Tummi Gummi
Member
Ayzenberg are pretty small: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/portrait-ayzenberg-group-138166
I imagine they're one of those groups that large clients would employ in bulk.
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One Big Problem With MS: Astroturfing Damages Online Communities
- Thread starter QaaQer
- Start date
Ayzenberg are pretty small: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/portrait-ayzenberg-group-138166
I imagine they're one of those groups that large clients would employ in bulk.
ms has more money.
more posters more polygon. not comparable at all. its embarrassing actually
No worries. I heard EviLore still hasn't even paid the last guy his $10k.
Yeah come Monday it will probably be best to keep quiet if you have any sort of preference or opinion. I've found it's pretty safe to have preferences at any other point, though.
Jawmuncher
Member
On GAF I believe the culling has already begun.
(GIF credit: alr1ght)
I need this GIF without the first part.
Anyway I have to agree this astroturfing has been pretty evident as of late. Though the team is doing great things to try and squash it.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
This is exactly what is going to happen and you know it.
Do the viral marketers have orders to not call out other marketers? Is there a truce among the companies about marketers not attacking each other? Are there double agent marketers who establish a persona and then subvert?
There could be a sequel to Game Dev Story based on this concept, maybe they could call it Plants vs. Zombies?
There could be a sequel to Game Dev Story based on this concept, maybe they could call it Plants vs. Zombies?
I'd like to think that there is a viral marketer war happening before our very eyes. Who is winning though, that is the question.
Night Hunter
Banned
The one thing I ask myself is why even attempt something like this here on GAF. They must realize they have no fucking chance of swaying anyone's opinion here (or in any other serious gaming forum where people know what's going on). Especially if they do it like this. Why not concentrate your efforts on sites where people might actually be convinced?
Hahaha. Good wan
without Westbrooke he can't get it done
Bojanglez
The Amiga Brotherhood
I remember reading at the time about MS and their back-handed lobbying techniques in the EU. Here is a blog post from Rick Falkvinge, who I believe was the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party and a Member of the Eurpean Parliament. It is an interesting read.
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/02/how-microsoft-pays-big-money-to-smear-google-audaciously/
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/02/how-microsoft-pays-big-money-to-smear-google-audaciously/
About a week ago I logged into GAF one evening and half the first page was made up by marketing-related threads masquerading as threads made by Joe Public fans of the product.
The genuine fan with no ties to the product is relatively easy to tell apart from the marketer. The latter often has access to copious amounts of (at least partially) exclusive visual material, uses lifeless marketing speak, uses lists of what appears to be marketing-related bullet points for why the product is great (often retyped into a paragraph), and fails to connect with any of the subsequent posters following the initial post. Marketers also tend to travel in packs, which is why you'll find threads with hundreds of posts and no one talking to each other - it's all just confirmation of the OP's message that "this game is so great and you should buy it". (Dissenters tend to be drowned out as opposed to being shouted down, thus avoiding the wrath of any mods who may be watching.)
I've noticed Capcom products are especially prevalent when it comes to overblown hype threads that read like repackaged marketing materials (e.g. Dragon's Dogma thread hyping up the "awesome animation that you just have to see" comes with GIFs that showcase really terrible animation).
Whatever progress the moderators can make in clearing away the marketers (who pose as regular users) will surely be good for the community (of which I don't count the marketers as genuine members) and assist in maintaining GAF's long-term health.
The genuine fan with no ties to the product is relatively easy to tell apart from the marketer. The latter often has access to copious amounts of (at least partially) exclusive visual material, uses lifeless marketing speak, uses lists of what appears to be marketing-related bullet points for why the product is great (often retyped into a paragraph), and fails to connect with any of the subsequent posters following the initial post. Marketers also tend to travel in packs, which is why you'll find threads with hundreds of posts and no one talking to each other - it's all just confirmation of the OP's message that "this game is so great and you should buy it". (Dissenters tend to be drowned out as opposed to being shouted down, thus avoiding the wrath of any mods who may be watching.)
I've noticed Capcom products are especially prevalent when it comes to overblown hype threads that read like repackaged marketing materials (e.g. Dragon's Dogma thread hyping up the "awesome animation that you just have to see" comes with GIFs that showcase really terrible animation).
