Hype - Real or generated

I currently work for a company in the Music and entertainment Industry and the more I work here and learn what people do the more I see how fake a lot of the stuff that gets reported is. The company has entire teams who get paid to monitor places like Facebook, Twitter and fan sites and create posts, add links and generally keep people talking about whatever group or individual the company is currently trying to promote. All of these posts where a comment is left, a link posted, a twitter trend link, are all done so that people spend more money on the artist/entertainer.

This creates things such as shows being sold out within hours simply because so much buzz has been generated that everyone thinks if they don't buy early they won't get a ticket. Where in reality most of these shows still have tickets left over in reserve that are given to other businesses to provide tickets to those unfortunate be get in the cue earlier. A lot of the buzz is actually generated by these paid individuals and departments to ensure a retun on the investment made.

Now that got me thinking, how much of that type of thing happens in the gaming industry? The more I see how this company works the more I see the similarities to the gaming industry and how such an activity would work. Is it likely/possible that all these recent trends for more and more people to get swept along in these over hyped games simply a product of a well crafted marketing campaign using what I consider shady business practice (i.e. to pretend to be a normal customer really excited for a product when in fact you are paid to generate interest and hype the game) and are people really that easily led?

My honest view is....yes I think it does happen and yes I think there are a large number of people that will follow/buy/hype something simply because others do (even if the people they imitate are actually getting paid to get people to do it).

It is like the WOW scenario. It has 11 million subs apparently. And I know only 1 person that actually played it for a long time (more then 1 subscription) , everyone else hates it. If everyone I know hates it and I can never find anyone in any game I play who currently still plays it who are all these WOW players? Are they paid marketing posters?

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Have we been swept up in a marketing campaign where hyping games is a marketing tool to make money which the mass public seem to be ignorant of or do you think there really are lots of people genuinly willing to eat up what games now advertised as "new" "improved" "groundbreaking" etc...