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FTC rules require disclosure of paid "word-of-mouth" marketers.
Zuel41
Member Posts: 43
Article from 12/12/06: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101389.html?nav=rss_technology
There are lots of rumors of paid marketers working these forums. I thought it important to bring this to the attention of MMORPG management that those marketers are required by law to disclose their relationship with the company that they are marketing for.
IMO, this impacts the credibility of these forums, and MMORPG in general if these relationships are not disclosed.
Comments
I'm not for any government regulations, let alone governments in general, but I believe that it's best for a company to not play dirty pool and plant 'fans' as honest sources for reviews either. Then again, it seems that the companies can't win at that game anyways since most people label overly positive 'reviewers' as fanbois. So, it fixes itself real fast and it makes stupid companies look more silly when their sock puppet is found out.
-- Brede
It would be great if we could know who the paid shills are but how could the staff here know?
I wish there was some easy way to flush them out but there isn't. The people I suspect the most are the ones who put different postitive spins on things when answering diametrically opposed questions, trying to make it sound like a particular game will be all things to all people, which is not possible.
Personally, I think it should be a policy of every forum to call every sock puppet a paid troll from now on. Only because I believe the nature of the sock puppet is much like that of a troll only that they get paid cash money for the service of being an attention <bleep!>. That being said, that's why I can't stand people who wholly support one MMO over another (WoW vs whatever. or Whatever vs Whatever, and so on...) because often I have to wonder how much are these folks getting paid to post such threads (and why I'm not getting cut in on the action!).
-- Brede
Heh. You know, the way I feel about mmorpgs at this point and the fact that I've just about given up on them; if I were offered the chance to make some money while pursuing my forum hobby I'd be strongly tempted to take them up on the offer.
Just because I really don't give a damn about any game right now and it seems to me that the whole industry has degenerated to the level of "Ernest goes to Camp" type movies. Follow a simple formula, slap some stuff together, put a new name on it and shove it out the door.
I mean, it's all the same stuff anyway so what difference does it really make.
So...all you corporate guys out there; you got any openings in your PR departments? I can spin like a top and hype to the sky! I can poo poo the naysayers and work the fence sitters into a frenzy!
I can talk circles around the critics while carefully avoiding specifics! I can imply without committing and describe without explaining!
I'm your man!
Some people don't even get paid. There are some MMOs that try to encourage shill-like behavior by saying if you get noticed doing it, you can get into the closed-beta.
Just to get this out in the open:
Despite how avidly I speak of Ryzom, I am not, nor have I ever been a paid marketer. There are and were no rewards for referral, not even a mechanism to allow such. There is and was no form of recognition or reward whatsoever for advertising Ryzom.
And all the present-tense clauses I've included are redundant since there's currently no company behind Ryzom to dole anything out. xD
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I just want to know how to get employed by these companies. I could settle with posting on forums for games as a career.
Nah, it doesn't matter. It's probably crazy guys like Katriel who, even after the game has shut down, won't be quiet about how great it is who get their point across. Regardless how much the paid guys talk it won't mean much because it doesn't come from their heart. You can tell the difference, the guys who really like the game are there on the boards everyday and make a comment on every single thread, to all the guys who do that, much respect.
I doubt there are people who are paid to do that anyway, most companies are so stingy with personel costs the guy who writes SQL is probably the guy who stacks the cups in the break room.
Also, the MMORPG.com community is pretty quick to report on advertisements.
Hopefully this puts a dent in SOE's sleazy viral marketing campaigns on these forums.
Since a lot of games, especially Asian MMos, Are based out of the country. Are they bound by these ruleS?. I wager not
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Naw, cause there's no actual way to tell if someone is paid by someone to post here. Enforcement is impossible to prove, yet another unenforceable rule that wastes people's time.
"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
Just hope people dont start going around calling others paid fan-boys or haters or the game.
Sad that MMO have degenerate till this level, but kinda good also, as this shows that MMO is also increasing in popularity... Both side of a coin i guess
RIP Orc Choppa
As for how you enforce it, it's simple, you audit the company. If they're paying someone to work at their home PC there will be payroll records of that. There are IT tools available to audit the content of what these employees post as well, on company time.
Once you know whose working for a company, from where, you can easily audit their posts. If they knowlingly mislead people to try to get some cash for their employer...burn.
If the employer has encouraged this behaviour, double burn.
MMO's most definitely have people's attention in government regulatory agencies. Trust me. Too many things have happened for dishonest practices to continue unchecked. Over the next few years, I expect some important changes. Some service providers, quite frankly, pushed the envelope too far.
