Keith Stuart at the Guardian, makes a very important and troubling point about the industry's current lack of transparency
He points out that it is similar to the music industry but if we look at the film industry, you only have to have had lunch with Tom Cruise, and he is an Executive Producer for you next epic."That's the problem with the modern videogame industry and the web - the two are utterly incompatible...
Blog culture is all about uncensored exposition, about the personal over the corporate. The videogame industry is obsessively secretive. It is almost impossible to get a developer to talk to you about games these days - unless they're pushing their own of course. And even then both your questions and their answers have to be vetted by the publisher's PR department. Information is controlled, opinion, where possible, is obliterated. It is possibly the same in all industries.
Thing is, the people who make games, are often - no, almost always - active online citizens. They're on forums and tech sites, they're opinionated, they share information. But publishers certainly don't want them to be. This clash of cultures might not be quite as profound as the one between musicians and record labels, but it is there. It is important."
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