Luke Smith vs. Square/Enix

Luke Smith, news editor over at 1up, recently posted a protesting blog entry which openly defied a draconian edict laid down by Square/Enix. The company required news organs to refrain from discussing many aspects of the Valkyrie Profile title, coming out in the U.S. later this year but already available in Japan. Gamers With Jobs has a good synopsis of the situation. From that article: "Is he being a bit overly dramatic on this issue? Perhaps. But it is an interesting illumination of a larger issue, to do with the quality of communication between the industry and games journalists. Smith is certainly not the first to express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs."

Comments

Lame

[nacturation]

Here's the text of what they've requested:

With summer in full swing, the sun's come out to say hello, and our Japanese counterparts have unleashed a behemoth known as VALKYRIE PROFILE 2: SILMERIA in their home land. While the game sits in stores thousands of miles away, it's inevitable that some of you will import it to sample the delight that will be coming to North America in late September.

With that in mind, I feel it is necessary to highlight some key areas that you should not include in your coverage:

* Please do not write about spoilers of any kind

* This includes spoiler elements of the main plot, the appearance of Freya and Lenneth as playable characters and of course, the ending

* Please do not post CG movies of any kind

* This is a Square Enix staple that runs the gamut for Japan releases, so please refrain from posting videos of our CG or pivotal cutscenes, you will be able to post CG from the English game at a later date

* Please do not post music of any kind

* Do not sample or record the music from the game, there is an official OST out for VP2 and we can't infringe on its copyright

The majority of this boils down to "don't spoil it for the gamers". Of course, this just a polite request and, given that the Japanese version has already been released, Luke Smith doesn't have to follow any of this as he points out. However, Square Enix doesn't have to do any favors for him either. I wouldn't be surprised if 1Up gets cut out of the loop when it comes to any prerelease events.

Re:Is that legal?

[KillerCow]

Can a private corporation legally dictate what a news agency can and cannot say?

No, but they can cut the news agency off by not helping them write stories anymore.

See the Propaganda Model.