News Kotaku Australia (and others) shutting down

[Ambrose Burnside]

Tech and culture news websites including Vice, Gizmodo, Refinery29, Kotaku and Lifehacker will no longer publish in Australia, with dozens of jobs to be cut as the Pedestrian Group undergoes restructuring and cost cutting.

...

The shuttering of the local operations of Gizmodo, Kotaku and Lifehacker follows the shutdown of local versions of tech site rivals ZDNet, CNET and Gamespot, which parent company Red Ventures closed down in 2022.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/a...otaku-gizmodo-job-cuts-australia-channel-nine

This on top of the Australian Game Informer magazine shutting down a few years ago despite being profitable. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.

Not great. Regardless of what you may think of these sites/magazines individually.

At a time the local industry is screaming out for a critical* eye, we're seeing the exact opposite. Individual YouTubers given favoured and tightly controlled access to studios and games. If they don't toe the company line, they'll lose access and subscribers and all the rest of it. You'll never EVER see a YouTuber with exclusive access to a particular company act with this sort of integrity (emphasis mine), because by being in that position, they are acting as an extension of the company's marketing department. They are not independent, won't ask the hard questions, and will accept with a wink and a smile and repeat verbatim whatever it is the company says can be said:

For the past two years, Kotaku has been blacklisted by Bethesda, the publisher of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. For the past year, we have also been, to a lesser degree, ostracized by Ubisoft, publisher of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and more.

In those periods of time, the PR and marketing wings of those two gaming giants have chosen to act as if Kotaku doesn’t exist. They’ve cut off our access to their games and creators, omitted us from their widespread mailings of early review copies and, most galling, ignored all of our requests for comment on any news stories.

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The truth is that we’ve been cut off from Bethesda since our December 2013 report detailing the existence of the then-secret Fallout 4. Ubisoft has been nearly radio silent since our December 2014 report detailing the existence of the then-unannounced Assassin’s Creed Victory (renamed Syndicate). When we ask representatives from either company for comment or clarification regarding breaking news, we hear nothing in response. When we ask them about their plans for upcoming games or seek to speak with one of their developers about one of their projects, it’s the same story. Total silence.

This has happened at a PR and marketing level, leaving any developers at those companies who do want to talk to us or who do want to facilitate Kotaku coverage of their games to do so on the sly. It is, after all, PR and marketing who try to control how big-budget video games are covered. If they or their bosses don’t value an outlet, that outlet is left out.

We’re far from the only gaming media outlet that has been blacklisted. It happens to smaller outlets. It happens to ones like Kotaku with millions of readers, too. It’s not an uncommon occurrence in gaming media, though it’s seldom discussed publicly.

...

For the better part of two years, two of the biggest video game publishers in the world have done their damnedest to make it as difficult as possible for Kotaku to cover their games. They have done so in apparent retaliation for the fact that we did our jobs as reporters and as critics. We told the truth about their games, sometimes in ways that disrupted a marketing plan, other times in ways that shone an unflattering light on their products and company practices. Both publishers’ actions demonstrate contempt for us and, by extension, the whole of the gaming press. They would hamper independent reporting in pursuit of a status quo in which video game journalists are little more than malleable, servile arms of a corporate sales apparatus. It is a state of affairs that we reject.

Kotaku readers always deserve the truth. You deserve our best work. It doesn’t matter which company is mad at us today, or which companies get mad at us in the future. You’ll continue to get it.

A Price Of Games Journalism

It doesn’t matter which company is mad at us today, or which companies get mad at us in the future. You’ll continue to get it.

kotaku.com

And now the local arm is shutting down.

Terrible, terrible day. Who is left in Australia willing to report critically on the industry? I don't want a media landscape "little more than malleable, servile arms of a corporate sales apparatus"

* In the sense of "an analysis of the merits and faults of a work of literature, music, or art"

 

[berisha]

As someone who runs an outlet, it's definitely not great for the local industry. Written media, as we're all aware I'm sure, is a dying brand. There's been such a huge pivot to influencers who will happily promote a trailer or product, but rarely offer a critical analysis. It's so hard to make money, especially for a site like mine, it's just not sustainable as a full-time job, and even the jobs that do exist pay so little (some I know are in the $40k a year range).

It's such a controlled space now that it's so hard to do any real "journalism". I did an interview in the last 12 months and essentially PR forbid any questions on particular topics, and even if you manage to sneak one in the answers are so rehearsed there's nothing of value.

 

[StrappingTape]

Kotaku is bleeding money though and it's all their own fault so this is hardly a surprise. Won't be long before what's left of it in the US goes too.