Gameblog, which was the first to report the story, detailed its blacklisting in an article, stating ”Activision chose to cut all ties with Gameblog. Specifically, the publisher asked us not to introduce ourselves to an event Transformers: The fall of Cybertron , which we were invited next week, we can not cover it as planned. We will not receive more, now, Activision games, which will likely cause delays in the publication of their tests. It also meant that Activision would end its purchases of advertising space to our district and cancel campaigns already planned.” However, Gameblog, after vowing not to bow to pressure, did eventually remove the article.
Another French site, Xboxygen, received similar treatment. The site stated, ”We made it clear early that communications between Activision and would focus more Xboxygen do very well if we decided to let the news online. Then we confirmed that the news would remain online for obvious reasons of freedom of information, as we have always done.” The site has yet to pull the article.
Finally, Jeuxvideo posted and removed the news item. No statement or reason was given.
Activision may claim it doesn’t blacklist websites for posting news items that they don’t wish to see, but either Activision France didn’t get the memo, or Activision is just paying lip service to the public.
