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PR Firm Settles With FTC On Fake Game Reviews
eldavojohn writes "So, you pay a PR firm like Reverb to generate some positive buzz for your new mobile game, and what do they do? Hire employees to post fake glowing reviews of your game wherever it's being distributed. The FTC says that's not okay due to regulations enacted last year requiring that paid reviews disclose they are paid reviews. Originally, the fear was that this regulation would target the small-time blogger, but this news of Reverb settling with the FTC over fake game reviews shows that the FTC is also targeting big PR firms. They said, 'We hope that this case will show advertisers that they have to be transparent in their practices and help guide other ad agencies.' The article says fake reviews like those alleged in the complaint (PDF) are pretty much the norm on iTunes. Reverb denies that this settlement is any acknowledgment of wrongdoing; rather, just a timesaver over a costly court battle. Will the FTC continue to make examples of big PR firms? Wait and see."
Well, if we're talking about game reviews, I think a safe assumption is that if it's glowingly positive, it's fake.
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volume... can you create hundreds, make sure none get taken down, repost the ones that do... day in and day out AND get your next game made?
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
The most obvious ones are where the section to list cons is just used to say more good things ("I have a hard time putting it down!").
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Correctumundo!
Why do people assume that just because something is free and trivial that you wouldn't pay someone to do it? Time is money, and its up to you to decide whether the money you save for posting your own fake reviews is worth the money you could be making doing something else - and whether the fake reviews are worth the money of paying someone else.
I mean - I'll give the neighbourhood kid 10 bucks to mow my lawn, even though I have a lawn mower and could easily do it on a Saturday afternoon.
It's not all bad, you just need to ignore both
a) Big-name publications. As you say, they're pretty much factories which output wonderful reviews for the sake of early-access and other perks.
b) Individual commenters and nobodies with blogs. They're either paid shills or, more commonly, frothing fanboys who don't meet any standards of objectivity.
There are reliable sources, though, when you look outside of these categories. Sites like Ars Technica are pretty good, although since gaming is just one of several things they do, there's never any guarantee that they'll review the game you're interested in. Penny Arcade is of course the gold standard: Tycho (or Jerry, or whatever) is a great writer, and you can be damn sure that if he gives a game a thumbs-up, he's not doing it as a favor to some PR man. As long as you stick to established good sources you don't have to worry about scams like this.
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