Whatever progress the moderators can make in clearing away the marketers (who pose as regular users) will surely be good for the community (of which I don't count the marketers as genuine members) and assist in maintaining GAF's long-term health.
good read. i stopped posting about recent gaming stuff on reddit because the conversation gets real stupid, real fast. /r/gaming is the pits but it has a wide influence on popular opinion.
Oh man thanks for making me spit out my drink!
knighthonor
Banned
In the real forums, people don't think like that.
Do you play MMO gaming and follow their communities on MMO forums.
Check out MMORPG.com for example of this.
Many shills. Matter of fact you get banned for calling their asses out over there.
Which as the OP explained, leads to the community becoming nothing but a shit pot for fanboys and shills to hype up their product to be the next best thing since sliced bread, with nobody to counter them without ban hammer.
And 9/10 they never live up to the hype and is misleading the masses.
But what can the critics do to prevent this from happening in a community that excepts shills like that? NOTHING.
that's why MMO genre is so fucked up.
Take a look at the forum history on MMORPG.com for Guild Wars 2 for an example of this if you don't believe me. Read for yourself. It had (bleeps) who were posting long details about shit to defend that game, with info that nobody should know unless they work for them. It was BS.
This was before beta was public as well so that's another red flag...
But I am tired. I made this same argument many times before. In one ear and out the other. Let these greedy corps take your hard earned money that they don't deserve. Tired of trying to help others avoid being taken advantage of, yet give me a warning for doing so. So fuck it.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
It's gross but it doesn't worry me too much after seeing the effectiveness of the ones that were outed. Seems like a waste of someones money.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
Yeah, if anything this practice ends up hurting reputation more than help.
I guess I am less turned off by blind enthusiasm, manufactured or not, than I am by people just incessantly dumping on games/systems. THAT is the bummer for me. I laugh at some of the official game OTs because some of them are clearly done professionally, but I don't honestly mind it. It's the guys who go out of their way to incessantly crap on stuff that drive me nuts.
The Xbone DRM stuff I am completely through discussing in any respect. I was called an idiot here a day or two ago (in so many words) for mentioning that the new EA/Respawn mech game was enough for me to buy into that ecosystem. No, it is simply not enough to show enthusiasm for games and game consoles; I think people are pushed into console war BS rather than risk an alternative opinion to the prevailing mindset in any given thread. And that is really too bad.
The Giant Bomb guy this AM who mentioned that GAF is full of "Sony Lovers" or some such nonsense could be forgiven for his thinking that due to the current Xbone situation. He clearly doesn't visit quite often enough to understand the dynamic between: viral marketers, fanboys, people who just enjoy discussing games, rubes, and younger kids who go into fits of self righteous indignation at the perception they are being slighted by game companies.
The dynamic is very complex between all those different mindsets, and I do not envy the job of the mods. It's already about 10 steps beyond hairy. Hopefully there are more John Lennons here than Neros on Monday.
There is always something incredible fascinating reading stuff like this. Everything about it sounds so ridiculous. That someone actually does it and that someone actually pays for it. A job is a job, I guess.
MaximumFlipFlop
Banned
Speedy Blue Dude is just a teenage fanboy. We play Halo Reach with the kid so we got him unbanned. His opinions may be pretty shitty and read like pr, but props to the mods for understanding he wasn't a plant.
Templar_Dante
Banned
This ^
I went to the link and read what they writing, unbelievable! Theres just no ways any person could polish a turd that MS has on their hands, yet there they were spinning saying "Gaf will eat crow when Sony does the same thing"
They NEVER understood that if Sony does the same, we will jump on them too. Even though Gaffers repeatedly told them that was the case!!
This whole NO DRM campaign was never one side VS the other, its a freaking principle of standing up for our consumer rights! When I saw they didnt want to listen to reason.. I smelled a rat.
Thankyou Gaf mods for fighting the good fight! For justices sake, I salute you!
EDIT: and I hope, even if Sony does implement a DRM. I do hope Gaf keeps up the campaign against it until both MS and Sony boxes actually hit later in the year. I do appreciate the hard work being put into it, thats why it pisses me off even more when there guys come here trying to change the hearts and minds of Gaf on a subliminal level.
Also, EvilLore and other admin, Im glad the verified email thing is in place. Other places on the internet reek of the PR rats. Thankyou for keeping Gaf clean.
