If you thought the stories about Tecmo couldn't get any weirder, here's one that might push the bar up a bit.

Sorethumbsblog has recently taken a look at the "behind the scenes" of video game journalism, and how game companies try to please the journalists that will be covering them or their games. It's not uncommon for them to give journalists free tickets to sporting events, free dinners, etc
But Tecmo goes one step above all that.
To please American journalists, Tecmo pays thousands of dollars to send them off to Hostess Bars and hire some "lady companionship" for the night.

Editors fly to Japan fairly regularly to visit Japanese game studios. And those studios and their respective publishers will usually entertain these editors — dinner, drinks...the usual. But I guess flying into strange, alien lands deserves high-end hospitality, so Tecmo in the past has treated their American journalist guests to evenings out at Japanese hostess bars, watering holes where women are paid to keep customers company (not necessarily in a “me so horny!” way...it’s more of a “let me keep filling your drinks and you are so funny and handsome and wonderful and let me hang on to your every word!” male-insecurities-nuking thing).
Maybe that in itself is nothing shocking, but this part might be: Tecmo has literally spent thousands of dollars giving a very small handful of American editors some lady companionship for one night. Thousands. That’s some pricey conversating.

Miss Razz via sorethumbsblog.com »