SniperHunter
Banned
Wish MS had given $750k to 1up.com back in the day 
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Press Reset: The Story of Polygon - financed by Microsoft for $750,000
- Thread starter Grecco
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Normally with endemic advertising, journalists would be aware that their paychecks were probably covered by some combination of Microsoft, EA, Activision, or Sony. Unless it was covered by Mountain Dew, Taco Bell, Doritos, or Monster Energy Drinks, but chances are a gaming company helped pay the rent that month.
Unless I'm completely misreading the thread, this is Microsoft wanting to make them a star. Not "them" as in Polygon as a group, this is them as in each individual writer will become the centerpiece of the ad campaign before they've written their first story for the publication. Even if the whole Polygon thing falls apart, those writers have received a significant investment in their personal branding. To me, it seems different than looking at the site after you've published an article to discover Nintendo's spending a lot this month.
funkystudent
Member
Damn son.
Soft focus and dutch angles are expensive.
Soft focus and dutch angles are expensive.
And then you have situations where publisher invite you to Italy and you can stay there for a week more on their dime if you choose to. (Assassin's Creed 2)
Or they do a lottery and everyone that participates has the chance of winning a 60" LCD TV, among other things.
Of course this is done to potentially influence the score. The only way you can avoid this is by having the person previewing the game and the person reviewing the game be a different person and not accept any gifts at all.
And pay for your own travel like I think GameSpot used to do and GameTrailers.com still does.
There is a conflict of interest and you can state that it doesn't matter and there still needs to be demonstrated that actual impropriety has/is taken place. But there is still the issue of seeming impropriety, as you can clearly see from the responses in this thread.
I can't help it! My tag dictates that I have to be right.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
That's 50k for the docu, 700k for the polygon editors retirement fund
Shining Sunshine
Banned
This is even worse than kickstarters.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Well, no. It is technically news brought to you by Microsoft. I suspect this is a phrase you will have to get used to typing in the future.
I agree, advertising does drive the industry. It is unfortunate, but journalism is ultimately a business. But I'd like to point you to one of the SPJ guidelines regarding ethics:
And hell, let's throw the part about accountability in there, too.
Can you honestly say Polygon is exemplifying all of these? Or even most of them?
Let's break this down - you received three quarters of a million dollars to produce a documentary about yourselves, something that has no journalistic benefit to anyone and exists only to advertise the now kind of funny notion that you are a new, revolutionary game journalistic outlet, and you received this money from a company you directly cover, ostensibly criticize, and have free reign to editorialize. Ignoring protests over the word "funny," am I correct that this is the reality of the situation? To put it simply, $750,000 were paid to your organization, from Microsoft, in order to subsidize your advertising?
Now, I don't know how much you know about the code of ethics, but I'm not an expert, and even I know this is grey at best. This is not a banner ad on your website to keep the lights on. This is a website that does not exist yet, taking money from one of the companies it covers, to advertise its impending existence. To compare this to coverage of CES sponsored by Ford misses so many rather important details that I am shocked you are either missing them or shocked that you would attempt to throw that ball over our heads and hope we don't notice. Either way, shame on you, seriously. Name-dropping advertisers as if the situations are comparable in an attempt to confuse the situation (or in an attempt to seriously argue it, in which case I don't even know how to respond to that level of fallacious assertions) isn't cool.
If you want to say, hey, we're not beholden to those rules. We just do games journalism. You know what? Go for it. More power to you. You are doing nothing out of your station, nor does anyone expect you to. But if the irony of producing a documentary about how you're raising game journalism out of the ghetto directly subsidized by a company who will be using you for box-quotes in the future is lost on you, then I feel you probably have more problems than simply how much said documentary costs.
You can't. It hasn't launched yet.
They lost me already and the thing isn't even a tangible entity yet? Holy shit. This "documentary" gives me a bad impression of all the people who are working for this new site and make me hate it before it even exists.
Who does that?
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
Outstanding post. Thanks for classing up the joint, as usual.
This is actually the secret point of the whole experiment. They assembled all of the worst personalities in the industry and threw them into a new site so that it could explode in a magnificent shower of amusement for us all.
If there is any justice in the world. If there is any justice in the world. If there is any justice in the world.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
As they said, they're doing something that's never been done before.
megamerican
Member
This whole thing has just been one comically long train crash. The ironic thing is the only episode of this show I would want to watch is the one where they have to react to all this backlash.
I mean not only is IE9 sponsorship a borderline conflict of interest, it's also kind of pathetic. Like a similar up its own ass fashion site being sponsored by Wrangler jeans.
I mean not only is IE9 sponsorship a borderline conflict of interest, it's also kind of pathetic. Like a similar up its own ass fashion site being sponsored by Wrangler jeans.
In the very least, MS will always have the benefit of the doubt and a slight edge in their minds because "they get it."
Wuthering_Heights
Banned
Damn, well said.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Games journalism quite simply just isn't journalism, not by any stretch of the imagination.
It has nothing to do with journalism. It's PR via third party, that is the business it is in, and protestations by games writers that they are journalists are amusing because it's a faulty conclusion based on either deceit, or self-deceit.
It is impossible for any games review/headlines site to avoid the conflict of interest inherant in advertising the very products and/or companies the site may write about. I don't believe any site has the power or ability to decouple media sales from editorial as much as they may claim to.
Editors / Site Owners have a simple choice to make, accept that their integrity is most certainly shot if they are reliant on advertising, or accept that their advertising revenue is shot if they choose integrity.
As they are businesses and advertising revenue is their lifeblood, it's easy to see which of the two they choose. (And I personally discount the opinions of those that claim to manage both wholesale).
