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Online Reputation Control firms
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Actually, I was thinking the same thing about the OP. You don't think this is related to all those black helicopters that have been flying around lately do you?
The problem with your theory is that aside from posts that are from the totally misinformed, new MMO's have all of the flaws that these 'haters' say they do.
Therefore even if they were paid negative reviews it doesn't really matter since they are largely true.
Edit: (and you'd be amazed how deep our, er their cover can go)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
They are always based on real problems of course, but the matter is not really here : it's like saying that bullying at school doesn't matter, as it's always taking an existing mental, or physical "difference" in the victim.
The problem is in how it's completely taken out of proportions for some purpose. I'm not saying that every out of proportions critics are necessarly paid fakers, but as a matter of fact we're seeing a lot of them each time a new MMO starts to have some higher hype.
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Pretty much.
There's a problem with forums and these services. Accusation without support, among a population that's used to calling each other names. Works both ways; effectively no way to 'prove' that you aren't getting paid, so smears even at the corporate level are unlikely to be effective.
So...nothing you read from a player is trustworthy. Isn't that cool?
Don't need forums any more. Definitely don't need reviews, or public expression of opinions.
[Or, you could just ignore the possibility that you've got a corporate shill in your threads, as we all have for years. Even if you're certain, you're probably wrong.]
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
We actually had a company like this we caught on our forums many years back. Man, I can't remember their name now - it was something "rats" or similar. They were not bashing games but filling our forums with overly glorious love for a few of their "clients." At this time none of the clients were AAA game companies - just small companies trying to get cheap exposure.
From my experience your giant game companies like EA, NCsoft, FunCom, Sony, etc don't even dare stepping into realms like this. They have too much to lose if they were to get caught doing anything like this. They have the money to buy large amounts of premium advertising and they don't need to stoop to these levels.
That being said though, we have also dealt with some "rogue" Community Managers from games that have urged official site communities to spam our forums or boost up our hype/rating meter and we have dealt with these as well. In these cases the companies always claimed that the CM was acting on their own, etc, etc.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
Holy cow, I didn't expect an answer from the Admin themselves :-)
Thank you for your feedback, there can't be more concrete proof (and clarification) about the phenomenom. It's a really good thing to know you're fighting those kinds, really.
Although, about my speculation on giant companies and the risk they would take on being caught, I guess it's really easy to "deny any link with the service provider". I'm sure this denial securization is even in the contracts, just like any regular "silent" service. It would also be the same kind of denial than the one you mentionned about CMs (I didn't expect this type of action, tbh).
It's interesting to read that this kind of service would be the "poor man's marketing". But I'm still stuck in my reflexion about giants being 100% clean. One another thing to consider is that hardcore gamers in general (aka the main audience of MMORPGS) don't even pay attention to traditional marketing like banners, promo vids, etc. They mostly make their opinion around word of mouth (which is logical, when you're a veteran you're used to know that traditional marketing doesn't bring any concrete answer).
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Wouldn't you expect, on the average, such a contract to be about as effective as the average NDA? (Employer NDA, not beta-testing).
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I understand your point, but MMOs NDA is kind of a different affair : a NDA-breaking gamer does have tons of way to prove that he played said game. Plus he risks absolutely nothing important except not to beta the game anymore.
On the other side : a Reputation Control company blowing up its client's cover not only risks denial, and therefore credibility loss, but also risks to lose all of its other clients, therefore bankrupcy. While the said giant gamestudio would only have to deny, and do a bit of damage control. I'm sure such contracts also contain a security line mentionning huge financial damages to refund if said cover was to be blown up (once again, just like in any other silent service).
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*cough* Darkfall *cough* Mortal Online *cough*
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Financial damages notwithstanding, NDA's are violated with surprising regularity. Violating your security clearance, you risk your freedom, even your life--and yet cases turn up with fair regularity where even high-order clearances are violated.
A single security violation, and the jig is up for the company, no?
Occam seems to be shaking his head at a lot of your necessary assumptions.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
If you suspect something like this, report it. Calling other users out specifically like this generally falls under trolling.Let the mods and if needed, MikeB, handle it.
To give feedback on moderation, contact mikeb@mmorpg.com
Well that would explain why I got banned for calling out a blatant shill who has gone unchallenged on a certain forum.
Don't believe me? Go to The Secret World general discussion.
There are at least a few paid shills there who try and spread misinformation about upcoming titles like GW2 and hype lifetime subscriptions for their product.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Okay, I was temp-banned too for pointing a user post history as a "matter of reflexion" ... Wasn't calling out anyone, just trying to identify the possible forms of such services. If you're asking for us to report them, how are we supposed to recognize them in the first place ? Unless there is an option to hide one username from his post history, I really don't know how it could have been done. And anyway, "matter of reflexion" is far from "this guy is a witch let's hunt him".
Whatever. I got the message. Hush-hush.
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I also wonder why you put it in the Off-topic section from the Pub, as the Pub contains far more offtopic subjects than this one ..
Or maybe you should add OffTopic section to Realtime Forum Activity ... ?
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http://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-made-28000-a-month-writing-fake-book-reviews-online-2012-8
Now a reality.
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