ATTN Journalists: SOE Wants to Pay You
For Immediate Release: Game journalists, Sony Online Entertainment may want to pay you for your opinion. Here’s how it works.
WHEN: The event is scheduled for August 2, 2007.
WHERE: It’s taking place at the SOE Fan Faire event in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.
HOW: It’s simple. In traditional Vegas fashion, leave your conscience at the door (in this case, your journalistic one). In essence, you and five other lucky journalists will discuss current and future SOE titles with Sony producers. It will be NDA’ed, so unwind and relax. Your honest opinion is highly valued so you’ll be comfortably rewarded for your time. The publisher will be providing hotel, airfare, and, of course, $1,000 for your take on its titles. Worried the event won’t be worth your time? Don’t be. Several other journalists test drove a similar SOE event in late 2005. Needless to say, it went well.
WHAT: the heck?!?! Shame on you, Sony. And shame on the journalists who take up this offer. Leave it to the game media to bring yet another form of prostitution to the city of Las Vegas.
And remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…except for certain game publications’ editorial content once the NDA’s expire.
P.S. This article was not produced by Sony Online Entertainment.
on July 30th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Generally this sort of thing is offered to many journalists, sans the $1,000 of course, which for me is what really makes this not so kosher. It’s disgusting to think they’d offer money for an opinion since it is bribery after all. Anyone who takes it and says they have a non-biased opinion is just flat out lying.
on July 30th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Right, NintyGal. It is one thing to reimburse someone for travel/lodging, but it is entirely another to pay them them - especially a G - for their opinion. $1,000 can certainly sway some opinions later on down the road when the title is available for review…
on July 30th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
So, that’s the price for selling your soul? Seems a lot lower than usual, but then again… the standards are dropping, too. Good story.
on July 30th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Looks to me that Sony is looking for a way to outsource it’s PR expenses. Intersting business move on Sony’s part. Why waste all that money on media coverage when you can simply wine and dine a few journalists into your pocket? Very interesting….
on July 31st, 2007 at 12:41 am
Hell, I’d take up that offer. Not for the reason you may think though.
It would finally give me a chance to tell Sony how deplorable their business strategy is and give them my real opinion, tell them what consumers really want and to stop pushing bullshit we dont want on us.
Then I’d shove their dirty money back in their faces and tell them to use to to make a better product instead of bribing journalists for a good word.
on July 31st, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Where did you hear about this event? $1,000 for a jorunalists’s opinion? This is the first I’m hearing about this and I’d like to flatter myself that IGN/GameSpy (and me, since I do most of the coverage of SOE for GameSpy) would be invited to this.
That being said, this sounds REALLY sleazy, but I’d love to get more details on what’s going on.
on July 31st, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Delsyn, my source comes from an individual who was invited to this event. The individual shared with me the email which contained an SOE employee sharing the same details I’ve provided in my report. The individual has asked for anonymity and we grant that.
The game industry is not used to game media analysis and watchdog reporting so its naturally going to go through some growing pains when learning to face the consequences of breaking ethical standards.
on August 19th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Not being a journalist myself, I’m not exactly sure why you are so vehement about this. It isn’t a review or a preview since there’s NDA so it’s just basically giving your true opinions to the developers for profit.