The navel gazing continues as what does and does not constitute “Game Journalism”. We’ve decided that at the beginning of every article we post about “Game Journalism” we will have a disclaimer that everyone should keep in mind when reading any game article. The Disclaimer is as follows…

Disclaimer: There is not enough note worthy game “news” in a 24/7 to support a fact only “Game Journalism” field. Commentary, VS argument, Rumor, Gossip and other Op-ed style reporting is used to fill in the gaps. Think of “Game Journalism” less like a stock market report, full of facts and figures, and more like sports journalism, 1/3 talking heads. Game news is as much entertainment as it is fact based. It is what you fill up your time with in between the release of Street Fighter IV and Killzone 2.

Today we are going to take a gander at reporting rumors. Not all rumors are “rumors” many are intentional press leaks to get the hype ball rolling. Developers, Publishers, etc will say something off hand like “we plan on doing a lot of this in God of War 3″ when talking about a technology. Then when asked directly they will say they cannot comment. Other types of “leaks” are more direct something will appear in a mailbox, on a forum, or on a twitter account. Only to be deleted 8 hours later after every news source on the planet has reported on it. Few “leaks” are actually leaks. As it is pretty hard to accidentally log on to an account and type out 200 characters you are not suppose to. Other rumors are started through mere speculation. Take for instance the Killzone Super Bowl Ad.

It is obvious now that the Killzone ad was bogus. But you didn’t need to wait for the Super Bowl or a Sony statement to figure this out. You only had to look at the contents of the Ad vs the context of it’s placement. In the past Super Bowl ad spots have cost as much as $1,000,000 a second. Is Sony going to spend 60 million on an ad spot for a game when it hasn’t done anything remotely like that in the two years of the PS3s history? Highly unlikely. Then you have to look at the context of the ad itself. Is people getting shot and grenaded, with blood flying everywhere really going to get okayed during prime time, on a family network, during one of the biggest family events of the season? Hell, no. Look how big a fit they through over Janet Jackson. Why anyone thought this one was real is a mystery.

You can apply this line of thinking to almost any rumor. Don’t wonder if the rumor is true or not, or if you would like it to be true. Ask yourself, “Does this rumor even seam remotely plausible in the context that it is given.” You can use it on Xbox 720, PS4, PSP2, Dreamcast 2 rumors. Is it likely given the current economic condition that any of these will be launched in an environment where many will not be able to afford them? No. That is why Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft has put their release out as far as 2011. You can count on none of the above being released until the economic issue bottoms out and begins to recover. Rumors are fun and all, but c’mon most of them are not hard to see through.