PR is a vital yet underrated part of the promotional cycle of games, involving a lot of behind-the-scenes work to keep journalists engaged and aware of products coming down the pipeline. When Will Powers, a now former member of SCEA PR, was let go, he took to twitter to assert the importance of his position and blast Sony.
“You have to wonder what the hell PlayStation was thinking laying off more than half of their software PR team going into the holiday season,” Powers wrote. “In typical fashion they’re sending titles out to die, because they have no PR support — [Little Big Planet Karting], Sports Champions 2, Wonderbook. Worst part it, the PR department was already under-staffed. I feel sorry for those that remain there, because their workload just doubled.”
Powers also ranted about external PR agencies. “Already they outsourced too much work to overpriced agencies, so laying off is only going to exacerbate an existing problem,” he added. “The point of having external agencies is so that you can scale back without layoffs, not layoff so you can ramp up. Internal PR teams have product loyalty and serve only one master. Neither can be said about agencies, though there are some select people.”
He continued his rant about some policies of Sony Corp. in general. “That being said, you have to question the priorities of the company as a whole — What’s the point of AdHoc multiplayer when no one has a Vita Sony in general is serving too many masters. PlayStation shouldn’t suffer because TVs are overpriced. This all being said, because I genuinely like and care about the PS product, but they’re being hamstrung from success internally,” Powers concluded.
Source: Kotaku
