reads: More »
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Last week, Gamasutra ran an interview with Tom Ohle, vice president of PR & marketing for CD Projekt, creators of The Witcher. They obviously get to talking about games PR, and in particular some of the challenges facing a public relations team when deciding how to market a game. While I don't agree with many of their points (Ohle's or that of the interviewer), especially that "major blogs just don't really cover" the PC that much (we try to give it it's due whenever & wherever possible), it's still an interesting read, if only for Ohle's idea that even a site with just one reader's worth taking care of, because that's still one potential customer. More »
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This is either a tip of the hat to some friends or some of the most targeted marketing we've yet seen in a game, I'm not sure, but it turns out not every company/piece of branding in GTA IV is fake. Label RockersNYC were given the chance to "dress" two of the game's characters, Jamaican gangsters Little Jacob and Real Badman, who appear in the game wearing the company's hoodies and shirts. Not that any of you would ever notice had you not known this, but it does go to show the level of detail that went into not just Liberty City, but the game's marketing and PR as well. More »
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Sorry, that was a little alarming. You, of course, knew that already. It's not as if games PR types sit around in ivory towers getting their information from carrier pigeons and whispers on the wind. They find out what you like, don't like and go "eh" about their games by, yes, trawling through your favourite forum, and reading up on what you - Average Joe - thinks about their games. Same goes for developers as well. Keen to hear more about how it all works? Please, hit the link below for the full 1UP feature, which features chats with, among others, PR reps from 2K & Capcom, as well as NeoGAF owner Tyler Malka. More »
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Hey, PR types: CGI trailers are misleading. Screens can be, too. Fact sheets are boring, community Q&As never really tell us anything and for God's sake, no more developer diaries, OK? If you want to get reader's attention, do what Vivendi just did to start drumming up attention for their Ghostbusters game, and give the people they want. They want to see some cool shit. Like this fully-restored Ectomobile, which made an appearance at a Minnesota Best Buy solely to promote the new Ghostbusters game. Well, that and fulfil the fantasies of hundreds of grown men, all of whom wish they could have stepped right in, got down to the point and cleaned up the town. Oh yeah. More »
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Maxconsole pointed out that two UK newspapers ran near identical stories...too identical (hit jump for big pic). Identical like...the sub headline is exactly the same: "A shortage of one of the year's must-have gifts is sure to cause tears and tantrums on Christmas morning." The quotes are the same...the exposition is mostly the same. Look, they're the freaking same story, for all intents and purposes. Maxconsole implied that Nintendo must have fed a press release to the two publications...which, reading between the lines a bit, might imply that Nintendo had not so indirectly written these two news stories. Nintendo has gone on record to state that, despite accusations, their PR did not supply the story to writers. More »
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GolinHarris, the award winning public relations firm that represents Nintendo and other fine establishments, is currently looking to hire some folks onto their Los Angeles and San Francisco teams. And the best part is it would be the new hires would get right to work on the Nintendo account! Now before you all go clamoring to try and get a job working with the big N, there are a few requirements. And I quote: More »
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Gamasutra has a piece up by Andy Robertson on what the game industry can learn from the film industry - at least in terms of fostering a sense of community. Game companies, you see, are apparently falling down on the job of giving their fans some 'ownership' in the final product. It's transparency of the design/production process that makes the hit! Who knew? Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been as successful a film without the rabid community surrounding the films (hasn't Tolkein always enjoyed a mass following of dedicated fans)? Halo 3 is a hit because of relative transparency between company and fans? The Playstation blog is turning around years of crappy PR for Sony? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm on my last nerve after a week of fires, declining air quality, and more fires in San Diego, but my gut reaction is 'You've got to be kidding me': More »
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Meet Alex. Alex is the second guy in line at the Halo 3 launch here in NYC. If you remember from earlier, I told you the first guy in line got there at 6PM yesterday. Those of you mathematically inclined might have already pieced this together. Alex was standing there, minding his own business, when someone handed him this orange sign and asked him to hold it up. It's been photographed, videotapes, and has appeared on the giant monitors outside of the Best Buy. The image will probably appear in local papers and on TV news stations later this evening. It's not entirely a lie, really. Alex has almost been in line for 24 hours, and 50% is totally considered almost in some countries. Silly PR peoples. More »
