Game companies invade the blogosphere

Kotaku recently posted an excellent feature on the relatively new concept (in our industry) of official game company blogs. positioning them as a form of PR in action (with active community components and other useful features for consumers), writer Luke Plunkett closely examines three of the biggest and baddest company blogs: Microsoft’s Gamerscore blog, Sony’s PlayStation.blog, and Capcom’s community blogs.

According to Plunkett’s analysis, the gamerscore and PlayStation.blog are certainly guilty of being “targeted” and a bit sterile with their information (it is a PR tool, after all), but both more than get the job done. Special mention is given to the PlayStation.blog’s tendency to be a haven for the community, and he commends the speed and diligence with which developers answer user questions in the active comment sections under official posts. The Capcom blogs were found to give a much better sense of community and colorful personality.

From the post:

“Yes, they run PR. They’ll post about hype for upcoming games, the odd screenshot gallery, etc. But they’ll also post crap you wouldn’t dream of finding on most other company websites. Like opportunities for fans to come in and test upcoming games. Links and translations to the Japanese websites of Capcom games. Stupid old YouTube vids of Street Fighter commercials from 1993.”

It’s an interesting (and breezy) read, and certainly implies that the newness and relative chaos of the blogosphere is frightening (and also very exciting) ground for corporate types.

Read [Kotaku]