In response to gaming site, Gameblog.fr, refusing to pull a story they had about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 being confirmed by Amazon, Activision allegedly blacklisted the site and editors from attending future events.
Gameblog had an article on their site that referenced other news sites and first hand accounts that Amazon France spilled the beans on Black Ops 2 coming this year. The confirmations from Amazon France came from a newsletter that several people had received and screen grabs from the website which were reported on by Gameblog. Pieces of information about Black Ops 2 included only the name of the game and a pre-order price of €69.99.
In an interview with Kotaku, an editor with Gameblog, Grégory Szriftgiser, explained just what happened after the article went up and Activision's apparent extreme reaction to the piece.
Other sites were contacted by Activision and the others complied with their request to take down the articles each had put up about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
The twist with this story comes from the fact that when contacted for information, Activision stated that the company "doesn't blacklist journalists." They went on to say that they feel it's just a misunderstanding and are working towards a resolution.
How would you guys here feel if we were requested to pull an article from our site at a company's request?
Gameblog had an article on their site that referenced other news sites and first hand accounts that Amazon France spilled the beans on Black Ops 2 coming this year. The confirmations from Amazon France came from a newsletter that several people had received and screen grabs from the website which were reported on by Gameblog. Pieces of information about Black Ops 2 included only the name of the game and a pre-order price of €69.99.
In an interview with Kotaku, an editor with Gameblog, Grégory Szriftgiser, explained just what happened after the article went up and Activision's apparent extreme reaction to the piece.
Our article was posted at 1:05 p.m. French time (that's CET). Activision first tried to call me at 2:16 p.m., but I couldn't answer, then sent an email (subject : "Pulling of a newspiece - URGENT") to both Julien and myself at 2:24 p.m., asking to "please take down the newspiece now", that "Activision didn't make any announcement", that "Amazon took upon themselves to publish this information without consulting [Activision]" and that it was "asked as a favor". I returned the phone call at 2:30 p.m., during which Activision asked the same thing, as a favor, insisting that this was a very serious matter to them for internal reasons they couldn't elaborate on and that the other major web outlets had already taken down their piece.
I explained that I couldn't do this and why (mainly, that Activision didn't have any right to intervene in our editorial, that it was newsworthy to us, that our job was first and foremost to inform our readers, that the newspiece didn't argue that it was anything official on Activision's end, and was correctly phrased to reflect it, notably, with the question mark), at which point Activision argued that they were disappointed - they asked that we please consider it "with all the consequences this could lead to". I agreed to do so, told them I would get back to them later to give them my final decision. They were unreachable for the rest of the afternoon. After business hours, I had a short text conversation in which I re-stated that we wouldn't pull the article, and asked if we should consider ourselves blacklisted as a result. It was around 8:30 p.m., and Activision answered we would resume the conversation by phone the next morning.
The newspiece stayed online untouched during the night.
The next morning, we talked on the phone. They tried again to explain they needed us to pull the article, I refused again. They insisted again that it would seriously deteriorate the professional relationship we had, that we weren't fully aware of the consequences this could have, and that they had already contacted their Advertising Agency (which buys ad space for them). I asked them again if we should consider ourselves blacklisted, and more precisely if my journalist (another one) was still to attend the preview event of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron that was planned next week and to which we were already invited. Activision said no. They also made clear that the relationship was to be severed, all advertisement plans cancelled, games not sent, and invitations to later events cancelled as well. I explained that if this was their decision indeed, we had to inform our readers of it, and would do so later in the day.
I explained that I couldn't do this and why (mainly, that Activision didn't have any right to intervene in our editorial, that it was newsworthy to us, that our job was first and foremost to inform our readers, that the newspiece didn't argue that it was anything official on Activision's end, and was correctly phrased to reflect it, notably, with the question mark), at which point Activision argued that they were disappointed - they asked that we please consider it "with all the consequences this could lead to". I agreed to do so, told them I would get back to them later to give them my final decision. They were unreachable for the rest of the afternoon. After business hours, I had a short text conversation in which I re-stated that we wouldn't pull the article, and asked if we should consider ourselves blacklisted as a result. It was around 8:30 p.m., and Activision answered we would resume the conversation by phone the next morning.
The newspiece stayed online untouched during the night.
The next morning, we talked on the phone. They tried again to explain they needed us to pull the article, I refused again. They insisted again that it would seriously deteriorate the professional relationship we had, that we weren't fully aware of the consequences this could have, and that they had already contacted their Advertising Agency (which buys ad space for them). I asked them again if we should consider ourselves blacklisted, and more precisely if my journalist (another one) was still to attend the preview event of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron that was planned next week and to which we were already invited. Activision said no. They also made clear that the relationship was to be severed, all advertisement plans cancelled, games not sent, and invitations to later events cancelled as well. I explained that if this was their decision indeed, we had to inform our readers of it, and would do so later in the day.
Other sites were contacted by Activision and the others complied with their request to take down the articles each had put up about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
The twist with this story comes from the fact that when contacted for information, Activision stated that the company "doesn't blacklist journalists." They went on to say that they feel it's just a misunderstanding and are working towards a resolution.
How would you guys here feel if we were requested to pull an article from our site at a company's request?
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