Is Kotaku in danger of shutting down?

Sad for everyone involved. I don't wanna see people lose their jobs over stuff like this, especially not actual good reporters like Scoops. I'm sure he'll bounce back, but this is sad.

Those twitter comments are vile. Not surprised to see a lot of /v/ posters and #Gamergate supporters there. Idiots.
 
dave is ok said:
GAF is weird.

You'd think people here would be celebrating the death of a website that published a video of a college girls probable rape.

But they own a video game site and Hulk Hogan said something racist. So everyone is worried about people employed by that same company's livelihood instead? Ok
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It's entirely possible to feel bad for the cogs trying to get by who are now without a day job, while being glad that the skeevy machine as a whole is gone.
 
dave is ok said:
GAF is weird.

You'd think people here would be celebrating the death of a website that published a video of a college girls probable rape.

But they own a video game site and Hulk Hogan said something racist. So everyone is worried about people employed by that same company's livelihood instead? Ok
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You can support Gawker Media/Nick Denton being punished for blatent wrong-doings, dislike Hulk Hogan, and be sad over the loss of jobs of innocent people unrelated to this case simultaneously.

MIND BLOWN.
 
Do they have insurance that might cover this judgement. I've read a few articles on the story and haven't seen anything discuss this.

Edit: there is also the possibility that they appeal the amount ordered to pay rather than the Judgement itself. That probably is the best way to go.
 
Would the fact that the writers are unionized hurt the ability to sell Kotaku/Deadspin/ect? I can imagine companies would be interested in buying the names of the sites, but not wanting to bring on the staff, especially if the company that buys the brand runs websites that are not unionized.
 
You reap what you sow. Honestly, Gawker had this coming.

Gawker could have saved its staff by taking the video down when ordered to.
 
Scientist Supreme! said:
Yeah, I love that racist!
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not that it'll make you feel better but he's getting the money from the guy who said sex tapes of celebrities 5 and up would be newsworthy and tries to play it off as a joke. In court. one person here is shitty (hogan), guy who runs gawker... well he's done enough to me to say he's the worse of two evils.
 
sensui-tomo said:
not that it'll make you feel better but he's getting the money from the guy who said sex tapes of celebrities 5 and up would be newsworthy and tries to play it off as a joke. In court. one person here is shitty (hogan), guy who runs gawker... well he's done enough to me to say he's the worse of two evils.
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Oh, I understand.
It's just weird to see people act like there is a "winner" in this fight.
 
Briarios said:
They should have settled. Someone should have explained to them the relationship between the 1st Amendment and prurient interest. A first year journalism student would have known better.
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Hogan didn't want to settle. He wanted to see the whole gawker ship burn down to ashes. And I don't blame him either.
 
Guys, Gawker Media, the parent company, is the one being sued. If they are forced to declare bankruptcy under chapter 11, they must sell all their assets. This includes Kotaku, Lifehacker, and even Gawker.com. So long as someone out there is willing to buy it, Kotaku will survive.

Remember THQ? Same deal there. Their franchises didn't vanish, they were auctioned off to other developers/publishers. Even their studios were acquired, except for a few.

TLDR: If they go bankrupt, Kotaku will be sold. Unless it isn't profitable, someone will buy Kotaku.
 
After the outing and the initial Hogan stuff, I'd have distanced myself from Gawker immediately. Have any larger personalities of the Gawker family of sites ever commented on it or Daulerio's morally repugnant dealings?

Of course I feel bad for those who's livelihoods might be affected, but I also struggle with the decision to turn a blind eye to your parent company literally ruining lives and continue being content working under them...
 
sensui-tomo said:
not that it'll make you feel better but he's getting the money from the guy who said sex tapes of celebrities 5 and up would be newsworthy and tries to play it off as a joke. In court. one person here is shitty (hogan), guy who runs gawker... well he's done enough to me to say he's the worse of two evils.
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I don't believe they would be getting any money from Daulerio. He was an employee and hasn't worked there for years.

Denton's just as bad though so close enough.
 
Nobody really wins in this situation, besides justice taken on Mr. D. Hogan's privacy is invaded (but is a racist) and Gawker clearly was shady and the actions they took regarding privacy were abhorrent (but talented sub-sites like Kotaku with lots of talent have to suffer for it).

But please, for the love of God, let's not devolve into the weird faux friend-drama that is some people's obsessions with giving GB members the side eye because they "ruin" their experience or some shit.
 
Kama_1082 said:
Just remember that Jason fought and was totally against taking down the article that outted the Conde Nast CFO.
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Most good journalists would be. Most good joirnalists would also have been appalled but the article and been opposed to its posting in the first place. It's the way the article was taken down, as mandated by management outside editorial, that's the issue.

