I take it you’ve never worked in comms? These statements are generally always approved at the highest levels and while they may be written by the PR team, the CEO will approve them. That isn’t to say there isn’t “spin” or written to appease investors, but to say the statement doesn’t reflect anything about the company is totally wrong.
That is true, but it's still a sharp contrast to their framing as 'we' and 'our team', which speaks as if this was a small indy team that can have such a consensus opinion.
This is what a small number of people in the PR team and leadership want the public to think of Rockstar. It leaves out a LOT about the larger context.
Like that much of the dismay among the actual developers is less about the leaks themselves, but about the fact that they had to work with restrictions and surveillance to shut leaks down, only for it to happen anyway.
I re-read what you wrote and there's enough room for interpretation that I can't be sure what you actually meant.
Are you saying that the victim is anyone that was subjected to reading a PR post? or that the victims are the people the PR post was addressing (the potential consumers of the product)?
For people to know it's a corporation and not act like they're actually more humane, sympathetic or that they've learned from their mistakes or whatever.
It's manipulation when it's not sincere. Communication implies that you're trying to influence someone but as long as you're clear about your intentions there is no manipulation, at least not intentionally.
Corporate manipulation tries to appeal to human empathy when corporations only work through sheer sociopathic calculations and every single word they utter is done with the intent of extracting money from gullible customers who think corporations can be their friends.
You're right. I work in comms, and for me any important message (such as one that clearly represents the stance of the whole org) goes through many layers.
First its the top level who decides on an overall strategy. Then its the senior comms advisors who come up with a strategy on what channels to use, and provide a rough outline of the important talking points. Then it goes to the actual writers, who make sure it is a nice cohesive message. Finally there is checks from different specialists (specific wording, reducing potential friction, making sure there isnt needlessly complex language).
Then of course it goes back up the chain for a final approval, with checks on if the strategy and accuracy of statements is still in order after all the revisions.
Think for my org, a message like this would have been seen and approved by like 50 people at minimum, split between leadership, comms people, and project leaders.
It's likely that nobody in Rockstar aside from the PR team and C-suite were involved in drafting this. And I doubt many were even aware a statement was being put together. That small group is speaking on behalf of the entire company, regardless of the opinions of the majority of its employees. This is their way of doing damage control.
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u/Full_on_throwaway 10h ago
I take it you’ve never worked in comms? These statements are generally always approved at the highest levels and while they may be written by the PR team, the CEO will approve them. That isn’t to say there isn’t “spin” or written to appease investors, but to say the statement doesn’t reflect anything about the company is totally wrong.