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FTC: Machinima Took Secret Cash To Shill Xbox One

Posted by samzenpus on from the was-that-wrong? dept.

jfruh writes: The Machinima gaming video network took money from a marketing agency hired by Microsoft to pay "influencers" up to $45,000 to promote the Xbox One. Crucially, the video endorsers did not disclose that they'd been paid, which has caused trouble with the FTC. For its part, Machinima notes that this happened in 2013, when the current management was not in charge.

9 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Before someone says it's a "youtuber" by limaCAT76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just a reminder: Machinima is not a "youtuber". It's a professional gaming publication with accreditations to major industry events (like E3) and 15 years of experience, and that's merely using youtube to deliver their own content, including reviews, previews and yes, "native ads". So before any professional publication takes the distance from Machinima just remember that most of any other major gaming site or gaming journalist is or has been in the past guilty of doing the same things.

    1. Re:Before someone says it's a "youtuber" by ageoffri · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Amazes me that there are still people who think gamergate was about harassment. Do your research, discover what really happened.

      --
      -- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
    2. Re:Before someone says it's a "youtuber" by sinij · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Don't get trolled by SJW types.

    3. Re:Before someone says it's a "youtuber" by Coren22 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      When you can show ANY evidence of this happening, and of Gamergate actually being involved with it, then you can speak about it. Until then, you are a troll.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  2. #GamerGate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Remember everyone: #GamerGate is about harassing women and excluding minorities from gaming. It's absolutely not about ethics in gaming journalism and "pay for play" coverage, which never happens.

    This message brought to you by gaming journalism.

  3. I have a couple of responses by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Deepfreeze.it: http://www.deepfreeze.it/ does a great job of digging into and revealing the ties, 'backscratching' and outright corruption behind most of the gaming journalists on the big sites.

    2) http://www.gamespot.com/forums... or at least the general question: "Gaming 'journalist' - seriously? It's a multibillion-dollar industry, and yet most of the "journalists" are freaks sitting in mom's basement desperately trying to pretend they're the next Perez Hilton, and who are tickled if someone even mentions they exist. None of them have the credibility of even the shammiest movie review shill.

    --
    -Styopa
  4. Poe's Law by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since i can't tell if the parent is being sarcastic or doubly sarcastic, i'll say this.

    If GG had only focused on issues like this, i for one would be cheering them on. But GG didn't come into existence when, for example, Jeff Gerstmann was fired under pressure from a game developer whose game he reviewed poorly, way back in 2007.

    They didn't erupt into fury until an indie female developer had sex with a journalist who never even reviewed her game. _That_ was the ethical violation so shocking that it demanded the creation of a movement. And then followed up by throwing a hissy-fit about Sarkesion's and Wu's op-ed pieces. And because there was no rational reason for the level of objections they were raising they resorted to misogynistic threats and insults of anyone who disagreed with them.

    So now actual violations of ethics in game journalism are being overshadowed by the group that's using ethics as a flag to wave over their apparent rage that women are involved in gaming and have opinions about it. Claiming to be concerned about "ethics" while focusing almost exclusively on categories of people you dislike is like saying "think of the children" while drafting laws to enable spying on and imprisonment of the kinds of people you dislike.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  5. Re: Good excuse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, because the FTC now trumps the right to free speech. Everyone is a drooling idiot and needs to be protected from big bad corporations. Don't like em, turn em off.

  6. Evidence of Harrassment by Kunedog · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Oh, what a surprise, you forgot to post that evidence he asked for.

    Here, let me show you how it's done:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    That is direct video evidence of an anti-Gamergate Sarkeesian supporter threatening physical violence against a pro-GG guy. We unquestionably know exactly who that guy is (and which side he's on), exactly who he's talking to, and exactly what he said. It took me less than a minute to find the link.

    But I bet almost no one reading this has heard of it until now. If there were a video of a guy promoting Gamergate and threatening Sarkeesian, everyone knows we would never hear the end of it, ever, across dozens (probably hundreds) of sites. It proves that those sites are not anti-threats or anti-harrassment; they're just anti-GG (i.e. anti-ethics).

    Even so, if you tell me that Sarkeesian isn’t responsible for what that jerk said, and he doesn’t represent her, I would 100% agree with you (and ask you to put two and two together . . .).

    P.S. As a bonus, here are journalistic ethics experts confirming unethical game journo behavior:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...