I believe most of the folks against the takedown also were against the article going up as well. I believe it was just the writer and one editor who thought it was a worthwhile piece to put up in the first place.
 
Kotaku doesn't deserve to be shutdown for Gawker's stupidity. I like Totilo/Jason and they've been doing a fantastic job.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
You can support Gawker Media/Nick Denton being punished for blatent wrong-doings, dislike Hulk Hogan, and be sad over the loss of jobs of innocent people unrelated to this case simultaneously.

MIND BLOWN.
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Yeah, seriously

I'm no fan of Gawker (the website) and the gross tabloid shit they put out but I feel bad for all of the people at Kotaku, Deadspin, io9 etc who could very well be out of a job because of something they had absolutely nothing to do with.
 
I'm sure Kotaku as a brand will survive, even if Gawker dies a death of flames and bankruptcy. It's still a respected name & team, and if that is worth anything - they'll do just fine.

As for Klepick, he's now a successful YouTube star. He just has to play Mario Maker all day and I'm pretty sure Google will just directly send him gold bars.
 
...I was just thinking today about how it was very encouraging that Kotaku seems to be doing so well in the current climate of traditional games journalism, and what great work they had been doing lately. Hope they find a buyer that'll treat the staff right.
 
Cruxist said:
Most good journalists would be. Most good joirnalists would also have been appalled but the article and been opposed to its posting in the first place. It's the way the article was taken down, as mandated by management outside editorial, that's the issue.

I believe most of the folks against the takedown also were against the article going up as well. I believe it was just the writer and one editor who thought it was a worthwhile piece to put up in the first place.
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Lol there was a vote to publish it and it passed
 
I want to know why people have such a strong feeling against clickbait when it pays the bills and keeps the lights on to do actual reporting. It is not exclusive to Kotaku in any way shape or form. Without clickbait you're as good as dead as a news site.
 
I hope the Gawker "media empire" fucking crumbles under the weight of these settlements.

Some really reprehensible shits work for those smattering of blogs.

Good riddance.
 
Nanashrew said:
I want to know why people have such a strong feeling against clickbait when it pays the bills and keeps the lights on to do actual reporting. It is not exclusive to Kotaku in any way shape or form. Without clickbait you're as good as dead as a news site.
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I hate it because it's lazy

I hate it because it devalues the site so when they put out something significant like what Patrick and Jason do gets largely ignored because of the sites reputation

I hate it because a lot of times I completely disagree with the list assessment and it makes me ornery
 
Personally I feel nothing of value would be lost. The rare quality article or two are buried under Patricia's endless barrage of garbage posts.

The only Gawker site I still visit is their "Kinja Deals" round up. I'm sure I'd be better off getting this info elsewhere though, but I dont know where that would be.
 
I will buy Kotaku. I like their work and their policies on reviewing game builds that are in the players hands, and not scoring their reviews. Anybody got $5 million or so?
 
Nanashrew said:
I want to know why people have such a strong feeling against clickbait when it pays the bills and keeps the lights on to do actual reporting. It is not exclusive to Kotaku in any way shape or form. Without clickbait you're as good as dead as a news site.
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This isn't necessarily true. I've worked with and ran a few sites that did their very best to deter from using clickbait, two of which were gaming focused. It's not a death warrant, but it does require an extra level of dedication since it's a very slow burn developing to the point of having what you could consider a respectably large userbase. The difficulty is finding reliable staff happy to do voluntary work of high quality so that you can grow the way the sites need to on a promise of a better future. It requires a high level of interest in the idealogy of the site from the writers and editors that generally is hard to find.

Interestingly, I was working with another site at the time that DID rely on clickbait and the analytics seemed to suggest that while clickbait was bringing in people faster, not relying on it elsewhere was providing a slower growing, but more reliable userbase that would visit multiple pages. Not to mention growth of interaction with the community. It's a single anecdotal example, but IMO the only upsides to clickbait is fast tracked page views.

It goes much, much deeper than this of course with other factors like the actual design, linking of content and how well it does at convincing the reader to take that step into a different page that wasn't just a link they found elsewhere, but I'd strongly disagree that clickbait is required to succeed. There's just too many other factors that go into it.
 
RiccochetJ said:
I hate it because it's lazy

I hate it because it devalues the site so when they put out something significant like what Patrick and Jason do gets largely ignored because of the sites reputation.

I hate it because a lot of times I completely disagree with the list assessment and it makes me ornery
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All understandable. I think you understand something else too though, that there are good journalists there, so despite that you can focus on them. That's what I do for quite a lot of sites. Clickbait is unfortunate with how some perceive a site though. I also imagine with Kotaku's checkered history with Brian Cresente as the owner, that still sticks around for many.

I really see Kotaku like I do just about every other site I visit, with good reporting from specific journalists and clickbait here and there.
 
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