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Kotaku: FTC Slams YouTube Group For 'Deceptive' Xbox Marketing Campaign

I

Ivan Amiibo

Banned
DrArchon said:
And people still see Youtube as the bastion for unbiased game reviews. I hope this news REALLY gets out in the open for more casual consumers so people stop taking internet celebrities words as gospel and start thinking and doing more research.
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thanks, needed a laugh
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Honestly, if that $15k fine is the extent to which this is punished, we'll continue to see a lot more of this. The math doesn't add up for this to be a deterrent.
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
Averon said:
I'm pretty sure NeoGAF was flooded with paid shills during the Xbone announcement/fiasco. The moderation staff even acknowledge it, if I remember correctly.
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We even had Microsoft execs come on here and blatantly lie. The shilling was covert and overt.
 
J

Jeronimo Jones

Member
I remember threads about this leading up to the PS4/XB1 launches. I was just lurking back then, but all the launch news convinced me to join GAF.

It's good to expose this practice, but I also think people are way too trusting of so-called "real people" on YouTube for reviews & opinions.
 
V

v0yce

Member
Jonboy said:
I can almost guarantee youtube isn't the only place it's happening. It wouldn't surprise me if companies (not just MS) have full marketing teams devoted to posting online in message boards, comments sections, subreddits, etc. to steer & shape opinions. It's actually kinda scary when you really think about it.
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"you dont know! aww man i thought everyone had at least one beyblade experience."

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=307751
 
M

malfcn

Member
Gaming payola needs to be cited so more viewers are informed. But they will probably bury it in tags, unless it has to be conspicuous.
 
T

thefit

Member
bishoptl said:
4SgSmBr.jpg
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bishoptl I'm glad you are here I wanted to tell you how much I love your new project with the dinasours and guns and things. I'm thinking of making a youtube vudeo on how much I love it.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Placiibo said:
I don't get it. Microsoft seems like the bigger villain here. Are they the only ones doing this or do Sony and Nintendo do it too?
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We only get glimpses on who hires YouTubers and then not all of them are deliberately deceptive and from that smaller subset you need leaks.

The last three incidents that were big that I can remember were WBIE, EA & MS.
 
Xion_Stellar

Xion_Stellar

People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
Placiibo said:
I don't get it. Microsoft seems like the bigger villain here. Are they the only ones doing this or do Sony and Nintendo do it too?
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The issue here isn't paying others for coverege (positive or not) it's YouTubers not making it clear (just like you have to do so in other mediums) that it was paid advertising and you can say this happens all the time as back room deals but the difference here is that others didn't mind blowing the whistle and Machinama got caught for it.
 
S

shandy706

Member
I just assume everyone on YouTube is paid, lol.


Why hasn't the FTC done anything about ESPN and the SEC in college football. For years the BCS (and still when they can) was heavily influenced by ESPN and their SEC contracts/ties. One of the biggiest money makers in the US, and the biggest sports network, has been pocketing money to push and lean in a certain direction.

Eh....getting off subject though...carry on..
 
F

faridmon

Member
15 000 is a lot of money. Damn it, I wish I worked on those channels because I would love to endorse Microsoft and its product whole heartedly.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
Everyone would do it for that money. Let's see if in a few years the average Youtube channel is still seen as unbiased, because there is surely a lot of shady stuff going on. And not only in gaming.
 
M

Mahonay

Banned
This reminds me of the masked marketing deal that got exposed between EA and Battlefield YouTuber, Levelcap. For the Battlefield 4 launch, EA had a Ronku campaign with YouTube channels that paid said channels $10 per 1000 views in videos that spoke (only) positively about the game.

He owned up to it himself in a long detailed post over at Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/1w8bi4/being_paid_by_ea_levelcaps_response/

Problem was that he never presented said videos as sponsored content. In the midst of Battlefield 4 being an absolute car wreck at launch, this came off as a pretty disingenuous and just a shitty thing to do. Especially at the time he was the go-to channel to get your Battlefield news and facts. He still gets lots of YouTube views today but the community has forever labeled him as untrustworthy.

EA's dealing in these schemes will hopefully get dredged up again with this news hitting.
 
Plague Doctor

Plague Doctor

Member
Jessie.Bristol said:
You can bet all companies do it. We already know EA does.
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I forgot where the quote came from but I always liked (paraphrasing here), "There is no such thing as good megacorporations... only a sliding scale of deceptive ones or lazy ones. "

Yeah, you can only hope that a business is too complacent enough not to use these bs initiatives.
 
