Essentially, Imagine published an unofficial Pokemon guide against Nintendo's wishes, and now Nintendo is taking them to court over it. Imagine is probably going to argue that the doctrine of "fair use" extends to the unofficial guide they published, but that seems to be stretching things a bit since fair use in the past has been used to allow the reprinting of copyrighted materials for review purposes and not commercial products, like a Pokemon hint guide. Click here to read Daily Radar's official statement on the matter.

Daily Radar, owned by Imagine, has now said they will no longer cover Nintendo products until this legal matter is resolved. This seems unfortunate to us. The last thing an editorial site should do is tie its purportedly unbiased editorial coverage to its right to publish a hint book. Everyone loses. The readers don't get to read reviews of games they may be thinking of purchasing. Nintendo doesn't get exposure for its products. And Daily Radar calls into question its editorial integrity. We hope Daily Radar and Imagine reconsider their stance and separate their business dealings with Nintendo from their editorial coverage of Nintendo products.

What do you think? Is this ban on coverage by Daily Radar a good thing? Post here.

Certainly, it's making DR look like a bunch of high school kids. I expect that they'll soon threaten to hold their breath until Nintendo gives in.

However, it is also probable that the dispute is drawing more attention to DR's website. In fact, you couldn't make all of your competitors set up a link to your page any other way, I suppose.

Yeah, there's the old saw that there's no such thing as bad publicity, which was disproved by Daikatana sales. Heh.

"And Daily Radar calls into question its editorial integrity."

I just think that's a funny statement. To quote Jerry Seinfeld to George: "Artistic integrity? Where'd you get that? You're not artistic, and you have no integrity."

I don't know that I expect editorial integrity from a site like Daily Radar, at least not in a conventional sense. I mean, it would be nice to be able to expect that, but if the LA TIMES cannot even effectively maintain separation between their business/political interests and their editorial coverage I'm certainly not going to have any delusions that what I read on Daily Radar has editorial integrity. Any more than I expect the American Urban Radio Network to give me intelligent film criticism. I go to D.R. for entertainment purposes, and in so doing take their advice with a grain of salt.

That's why I rely on a variety of sources before making a purchase. I just assume that sites like Daily Radar are beholden to someone or other, so I try to check a variety of opinions, stick with critics I've come to trust, and ask friends. Sites like yours work into that scheme quite nicely. Knowing where you come from, and knowing your size, I feel I can trust you a bit more.

Here's a question for you guys though. If SONY (or Nintendo, or Microsoft, or whomever) offered to be your site's patron (I'm sure there's Internet terminology for that, probably in the form of an acronym) with the understanding that you would be favorable to their products in your reviews, would you accept their offer? I'm not insinuating anything here, but honestly asking a question. Knowing how hard it is to stay afloat on the Internet, would you accept a business arrangement that would limit your editorial freedom if it guaranteed your livelihood?

The larger question to me, is, how many people who review games and movies (or anything) on the Internet have journalistic principles at heart? How many of them truly view themselves as journalists at all? When business concerns influence their work, do they even see that influence as a violation of editorial integrity, or to them does the term simply not apply?

Talk amongst yourselves.

-Amanpour

Here's a cool article on the integrity of game critique...

http://www.myvideogames.com/features/feature54.asp

I'd have to agree with that assessment of Daily Radar, their reviews are often a bit more senationalistic and "shock-jockey" than they need be. However, they update their news faster than anyone, so that's my greatest draw to the site.

Well, you have to agree that anything Daily Radar posted about Nintendo's upcoming games or platform (the Gamecube) would have been looked on as completely biased. If they posted a bad review, it would be because they are bitter that their parent company is being sued. If they posted a good review, it would be because they are trying to kiss Nintendo's ass to get them to drop the lawsuit. So, to avoid looking biased in any way, they suspended coverage until the lawsuit is over. Seems pretty logical to me.

CNN did the same thing when the Time Warner/AOL deal was waiting to be approved by the FTC. They posted facts about the proceedings, but they never posted a single opinion or editorial about the case until the FTC grated permission for the two companies to merge. Since reviews are nothing but opinions, I think Daily Radar is doing the right thing.

