http://murasama-1820.blogspot.com/2018/03/semi-rant-most-mmo-news-sites-are-just.html
My semi-rant was primarily targeted at some of the larger sites that cover MMO’s but it pretty much applied to the larger game news sites because they share a common trait; they tend to pickup tips from much smaller fish but when push comes to shove, do very little of their own investigative reporting. I was primarily the source for a lot of the Bluehole Ginno related information but not one single site bothered to actually go and use their media credentials to pose some questions to all the players involved. Instead, they just took my words from my open letter, and rephrased it to add to what a Trion World representative (since Voss was gone after replying to me) repeated.
Similarly with Warlords Awakening and PLAYWITH Interactive’s closure of the Korean version, I took it upon myself this time to tip off a smaller MMO news site (MassivelyOP) because I knew a larger site would just make it a bigger story like they had sourced things themselves. Even when another smaller site (MMOs) picked it up, the much larger site that happens to have MMORPG in it’s name, failed to pickup the story themselves (because both of those were eventually credited back to this no-name blogger named Murasama). They failed to report news that should be covered to bring awareness to potential purchasers so that they could make the best informed decision. Furthermore, such sites should use their media credentials and grill a companies PR/communications director about such news.
So what happened to the above person doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s worse with mainstream media especially now that smartphones have decent video recording capabilities (taken together with social media) where it is easy for their reporters to lift stuff from others. Back in the old days, they had to negotiate broadcast rights but nowadays, they use footage without providing fair compensation (or at times, none at all). I’m not demonizing all the larger/mainstream sites. All I am saying is this kind of stuff happens a lot and it helps bring general awareness when the small fry calls out the bigger ones.