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At last, the full potential of the Nintendo Wii has been realized! When the system was first announced the great minds of the world began to fill with interesting, innovative and truly breakthrough uses for the unique gaming console, but this one trumps them all. Now you can use the Wii to buy travel insurance! More »
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Odd bit of gaming PR arrived at my house on Friday. This container of racquetballs has Stumtman Ignition printed on one side and poses the question: "Do you have the balls...?" On the other. More »
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Don't let the block letters fool you, SEGA can be slippery. Take Takashi Iizuka, for example. The NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams producer. You've got questions, he doesn't have answers! Well, he has answers, just not the ones you want to hear. Don't believe me? Let's dive in: More »
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There's no in-between. Gaming press events can either be really exciting or really boring. From chocolate covered bugs to Nazi brothels, game site Games Radar takes a look at seven of the wildest press events in recent memory. Take the above event: a latex wearing woman dressed as character Anesthesia squirts vodka into the mouth of an attendee at Konami's Rumble Roses London event. From Miss Spencer's classroom to Dixie Clemets mechanical bull, each character had her own private area. Konami also rolled out women in short nurse skirts with bandages at a Tokyo Silent Hill event. Trying to keep costs down, PR put out an ad for amateur cosplayers that offered bloodstained Silent Hill nurse outfits as payment. You stay classy, Konami! Brian Ashcraft More »
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Buzz word of the month: SKU. It stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is pronounced as a word, "skew." It's a short hand way to say "individual retail product." Actually, I've never felt a big need to use "individual retail product" in a conversation and, let's say a few months ago, neither did most of the internet. While McWhertor tells me its been in use for a while now, it seems like recently, it's EVERYWHERE. Tim Rogers over at game site Insert Credit offers this insight as to why: More »
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Burning question: So when will the Xbox 360 Elite hit Europe? No clue, but Tim Ellis, head of games at retailer HMV, says: More »
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To commemorate the launch of the PlayStation 3, the folks at Computer and Video Games (CVG) received the gift of beer. 146 worth of Foster's to be exact, which is the difference between the cost of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in the UK. The present came from Microsoft of course, with the following message attached: More »
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Bad PR, love it! Game site Games Radar has a list of embarrassing public relations blunders. Writes the site: More »
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Well this isn't very nice. More »
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Sony? Walking PR disaster. Everything that could go wrong did and has. Enter Dave Karraker. Previously he'd worked on the Dreamcast launch (R.I.P.) and since then has represented Martha Stewart. If anyone knows PR hell, it's him. So, Dave, how is it handling Ken Kutaragi and all his Kutaragisms? More »
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by Brian Ashcraft More »
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"Major Nelson" is the online person of Microsoft's Larry Hryb. His Major Nelson blog acts as a go-between the company and fans and press alike. Alex Donaldson PS3 RPG Site questions whether Sony needs a similar figure. He writes: More »
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The PlayStation 2 owned the last generation. This go round, things look to be a little more close. Well, according to the world's largest publisher Electronic Arts. Or rather, the analyst that talked to EA. Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst at Lazard Capital Markets reiterates: More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=199941&view=rss&microfeed=true It's been about three months since SCEA Head PR Cheese Molly Smith fled from the Playstation 3 launch. More »
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Phil Harrison says the darnedest things. More »
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Sega Amusements Europe has wrangled in Ruby Jones, a World Club Champion Football finalist, to promote the card-based arcade game in the UK. Promoting, it seems, entails Ruby donning hotpants, because that way, the sweaty arcade rats will take her seriously. Sega's tongue-in-cheek press release about Ruby's addition entitled "Show Me Your Ball Skills!" drives that point home. Here's what the company's Promotions Executive Mark Beauchamp has to add: More »
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