G

GnawtyDog

Banned
Mahonay said:
This reminds me of the masked marketing deal that got exposed between EA and Battlefield YouTuber, Levelcap. For the Battlefield 4 launch, EA had a Ronku campaign with YouTube channels that paid said channels $10 per 1000 views in videos that spoke (only) positively about the game.

He owned up to it himself in a long detailed post over at Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_4/comments/1w8bi4/being_paid_by_ea_levelcaps_response/

Problem was that he never presented said videos as sponsored content. In the midst of Battlefield 4 being an absolute car wreck at launch, this came off as a pretty disingenuous and just a shitty thing to do. Especially at the time he was the go-to channel to get your Battlefield news and facts. He still gets lots of YouTube views today but the community has forever labeled him as untrustworthy.

EA's dealing in these schemes will hopefully get dredged up again with this news hitting.
Click to expand...

How could I've missed this my god? I should sue as a victim.
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
Placiibo said:
I don't get it. Microsoft seems like the bigger villain here. Are they the only ones doing this or do Sony and Nintendo do it too?
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It's just Microsoft. Nintendo isn't that advanced when it comes to this stuff. Actually, Sony's marketing contractors lied about the Vita and shilled on social media. They got sued for it.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
Walpurgis said:
It's just Microsoft. Nintendo isn't that advanced when it comes to this stuff. Actually, Sony's marketing contractors lied about the Vita and shilled on social media. They got sued for it.
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It really is a question of relative advancement or sophistication as well as different corporate cultures, more than who does it and who doesn't. In silicon valley, tech evangelism is completely ingrained in business and takes many forms from harmless outreach to quasi-criminal to storied conspiracy.
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
Crayon said:
It really is a question of relative advancement or sophistication as well as different corporate cultures, more than who does it and who doesn't. In silicon valley, tech evangelism is completely ingrained in business and takes many forms from harmless outreach to quasi-criminal to storied conspiracy.
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I think you're right. It was an American company that did it for Sony. I think they were in L.A. or something.

Square Enix would never do anything like this but for EA, WB and Ubisoft, it is par for the course.
 
E

EvB

Member
Crayon said:
It really is a question of relative advancement or sophistication as well as different corporate cultures, more than who does it and who doesn't. In silicon valley, tech evangelism is completely ingrained in business and takes many forms from harmless outreach to quasi-criminal to storied conspiracy.
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Apple are really famous for it and have been for years, people act as if it's a new thing.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
EvB said:
Apple are really famous for it and have been for years, people act as if it's a new thing.
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Good example. There are some great stories from the 80's when the software war was still in the trenches.

On one hand shame on ms for introducing astroturfing and fud to gaming, on the other hand with the money involved getting bigger all the time if they hadn't done it someone else would. I'd even say that I can see sony catching onto this competitive paradigm. During the launches, sony managed to play pr like a fiddle which was a stark contrast to their bumbling years ago and I think no accident.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Placiibo said:
I don't get it. Microsoft seems like the bigger villain here. Are they the only ones doing this or do Sony and Nintendo do it too?
Click to expand...

Microsoft is to blame for sure, but I've heard plenty of other awful stuff about Machinima and this absolutely doesn't surprise me
 
L

Lion Heart

Banned
Absolutely disgusting.

The legions of paid shills on gaf was worse for me since I read this forum. Thanks to Bish for calling them out. Go see how many juniors were banned late 13 early 14'.
 
P

Prototype Viktor

Member
good as long as the FTC doesn't catch on that Ubisoft is paying me to spit hot vile at any game/action figure/water color drawing they or their kids make. I wouldn't even take their shit for free

 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
Dyson Industries said:
Better than the fine, I think, is the exposure this brings to what Microsoft was trying to pull at the Xbone launch. What's worse is that anyone who was/is truly into the Xbone automatically became suspect. A good bollocking round the ears to everyone involved in this shady scheme - Machinima, Microsoft and of course, the YouTubers themselves.

Skivving bastards got caught and we'll be watching.
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That was what I was trying to point out in that thread being linked upthread; the unspoken FUD from that contract protected the unethical by casting the space as up for the take to the informed (and therefore ruined), allowing more control for the unethical to advertise to the uninformed.
 
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