FTC: Machinima Took Secret Cash To Shill Xbox One

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.

Comments

Before someone says it's a "youtuber"

[limaCAT76]

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.

Re:Good excuse...

[NotDrWho]

So if the management changes, the current management is not responsible for anything.

Of course, that was WAY back in 2013, when Allen DeBevoise was the CEO of the company. Now he's just the Chairman of our Board of Directors.

Lol, I'm not even joking.

Poe's Law

[Daetrin]

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.