Refute? It's impossible to refute. This is the double standard here (and perhaps rightfully so). The original poster gave ZERO proof--it was a firsthand account from an anonymous poster who gave no evidence apart from a few words. You can't prove that it doesn't happen--Microsoft came out and said they didn't do it, which normally would be proof, but hey, no one listens. It's only possible to prove that they DO it, and so far, there's been NOTHING to that effect.
And this prevailing train of thought is why I find myself commenting on GAF less and less.
Sorry but we have proof of that. We have banned people here who used PR company mails and did damage control on own boards here. Those PR companies do not do something like that for free. They are being paid to do that. By looking at what was part of their work on NeoGaf we will know for whom they were working. Ton of PR shills defended MS fuckup ergo MS is doing exactly what that poster said.
We even had Che community manager for Forza trolling GT forums few years ago.
Which means MS employees outside or inside of MS were paid to be shills and go to forums doing fake PR for their employer.
I don't need to listen what MS will say. Because we know they paid for dudes going to forums and various boards.
MS already was caught numerous times on things like that and it is not their first time and last time. Same with Sony or any other bigger company.
If you want to talk with shills which are paid to have an opinion then you are welcome to do so but keep other people out of this and don't complain where your paid friends are banned here.
So I can't give my honest opinion without first disclosing where I work? I usually do when commenting on something related to my job out of consideration, and most of the people here who know me know my professional background (for the purposes of this thread, it has nothing to do with console gaming), but I still find it ridiculous that GAF puts out a witchhunt over someone who doesn't. A lot of people choose to work somewhere specifically BECAUSE they feel passionate about the product. Whether or not they decide to disclose that fact is a matter of privacy. Given the huge backlash against Sim City I highly doubt Glassbox wanted to "out himself", especially if he's not authorized to do PR.
This is why a lot of the industry is "afraid" of GAF, really. It's so easy to turn something positive or innocuous into something harmful.
Industry afraid of GAF because GAF is not place when you can just run PR campaign and where people read things between lines. Just few last days we had ton of
proven shills working and doing damage control of MS fuckup. If you have nothing to hide then you don't need to fear GAF. SimCity fiasco was not community but developers/publishers fuckup. Because they made decision that SimCity needs DRM.
If you are someone with your own opinion everything is good. But if you get paid for it
or you are trying to defend your own product under false claim that you are just another random user, what most of people will think of you is "Fuck you". Because it is all what you can say about practices like that. As someone involved in actual target of thread you supposed to be informer not someone with opinion. If community thinks "this is bad" you can't say community is bad. This is "doctors can't operate on own family" ethic. Because no matter how you present your own opinion people will think you are biased.
Glassbox wasn't banned because he was dev. He was banned because he was dev defending his product under claim he is just like any other dude out there. He wasn't and he was shill by doing that. Being dev does not mean you can't be shill and communities don't need people who are shills.