With the amount traffic that Kotaku gets, they still feel the need to bait their readers in with controversial news headlines. Today the headline was, “Former Capcom Employee Talks Sexuality of Street Fighter IV Developer’s President.” This came from an interview with Yoshiki Okamoto that was posted on 1up.com on 12/26/2008. The meta-tag title for the article was ’sex’. When you see this title you think to yourself, “What does this have to do with gaming?”
After reading the original interview on 1up’s site, I realized that Kotaku took one small paragraph and used it to their advantage to get traffic. The interview was a great read. I have much respect for Yo after reading it and I can relate to a lot of things he said. It’s too bad that Kotaku had to spoil the greatness of the interview by pointing out someone’s possible bisexual tendencies.
It’s really sad when a site like Kotaku is so starved for traffic that they would bait their readers. This is the type of stuff 100k+ Alexa sites like mine should be doing, but we have this thing called integrity. I still have much respect for Brian Crecente but Ashcraft, the author of this story, has some serious issues.
To top it off they censored me when I called them out on it. Here’s my comment:
versellios
6:30 AMGreat VIDEO GAME news guys. Kotaku is slowly becoming the Star Magazine of the video game industry.
Here’s my comment after they disemvoweled me:
versellios
6:30 AMGrt VD GM nws gys. Ktk s slwly bcmng th Str Mgzn f th vd gm ndstry.
Total hilarity! What’s even funnier is that they posted their gossip version of the article this morning. I guess they missed the 1up train on Friday. Sucks to have a slow news day doesn’t it Kotaku?
Source: 1up
Bitches don’t know how we roll! What what!
They banned me! LOL
I don’t even visit the Kotaku website. I visit 4 sites daily Davis.
(Yes that was a play on words)
1. Gametrailers
2. US PS Blog
3. TheBitBag
4. n4g
Yes I have thebitbag bookmarked. :]
@snskid – YOU ROCK!
While I agree with what you’re saying here Torrence, it’s the larger institution and the way that they sort out paying their writers that we should be looking at here. Gawker Media, umbrella parent of Kotaku and many other sites (Gawker.com among them, thus the name), pays writers on each post based on its traffic stats — comments, page views, unique users, the amount of time they stay on the page, ad clickthroughs, etc. The problem is that this system of paying writers based on page views encourages sensationalist headlines and seemingly forced or, as you may very well put it, “non-news” stories. Worse, if that shit’s getting the page views, then isn’t it the readers fault for rushing to look at the train wreck, so to speak? if those sensationalist and tabloid posts get the most eyes and the readers want more, who’s to say it’s wrong to keep covering those topics? Isn’t serving the reader ultimately the final goal? I don’t read Kotaku for the same reason that you wrote this post and I can understand what you’re saying, but there’s bigger issues at play here and Mr. Ashcraft is just one writer trying to do his job (a lot like yourself, ahem). Hope your holidays are going well, amigo.