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Halo 3: ODST, and another broken embargo
Chris White
September 22, 2009 12:15 AM ET in Gaming
It seems to be a bad month for the integrity of game journalism. One week ago we wrote about what an embargo date is, how they work in theory and what happens when they’re broken. In that case nothing happened and sites that broke the embargo were essentially “rewarded” when the publisher lifted the embargo prematurely and legitimized the practice. We didn’t like it then, because it screws other journalists and publications who choose to play fair and honor embargo dates.
Not more than a week later, it is happening again. Microsoft specified that the embargo for the very popular Halo 3: ODST would be lifted on Saturday 20th at 12:01 AM EST. If this sounds specific to you, that’s because it is–it gives every site a fair chance to publish at the same time and let readers evaluate who’s review is worth listening to before deciding whether or not to buy the game.
For Halo 3: ODST, the site GoGamingGiant published nearly twelve hours early. While not the absolute first site to break the embargo, their review quickly got linked and picked up a major amount of traffic from the popular gaming aggregator News4Gamers.
The question of the legitimacy of even having a pre-release copy of the game has been called into question by commenters on N4G.com as well as other sites who have pre-embargo reviews. There are three ways a gaming site could have prematurely pulled the trigger on an embargoed review:
- They got a pre-release copy of the game from the publisher, and willfully published ahead of time
- They bought a legitimate copy via retail, and the retailer mistakenly shipped or sold it early; the reviewer then willfully or ignorantly published ahead of time
- They pirated the game and reviewed it using an illegally modified Xbox 360.
Normally you would think that anybody who calls themselves a game journalist couldn’t possibly claim ignorance on picking up a pre-released copy from a store who got their dates wrong, but the owner of GoGamingGiant (GGG), Matt, claims that he was never made aware of the date. He spoke with Icrontic’s Brian Ambrozy about it:
B: Did you know about the embargo date?
M: [I] did not know about the embargo date but I had requested a copy, and they had said yes.
B: If they said yes, how could you not have known about the embargo date?
M: They just said they’d put us on the review list.
Matt also provided Brian with photographs of the shipping receipt as well as screenshots from a Newegg.com shopping cart, showing that the order was made on September 11th, and shipped overnight. GGG’s reviewer received it on the 14th, which would seem to make it Newegg’s fault that GGG got their hands on the game early.
Traditionally publications that choose to break an embargo will be blacklisted from receiving review copies of future games. Microsoft obviously isn’t going to be bullied around on the matter and being blacklisted by such a major game publisher would be very bad for any game publication. Microsoft sent a very clear signal to Matt:
You need to take this review down asap. Please let me know once you have done this. I don’t know where you got a copy of the game, but if it was acquired illegally, Microsoft will seek action. Thanks for your corporation [sic] with this.
When it wasn’t pulled down as fast as Microsoft wanted, they upped the heat on Matt:
Hi Matt like I said, this comes down asap. Seems strange that you have no way to get this down, given it is driving huge traffic to your site thanks to the link from N4G. And Microsoft would like to see the receipt from whichever retailer you acquired the game through. They have an entirely different process for dealing with that situation. Please let me know as soon as this is down. Thank you.
Matt responded:
I’m being 100 percent honest with you. I am trying my best to get it down. I’ve emailed all my writers. I’m trying my best, I’m in the car though right now. As for the receipt I will email you it when I get home. One of my writers actually just emailed me back so I’m going to try to get him to do it. I’ll keep you updated.
Microsoft’s response?
Hi Matt,
I am handling media requests for X’09 this year. Due to your site breaking an embargo, you or anyone from Go Gaming Giant are no longer permitted to attend and will be removed from all media lists for the event.
There you have it. That sends a clear signal: You broke an embargo, here’s the consequence.
The “heavy-handedness” or fairness of this punishment is the subject of a wildly opinionated debate around the web. As you are aware, game enthusiasts have a lot to say about issues like this.
Whether or not you feel Microsoft’s response was fair, at least Microsoft responded negatively to the breaking of embargo. Does it take a giant publisher and a huge, AAA- title to get this kind of negative response? For the sake of all gaming journalists with integrity out there, we hope not.
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