They're not Glenn Greenwald, they're leaking business information and personal correspondence purely for clicks. They hurt Bethesda commercially but expect Beth to help them commercially; but of course Beth will never agree that the public has a right to know everything about their internal processes, or they would have made them public themselves. Why would they expect Kotaku to respect an embargo? Doesn't "the public have a right to know the truth" a few days early by their logic?

I would agree it was unacceptable if Beth cut them off for giving bad reviews, and I would agree with publishing leaks if there was a public interest rather than just gossip, but in this case I don't care.

Generally in journalism if something gets released, its in the public interest, this is no way is covered under the public interest, its covered under, weve got a scoop its in our interest to release something before our competitors do thus giving us the glory for finding out something nobody else did, and only gives them the advantage.

Agree with this completely.

I hate that tabloid trash, it is not real journalism. Real journalism is about reporting facts, not taking sides as more often then not Kotaku does, and also not about whining and trying to incite the masses against companies because they got what they deserved. What a load of tripe, they are certainly not working for the public interest, they are working for themselves, with zero regard to who they trample on in the process. Bethesda had every right to block them an block 'em good!

More or less, they were both within their rights to do what they did of course. Though for Kotaku to victimize themselves because they thought there wouldn't be any consequences to reporting on information a company didn't want out, well, it's rather pathetic.

Yeah, it's true that Bethesda ( or any other company for that matter ) can manipulate other people's opinions by careful selection of who they allow to try their game first. But then again, trusting anyone's opinion before any game is released is naive anyways.

If you want to talk about swaying public opinion for one's gain, you're better off talking about the supposed invite-only Fallout 4 launch party in LA that drew in celebrities and various members of the gaming press.

But what Kotaku did was basically the equivalent of what TMZ does on a daily basis. I'm sure as we speak, Bethesda is currently juggling a bunch of different settings for Fallout 5! Are we entitled to know? Not until they let us. We need to respect eachother's privacy, regardless of it's a person or entity.

I could not have said it better myself.

I have to agree with the overall sentiment. They did something, and now they are whining about the repercussions. Grow up already.

As a side....that was the first article of theirs I have ever read....

Its beyond pathetic, its downright childish trying to turn themselves into the victims and speaks volumes about the morons running that clickbait trash-heap.

"But we didn't realize they would be pissed about leaking valuable proprietary information! The gamerz needed to know! Freedom of the press!"

No, Kotaku. None of that information was "need to know". You weren't breaking some scandal, you were leaking information that Bethesda wasn't ready to publish yet. And which we all would have found out in good time. You just wanted to reap the pageviews of having "exclusive" information that you shouldn't have even had in the first place.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I have been linked to Kotaku a couple of times on message boards. I've yet to go there on my own volition

I read the article twice so I could give an impartial opinion, but I have to go with Bethesda and Ubisoft on this one. I don't see how they could have not expected some type of reaction for publishing leaked information.

Kotaku is nothing but trash that is just waiting for a new update on Destiny to write a thousand articles saying "Destiny is still the best game ever made!" and continue with their click-bait articles. They've been involved in some controversies in the past and I just read that they blacklisted a popular Youtuber because he refused to side with them, but the Kotaku "Writers" just called him a liar because they don't have the balls to accept the things they do.

Cry me a river.

It sounds like Kotaku is trying to spin themselves as some kind of heroic champion of the people in this, which is funny...although I think many entitled gamers will eat it up. I mean, they didn't blow the whistle on a government conspiracy here...they leaked private information...about a video game...to drum up more page traffic and make more money off of ad clicks. It's about as heroic as trying to snap upskirt shots of celebrities climbing out of limos.