We generally like to avoid cluttering up the front page with multiple articles on the same story, but I think that this particular story deserves a follow up. A couple of days ago, I published an article in which I quoted Michael Pachter saying that Steam is “supposedly” looking into allowing trade-ins via their digital store. Now that the interview has had sometime to make it’s way to Valve, the quote is coming back to haunt Mr. Pachter.
Valve marketing head Doug Lombardi recently spoke to EuroGamer regarding the alleged trade-in plans, and said that Valve has never met with Michael Pachter, and they have no idea where he got the notion from. Pachter responded in turn, agreeing that he had never met Valve, and that the problematic quote came around because the game journalist posed the question to him awkwardly. This is his new stance on his line from a couple days ago after the jump:
“I saw the headlines yesterday, and honestly don’t remember saying that Steam would sponsor trade-ins,” he claimed.
I can only surmise that the reporter asked the question that way (‘Steam is rumored to be considering taking digital trade-ins’) and asked me what I thought. I have NOT heard this from anybody, and think it had to be the way the question was phrased.
When I said ‘supposedly’, it’s because the question was posed that way, and is an acknowledgment that I’ve never heard it before. I am pretty sure it was posed as a hypothetical question, and I was trying to be responsive.
For the record, I don’t know anything about Steam’s plans to sponsor credits for games purchased in the past. Mr. Lombardi is entirely accurate that I have not spoken to anyone at Valve about this, and I did not hear anything from anybody other than from the reporter who interviewed me.”
I guess being an analyst leaves room for a lot of guess-work, because Mr. Pachter’s whole interview is one big question. He was “pretty sure” that the query posed by the reporter is the source of the issue. He “supposed” from the “hypothetical” question that Valve would allow trade-ins. If you listen closely, I’m sure you can hear the sound of a shovel biting into dirt as Michael Pachter prepares a grave for what’s left of his credibility.
Perhaps I got a bit too personal there, but if you make a mistake, at least have the decency to admit that you spoke out of your butt instead of shoving the blame off. Any opinion on Michael Pachter’s waffling? Do you kind of wish that Valve would allow trade-ins? Go!
Source – EuroGamer
flip-flopper!
Valve, I am disappoint.
Sounds like a non-issue to me. His original quote was so non-committal anyway that I’m surprised so many people took it seriously.
I’m actually inclined to believe his explanation, though. If Pachter was the one who brought up the subject in passing, then assuming the original interviewer was any kind of journalist, he/she would have followed up with a question about what Pachter knew about the potential trade-in policy. If the interviewer posed the question, then Pachter’s nebulous answer clearly didn’t provide any information the interviewer didn’t already know so there was no need for a follow-up.
Mr. Pachter is a pretty smart guy, and and I think he’s a pretty credible analyst, so I think I believe him on this.
Whether or not Pachter is a smart and credible guy doesn’t matter, as his response to this was a mistake in my opinion. just say you were simply speculating and leave it at that. Don’t go blaming the reporter who is probably not going to want to do an interview him again.
on the other hand I agree with Cossack on this. very disappoint.
In Pachter’s defense, though, we have no way of knowing when this interview with Nowgamer actually took place and under what circumstances. It could have been done a month ago during a trade show or something as one of a dozen interviews he did that day. Next thing he knows, he sees this report crediting him as a source and has to connect the dots about why he might have given that particular answer.
Could he have said that he was just speculating and left it at that? Yes, of course, but if he felt like he was baited into offering speculation only to have it reported as insider information, I can see why he was so quick to give an explanation of his comments. From a professional standpoint, he doesn’t want to become known as a unreliable rumormonger (although as Mitch pointed out in his first post, he may already have this reputation to begin with).
Part of the problem is the way the Nowgamer article reads. If you follow the link that Mitch provided in his original post, the entire article is based around Pachter’s statement that Valve is “supposedly” working on something for trade-ins. They took that comment and ran a headline that reads: “Rumour: Valve to Offer Steam Trade-Ins.” Not to be nit-picky, but Pachter did not say this was going to happen; he said that Valve was “supposedly” looking into doing Steam trade-ins.
Some may say this is a matter of semantics, but I say it’s the difference between quality and shoddy journalism.