To the understandable chagrin of publishers, more than a few video game websites have discovered that the ESRB can be an excellent source for scraps of news concerning unannounced titles. For example, Siliconera spilled the beans on three upcoming Atlus titles in the last month just by cruising the ESRB's latest rating assignments.
For its part, Atlus (Persona, Trauma Center) responded by ribbing the industry’s ratings body with a jokey press release:
Our experiment has been a rousing success. Allowing information about our upcoming titles to be silently posted on ESRB’s website has been a triumph, and we’ve decided to abandon all direct, overt disclosures of our future games in favor of quietly allowing the posting of new titles onto ESRB.org...
We’re sure we’ll have everyone doing this at some point, following in our footsteps. And maybe at some point it will force us to change direction. But in the mean time, we really feel that indirectly leaking all future game announcements and hoping a few people stumble upon them and tell everyone they know is the best way to go...
While it’s nice to see a publisher taking the high road, we wonder if Atlus itself isn't the one at fault here. Since last June, publishers have had the option to request that the ESRB hold off on posting a game’s rating information until its official announcement or ship date.
Via: Siliconera
-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen…
Comments
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
I'm stoked for Persona 4. I just beat the last one.
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
Um...yeah.
I've known about Persona 4 for six months.
From Atlus' site.
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
Didn't mean to imply that was one of the leaked titles. Only giving readers who didn't already know an idea of who Atlus is.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
A better example would have been the re-release of Persona 2. Almost nobody found out about it until literally every copy had been scooped up by scalpers.
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
Spoilers for everybody!
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
I can understand the publishers being a bit upset over ESRB releasing info on unannounced/unreleased games but it sounds like ESRB has a solution in place for publishers to defer the release of the info now. Perhaps not before, but they do now so it should be a moot point now i guess, right?
------------------------------------
I am a signature virus, please copy and paste me into your signature to help me propagate.
Re: Atlus Looks at the Bright Side of ESRB Info Leaks
Mmmmmmm so what if people might think a game is ready for launch being on the ESRB is one of the final steps befor launch...but...I would hope a publisher would want a finished product to sell to the public and nota unfinished and bearly supported one....
=================================
Pirates,Shearers,Lenders and downloaders are not a market that can be taped by the mainstream.
---------------------------------
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
---
http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/