In Square's case , they wrote a review for a game they published , awarded the writer with a full year sub to another game , as a bag on goodies , which they deemed to have the retail value of less than 2 cents. In Codemaster's case they wrote blurbs from fictional websites , which were later revealed to have been written by the CEO and another unnamed person , they were fined less than 50.00 US for unfair trade practices havent paid it.
f2p market , Aeria for one , ask you to spam boards for Aeria points which they claim have no cash value. Square's program which is only open to Japanese , ask you to build blogs and community sites , even offers the tools for download for in game items , the most noteworthy is the in game mog clock for FFXI which again has no cash value so you arent getting paid.
Soe is probly the best at it though , they worm into holes in the law like slimes. Blizzard has done it too , but claim it was over zealous employee and didnt get into trouble or any press about. Just a post on the boards about 2 years back.
I have a feeling that SOE isn't going to disclose anything to us...
But we all know there are SOE shills on these boards.
Tecmo Bowl.
Government regulatory bodies are now aware that MMOs are a billion dollar industry. They will be getting closer scrutiny. If you have reason to believe that someone on any forum is engaged in dishonest marketting practices, the link to report it is here: https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01
If you believe that you were defrauded by dishonest marketting done by an MMO service provider (e.g. they knowlingly and intentionally misled you, and took your money under false pretenses, you can use the link above and/or this one to report it: http://www.ic3.gov/.
MMO's are no longer a new and mysterious commodity. The unethical marketting practices of some service providers are also no longer a mystery. People know what's going on, and what to look for.
I strongly believe it's done on these forums frequently, especially around the release of new MMORPGs. The last time I thought it was getting particularly obnoxious and bitched about it was was when SOE's Pirates of the Burning Seas was released. But like Kyleran, I don't think unenforceable laws and $50 fines are going to do much good.
Just ignoring people with low post counts (especially when nearly all their posts concern one game), and trying to filter what a lot of the older hands seem to be agreeing on is about the best you can do when trying to make a buying decision.
Edit: And you've even got to ignore the veterans for the first six weeks or so. Rose colored glasses...
I think that MMORPG needs to keep an eye out for these kinds of shenanigans as well. It's their forum, they should know what happening here. If they think someone is a shill, maybe they should investigate it. Otherwise, their credibility may suffer as well.
All right, you caught me
. I'll confess, I'm a paid shill for WWII Online. I admit it! I pull some serious bank too.
btw, I'm j/k in case any Feds are watching...
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This is the dumbest shit ever. It's impossible to know who is being paid to market stuff on the internet for someone. Technically you can say that every fanboy is marketing a game for a company and then getting "paid" by getting a free month trial to play the game. And why would any company actually care about telling anyone? Because they're afraid of getting a $50 fine? LOL
It's not what you think you know , it's what you can prove. And nobody is going to spend a red cent trying to prove a video game company is paying people to sit on message boards and talk up their game.
One of the most useless laws ever .
And there I thought people would be clever enough to take any post with a grain of salt and not believe everything they read.
Next thing they will ask newspapers only to write the truth and be unbiased.
I'm more or less with everyone else in this thread. It's a nice thought. We'd all like to get rid of that kind of viral maketing. It doesn't, in my opinion, do anyone any good (and we have rules against advertising for personal gain at MMORPG.com).
The problem is that it is downright impossible to tell and therefore useless, at least to us.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I'm more or less with everyone else in this thread. It's a nice thought. We'd all like to get rid of that kind of viral maketing. It doesn't, in my opinion, do anyone any good (and we have rules against advertising for personal gain at MMORPG.com).
The problem is that it is downright impossible to tell and therefore useless, at least to us.
In other words , its in the best interest of our paying advertisers that we allow these "virtual marketers' and since we can pretend that we don't know who they are , any attempt on your part in opposing them will result in a full barrageof warnings and bans, Am I on the right track here?
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I'm more or less with everyone else in this thread. It's a nice thought. We'd all like to get rid of that kind of viral maketing. It doesn't, in my opinion, do anyone any good (and we have rules against advertising for personal gain at MMORPG.com).
The problem is that it is downright impossible to tell and therefore useless, at least to us.
No, I'm afraid not.In other words , its in the best interest of our paying advertisers that we allow these "virtual marketers' and since we can pretend that we don't know who they are , any attempt on your part in opposing them will result in a full barrageof warnings and bans, Am I on the right track here?
Do you honestly believe that we have some kind of list here that we're ignoring in order to help our paying advertisers? No such list friend. If I (or any other staffer here) were given proof that someone was a paid viral marketer, they would be immediately banned.
As I've explained in NUMEROUS threads before. It doesn't make any sense to do something like that. Members and readers will ALWAYS be more important than any given advertiser. Advertisers are replacable, the community is not. Once you've lost your community, your ad space isn't worth anything.
The only way you're going to get a warning / ban is if you break our RoC. Don't break our RoC and you'll be fine. Seriously, lose the tinfoil hat.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com