Zoo Editor Claims Rockstar Demanded Good Red Dead Coverage, Gets Fired

A section editor from Australian lads’ mag Zoo was sacked recently for publishing an email, allegedly from a Rockstar PR rep, that suggests the publisher was pressuring the mag to publish a more favourable review of its upcoming Red Dead Redemption.

Toby McCasker, the mag’s former deputy entertainment editor, published only part of the email on his Facebook page, which said that ’œThis is the biggest game we’ve done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world.’ It also requested that Toby’s article ‘œreflects this – he needs to respect the huge achievement he’s writing about here.’

While they’re some pretty pushy words from the PR team, it’s basically what their job is: to make sure reviewers write the best things they can about their games. If that had been sent to me, I’d be slightly irritated, but would understand their intention. McCasker said that he did not sign up to become a journalist to write ‘œadvertorials masquerading as editorial’. He added: ‘œThis ‘˜cash for comment’ culture that is fast becoming the status quo within print media bothers me a lot.’

Zoo editor Paul Merrill then responded to a Kotaku article and said:

I would like to make it clear that at no time has Rockstar EVER sought a preferential review in return for advertising. In fact no games company has ever suggested this. And Zoo would never give a positive review to a game we didn’t rate in return for ad dollars.

Toby McCasker was sacked for a number of reasons, one of which was his decision to post a private email on his Facebook page. This email was not referring to a game review. He should not be considered a credible source of information on this matter.

While Merrill of course isn’t going to say “Hell yeah, we take bribes” if he’s saying it isn’t about a Red Dead Redemption review then it pretty much invalidates McCasker’s comments and places him as angry ex-employee looking to stir some shit after getting sacked and two previous tellings off.

So it seems that the comments from Rockstar’s PR (which are only part of an email, I’m guessing if we saw the entirety of it would be pretty innocent) aren’t much more than a rep being a little pushy; not them trying to buy some good coverage in an admittedly low-brow magazine.