ShockingAlberto
Member
The problem with taking advertising from companies you directly cover isn't the immediate demand of "Hey, review this product well or we take all our money back." That never happens.
It's the fact that, a year or two down the line, you start wondering if the next time you need or want their money will be affected by the review you are writing now. Will they be more likely to produce another documentary if Polygon is on the back of the Halo 4 box with a quote saying "Truly the best game in the series" than they would if the quote said "It makes improvements, but goes backwards in a lot of ways."
It inherently compromises your work and the only purpose for it seems to be to produce this movie.
It's the fact that, a year or two down the line, you start wondering if the next time you need or want their money will be affected by the review you are writing now. Will they be more likely to produce another documentary if Polygon is on the back of the Halo 4 box with a quote saying "Truly the best game in the series" than they would if the quote said "It makes improvements, but goes backwards in a lot of ways."
It inherently compromises your work and the only purpose for it seems to be to produce this movie.
RedNumberFive
Banned
Yup, I couldn't have said it better myself. Too bad that the message will be completely lost to its intended recipient.
The Wizard
Member
To be honest I'm much more annoyed that they were given $750k to make their shitty documentary more than the fact that it was Microsoft who provided said money.
D
Deleted member 20415
Unconfirmed Member
How do you guys think websites operate and run? It's an ad deal - they sponsor the video series, get some banners and other on-page placements and the site gets the funds to operate.This is how all websites function.
This money doesn't go into the pockets of the writers directly and they aren't influenced by it. This goes to the advertising department, who don't give a fuck where the money comes from, as long as it's coming in.
Also, $750k is a good-sized ad deal, but by no means rare - Sponsoring a homepage for a day on a major site can cost between $100-$200k.
I've worked in websites for years, I've been party to several deals like this... do you know how much money they probably used from the deal to finance the documentary? Probably less than $50k to pay for equipment and expenses.
This money doesn't go into the pockets of the writers directly and they aren't influenced by it. This goes to the advertising department, who don't give a fuck where the money comes from, as long as it's coming in.
Also, $750k is a good-sized ad deal, but by no means rare - Sponsoring a homepage for a day on a major site can cost between $100-$200k.
I've worked in websites for years, I've been party to several deals like this... do you know how much money they probably used from the deal to finance the documentary? Probably less than $50k to pay for equipment and expenses.
whalleywhat
Member
What? Source for this? That's bananas.
The Faceless Master
Member
like crack?
D
Deleted member 20415
Unconfirmed Member
Me, I'm the source - Relaunching a major games website and the ad department charged $150-$175k for a homepage takeover sponsorship for a day (maybe 2) and some banner ads. It's not unusual at all. Ad deals are big money guys. And truly, little of that money filters back into editorial proper.
Not especially, even print ads can get up there in the tens of thousands or low hundred thousands for popular magazines. $100+K to reach, potentially, millions of consumers is no big deal.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
-Pyromaniac-
Member
it plants a constant seed of doubt. Now I'm not sure I'll be able to trust them.
There's a big difference, the ads on Eurogamer advertise a product, not EG itself. Polygon's documentary is marketing, its advertising being paid for by Microsoft.It would be like Chevy paying Top Gear to make a TV ad about the inception of the magazine.
So yeah, you might be totally right with your post (I have no idea how funding like this takes place and what amount of money represent a normal deal). But let's not forget, Polygon is saying they are going to do something that has never done before. They present themselves as people who are going to do things no one has ever done before. However, everything they did up 'tll now contradicts those statements, including the way their website is funded (and we are not talking about ads on a website, but direct funding of the content they have been showing their audience, whoever that may be, up 'till now, the documentary).
And as is already mentioned, funding like this can have an effect on their integrity and objectivity as journalists. They receive funding of Microsoft. Even if that funding isn't directly received out of the MS Gaming Division, Microsoft is still the same company that also makes hardware and games this website is supposed to review objectively.
ShockingAlberto
Member
But this is not what we're talking about. We're talking about $750k to pay for their own commercial.
Also, Polygon does not appear to be a start-up independent site. It has major corporate backing that poached all these writers in the first place. If they wanted to avoid the appearance of impropriety, they could. They just didn't want to pay for it.
bodyofanamerican
Member
This needs to be posted once every page. I work in web advertising as well, and this totally nails exactly how it works. I even guessed how much the program cost within $50K of it.
Also, a) I bet you Crecente and them don't even know WHO is sponsoring and b) it's fucking IE, not Xbox. Relax.
Lastly, I would bet a substantial amount of money that the documentary itself was the sales department's idea. I wouldn't be shocked if sales had to beg the editors to do it in order to sell ad space.
WrenchNinja
Member
Something something Nier, something something fishing, something something red X.
Maybe theyre just terrible at games.
whalleywhat
Member
Wasn't that Jim Sterling?
Exactly. Microsoft is paying for Polygon to promote Polygon's launch. What is the next shoe to drop? What is Microsoft getting from this deal? The documentary is not content, but an advertisement for a site that doesn't exist.
Polygon made a deal with Microsoft for a non-essential promotional documentary. There was no apparent need that required this cash injection. This site was supposed to be the shining example of impartiality. It was supposed to be the future of gaming journalism. It is nothing more than the same old product wrapped in the same deceitful packaging if this $750 thousand partnership with Microsoft is anything to go by.
Unless you know something we don't, I'm kinda looking at this like you are jumping to conclusions.
They get lots of IE9(8?) advertising. The same way Ford or Honda get when they advertise on a car site.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Are you arguing the documentary was necessary or could not in any form be completed without $750,000 from Microsoft?
Majima Everywhere System
Member
I think this budget is reasonable considering that $150,000 gets you one person making 12 10-20 minute videos.
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