I've sadly hoped a much larger percentage of posts were driven by paid advertising. Then I just imagine some posters are very young and all is well again.
This comes around though. If you make an appealing product and act less shitty then then an enthusiastic user base will take care of reputation management for you. Seems simple.
This comes around though. If you make an appealing product and act less shitty then then an enthusiastic user base will take care of reputation management for you. Seems simple.
Shai-Tan
Banned
It seems to me that people are seeing a lot of phantoms that don't exist. I wasnt impressed by the evidence that was offered thus far. Maybe there are a few of those people but I think it's mostly people thinking there must be something unholy in a conflict of opinions.
Maybe I'm naive. I sometimes wonder why comments following news articles about politics are immediately full of one sided partisan vitriol and feel tempted to believe it's plants who have been hired to spend all day creating a perception of legitimacy for a party or point of view but it's hard to distinguish that from people who have strong opinions.
Maybe I'm naive. I sometimes wonder why comments following news articles about politics are immediately full of one sided partisan vitriol and feel tempted to believe it's plants who have been hired to spend all day creating a perception of legitimacy for a party or point of view but it's hard to distinguish that from people who have strong opinions.
If you look at the frontpage of r/gaming right now it's basically all neagtive against MS. r/gaming alone has a reach of 3.3 million users and some of this stuff makes it to r/all...
I have no doubt that MS and other companies would be interested in shaping the message or at least dampening the blow.
holy shit, I genuinely thought I was the only one. great post
darkistheway
Member
It's funny - I think one of my first posts ever was accusing RyanReedyMusic of being a marketing shill. I hate that sort of thing. It's so uselessly manipulative.
When is enough enough though? Say Sony does announce a similar DRM scenario next week or at some point prior to the PS4 launch. What then? Is it not good enough to rail against it in every Xbox game thread on the site, now all the Sony game threads will be equally shitted up too? When, in your estimation, do we get back to discussing games and not have your DRM crusade infect every game discussion on the site?
Shai-Tan
Banned
Yeah but when there are thousands posting it seems questionable that you could shape opinion unless the point of view is actually persuasive. It seems to me that impression management is more likely to work on lower volume forums where stooges could more effectively dominate a conversation
sketchsanchez
Member
Maybe its just me but if accused viral marketers are just dumb fanboys and get banned then so what?
Couldn't this forum use less over the top fanboyism? Terrible posters should be banned and that trait seems to correspond with viral marketers so...win win, imo
Couldn't this forum use less over the top fanboyism? Terrible posters should be banned and that trait seems to correspond with viral marketers so...win win, imo
PR is actually very distinguishable from real people with real opinions. You can pretty much just use the same determining factors that you would use to distinguish sociopaths. Their vibe is off in a way you can feel more than you can explain and they tend to exist just to manipulate people. They don't really care, they just want to affect opinions however they can. Fortunately, the mods here seem to have good noses for this stuff.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
You're talking about the elaborate OT's? I think that's mostly a consequence of one upsmanship. The games that people here don't care about rarely get that kind of treatment.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
Astroturfing? That's the name for it now? I remember when I was a kid, it used to be referred to as FUD...or is that something different entirely?
I was first exposed to Microsoft's scheming when they used a FUD campaign to breed dissent within a company my father worked for right before buying it out and firing everyone who worked there.
Obviously a very different kind of scenario compared to what some game studios and publishers do nowadays, but the point I'm making is this: you wouldn't believe the things corporations are willing to do to achieve their goals. It's honestly terrifying.
And that's not just MS. Sony, EA, Square, pretty much everyone does it and it's one of the main factors that caused me to abandon wanting to work in the industry. Microsoft is the patron saint of it though.
I was first exposed to Microsoft's scheming when they used a FUD campaign to breed dissent within a company my father worked for right before buying it out and firing everyone who worked there.
Obviously a very different kind of scenario compared to what some game studios and publishers do nowadays, but the point I'm making is this: you wouldn't believe the things corporations are willing to do to achieve their goals. It's honestly terrifying.
And that's not just MS. Sony, EA, Square, pretty much everyone does it and it's one of the main factors that caused me to abandon wanting to work in the industry. Microsoft is the patron saint of it though.