Even if they promised themselves that they wouldn't let the currect legal action color their reviews/previews, how could they truly do that? If it were me, I would be sitting there playing this game, and I would either be much pickier (to "get those bastards"), or much more lenient (I don't want to look like I'm trying to "get those bastards").

"Here's a question for you guys though. If SONY (or Nintendo, or Microsoft, or whomever) offered to be your site's patron (I'm sure there's Internet terminology for that, probably in the form of an acronym) with the understanding that you would be favorable to their products in your reviews, would you accept their offer? I'm not insinuating anything here, but honestly asking a question. Knowing how hard it is to stay afloat on the Internet, would you accept a business arrangement that would limit your editorial freedom if it guaranteed your livelihood?"

This isn't a primary source of income for us, so it's not our livlihood. But we wouldn't be open to such a scheme even if it were, unless we were bought out and branded as a house site, something like Nintendo Power magazine.

I've written press releases and corporate PR before in other jobs, so I'm comfortable in that role if that's my job. That isn't my responsibility here, however.

Your hypothetical question is a bit of a fantasy situation anyway. I've never heard of such a deal being offered before. Instead I hear the opposite. One of the major mags has had two big companies yank all their advertising over product reviews they didn't agree with.

It's really a pretty clean industry from what I've seen. The biggest problem is probably journalists and game company people being a bit too cozy. Once you're friends with someone, it's harder to criticize his or her product.

Daily Radar has editorial content? Wow. I guess it's buried under the 5 gazillion ads.

-Monkeybutt

Hmmm, well I hope my Kingdom Under Fire review won't be responsible for G.O.D. cutting off CGO/Computer Games. ;)

After reading all 19 pages of the Nintendo's complaint, I'm siding with Nintendo.

http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_page_2135_1.html

If it were just about screenshots, I'd say "waah, waah, waah." But, Imagine Media copied Nintendo's Pokeman stylizations in its cover, and reproduced Nintendo's copyrighted character drawings and line-art. That's property theft.

Even if it was just screens, Nintendo would probably have a strong case. That's still their property and Imagine is using it to create a commercial product that competes with one that Nintendo has an interest in.

---

Quote:

Hmmm, well I hope my Kingdom Under Fire review won't be responsible for G.O.D. cutting off CGO/Computer Games. ;)

---

Well, on a once-over like Bob Mayer gave it for
the First Look, I can kind of see how you might
say it was OK. After all, when you first boot it
up it looks like Phantagram must be the ultimate
collection of Blizzard fans, because it appears to
be WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo all rolled into one.

Not a bad concept, but when you play around with
it for a while you learn that the execution lags
far behind the concept.

"Not a bad concept, but when you play around with
it for a while you learn that the execution lags
far behind the concept."

Yeah, the AI isn't very good, the graphics are dated, and even the much vaunted unit animation isn't that compelling. It's probably a game that only a hardcore multiplayer RTS fan can embrace. There have been numerous RTS games released over the last two years that are better than this.

It's too bad, though, because I have soft spot for fantasy in my heart and most of the RTS games seem to tilt towards sci-fi (which I also like, but not quite as much).

And as a multiplayer game it loses what might
otherwise make it special, the RPG elements.
Unlike Warlords Battlecry the heroes that are so
central to the campaign game are stripped out of
the multiplayer game, so what you get is a very
bland RTS game that has nothing to recommend over
its far better Blizzard inspiration.

Just noticed that Daily Radar UK is still doing Nintendo coverage. Hmmm.

Here's a good article on joystick101

http://www.joystick101.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001/1/21/18413/1624

I understand Nintendo's desire to protect their Pokemon property, since their right to a trademark is only valid as long as they are willing to enforce it. Daily Radar is doing itself a disservice by tying itself so closely to the commercial aspect of the matter.

Personally, I think this Penny Arcade comic sums it up nicely:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-01-19&res=l

- Alan