But isn't that indistinguishable from an innocent who actually does wish he could help the officer?

... that this happened a couple of years back. Someone want to straighten me out? :)

"Ecosystem"?

There's a lot of truth to this. It's a trade-driven press -- not a news-driven press -- and I'm always happy to see a publication stop acting like a serf and break form. The challenge is going to be getting publishers and developers to accept that they need to be covered like any other industry -- and getting more pubs to behave like journalists.

... but I'd note that there was a tradition of unauthorized game guides from commercial guide publishers in the mid and late '90s. (A search for "unathorized strategy guide" on Amazon.com gets 210 hits.) However, now you rarely see unauthorized guides and I wonder whether their legality was ever successfully challenged ... or if it simply proved more timely and profitable for guide publishers to license the rights. Peter