FranXico
Member
Not entirely different... Astroturfing is one of the many methods that allow companies to spread FUD.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Full Disclosure: I just like Trophies and the Platinums they offer, that's all >.>;
Tallshortman
Member
There's a difference between being passionate about a system/company and posting obvious PR bullshit and have an email address from a PR firm or ad agency. Bish seems to be doing a good job so far, this sort of cancer really hurts the community because then you don't know if you're talking to someone who is just opinionated instead of an idiot being paid to post on internet forums.
Shai-Tan
Banned
OK but looking at the first few pages of this thread the examples seemed to me to mostly be people who were arguing against the flow of the general opinion in those threads then getting banned for being an asshat in the way they went about it. I didn't go look at the posting history so maybe that's why I'm missing something.
PlanetSmasher
Banned
Absolutely. It's much better to talk to idiots who post for free.
Seriously, though, I think it's necessary. We already have the gaming media taking sides, the last thing we need is for community members to be doing the same thing while getting PAID for it. Bishop should be cutting away the tumors before they turn malignant.
Personally, I make no illusions about my dislike of Microsoft - the company fucked over my family long before they even got involved in gaming and it's colored my opinions. I won't deny it.
But even despite all that, I also don't see a point in starting flame wars in threads made by people who DO like their stuff. I wouldn't want people to troll threads about my favorite games, so why would I do it to other people? It just seems silly.
astroturfing
Member
pretty serious accusations. i'd personally never do anything like that.
lmfao
I was just about to post the actual Reddit link in this thread....
Yeah, I used to read /r/gaming, then i took an arr--just kidding
Here's what I noticed, very plainly, around some massive game launches-- Skyrim, Portal 2 (please don't "excuse" Valve, they are not your friend), Diablo 3, Borderlands 2, Halo 4.
They pick "meme-able" things from the games, even crap from trailers pre-launch, and just spam them like crazy.
There's always "my gf crocheted me a [item from game]" or "My gf baked me a [game related confection]" and always accompanied by a "cool girlfriend" note-- "Dear so and so, I know how much you love [game], so I thought I'd [crochet, bake, whatever] this for you while you marathon it! XOXO, your girlfriend." Top comments are always "Lock it down, bro!" but that's probably just dumb redditors parroting a phrase they think sounds cool.
There's always the "gifting the unfortunate" story. "I'm totally broke, my dog just got shot by the police, and I have canceraidsitis. My awesome [roommate, friend, family member] knew about my troubles and gifted/bought me [game.]"
There's always the "I'm all ready for [game]!" and a pic link to the man cave decked out in items related to the game.
You have "Check out my [hot girl from the game] cosplay!" pics. Always girls who'd be considered a step above, often Jessica Nigiri, who has moved on to officially working on promoting Lollipop Chainsaw + Killer Is Dead. Actually, not sure if her Juliet cosplay was officially official. It's never that hideous fat girl you saw cosplaying as Yuna at an anime convention.
The front page of /r/gaming is COVERED in this stuff the week leading up to launch, then gets even worse for about a week after launch, with reviews and stuff.
I know not all of it is viral and it's possible that I've just stumbled on the pattern of /r/gaming, but it was just too spot on every time and quite frankly, people don't care that much. They like feeling like they're being paid attention to.
That said, I know plenty of people who like to troll Reddit with "insider" posts like the message referred to in that article.... LOL. We've had contests.
Basically, default subs are fucked and the little ones are fucked more subtly.
Haha...I've been thinking of you this whole thread. And right under our noses this whole time...
I'm dying here.
Shai-Tan
Banned
The thing about reddit though is that a lot of people are upvoting that crap. Stupid jokes and memes are more likely to rise to the top because of how easy they are consumed and more universal appeal of a joke vs an article about a random topic that only a subset would care for. I only see stuff in r/gaming when it's gotten hundreds of votes and it's annoying how often it's a cosplay.
Templar_Dante
Banned
Ofcourse it could assimilate into the Xbone threads. Im all for keeping it civil and not letting it spill into the gaming threads itself. Ive frequented a few dedicated game threads and there was no mention of the DRM crusade.
HarryDemeanor
Member
I like Windows 8. Does that make me an astroturfer? If so where the hell is my money?
yeah, like I said, it might just be the /r/gaming pattern, it could be some fanboy stuff.
either way, I hate it cause it's always the same damn shit haha