argh.jpg Well, we hate to ignore a good catfight, so here it is - Kotaku and IGN, smashing and burning like a prissy Frankenstein on a screaming acid bender. OK, so we have to explain the history for this? Nah, we'll let Kotaku do it.

Joel Johnson says: "IGN's Nintendo correspondent Matt Casamassina claimed on his official blog that he was moving on to cover 360 and PS3 games—a shocking revelation from a man who has made a career in the enthusiast press by wholeheartedly devoting his coverage to a single company. Then, in a half-assed retcon, Casamassina claimed to have left his computer on while on vacation, obliquely placing the blame for the announcement on the Algonquin Roundtable of IGN's own group-home editorial staff."

But now, IGN's Tal Blevins claims that Kotaku are the idiots here, clarifying in the comments: "I wasn't busting on the original story at all. I just find it ironic that, after finding out it was false, the author of the original story posted another "news" piece where he (a) called Matt an "ass," (b) insulted the publication he worked for, then (c) called into question the credibility of the publication when the information was taken from a blog post and not the site itself." Um... yeah!

You know what, both of you guys? You're stinking the whole place up here. In fact, someone sent the thread around the entire office as an example of how the rowdier elements of game journalism continue to make everyone else look a tad unprofessional. Still, in a world where game developers aren't glamorous, don't sleep with kiss-and-tell tabloid hussies, and don't often crash their Ferraris on the PCH, this is about as much US Weekly-style excitement as we get round here. We bet four quatloos on the huffy alt.weblog!

[UPDATE: Kyle over at Video Game Media Watch has a detailed post on what we are now hilariously calling KotakIGN-Gate, including a number of comments from Kotaku and even Joystiq editors, existing together in some kind of delicate pre-apocalyptic stasis.]