After the Xbox Wire divulged a whole lot of information on the Xbox One’s policies, including those on connectivity, privacy and used games, dozens – and at this rate, it looks to be hundreds – of negative posts emerged on sites like Reddit, criticizing Microsoft for its policies. Take everything from this onwards with enormous grains of salt.

There are also enough posts and comments talking down to those complaining. Some are even making posts with lines like “stop the circle jerk”. But a Reddit user posted something interesting regarding this very same trend.

Apparently working with a marketing firm in Redmond that has a contract with Microsoft, the user visited one of the Xbox offices and got a sneak peek into what is referred to as “reputation management”.

“While we were waiting, various marketing employees said hello to us/shook our hands – it was a pretty friendly place. Just nearby were two guys chatting at one of their PCs, and they caught my attention because they were on Reddit! I thought that was pretty cool, and presumed they were having a late lunch break and were just goofing around online.

“I kind-of started to eavesdrop (I honestly couldn’t help it, they were talking about Reddit!) and realized they were actually talking business. One of the exchanges went like this: ‘I got a few more on pics and some of the smaller subs.’ ‘Honestly just don’t bother I think, stay focused on gaming. We really should be spending 90% of our time there.’ [Note: I presume they were referring to /r/pics and /r/gaming]

“His coworker went back to his own computer, and he continued Redditing while we waited. He must’ve really been hyped up on caffeine or something, because his typing was like a machine gun and he was switching tabs like crazy (or maybe that’s just because Microsoft hires the ‘hacker’ type of guys?) Anyway I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own.”

The reputation management involves, “‘debunking’ people who make negative or critical comments about the brand online. I’ve done this myself for numerous clients before (even on Reddit once, sorry!)” and the user noted that, “in any case, they seem to be putting a BIG focus on it for the Xbox One.

“Not only in-house; they’re also dishing out the big bucks for some pretty high-profile marketing firms to do the work for them. Reddit will absolutely be a part of that strategy, and the couple of guys I saw were probably just the tip of the iceberg.”

Of course, he notes that it’s just a hypothesis so empty your last batch of salt and take some more. But nonetheless, “There’s a good chance that many of the positive posts/comments we’re seeing about the Xbox One have been posted by employees from one of those marketing firms.

“It’s fairly standard to diss your competitors too, so I’m guessing some of the negative posts about it might even be from Sony. That’s just a hypothesis, though it wouldn’t be the first time a seeming-crapstorm ‘among Redditors’ was actually just a proxy war between marketing employees.”

Thoughts on this hidden war?

PS: I wonder if there is anyone on VGChartz like this hehe. Or are we too small for things like this to happen here? What does this mean to you? Are we back at the console wars of 2006 or is this a new fase we're entering? Comment below :)

Read more at http://gamingbolt.com/xbox-one-microsoft-doing-reputation-management-for-negative-criticism#xuGaxhXWz9yWyyiA.99 

I don't buy it. And to even suggest they were caught by a journalist while in the act of viral marketing? No, that's not how MS operates.

And if it was true that MS is sending people to promote MS on forums and websites, how come 80% of posts are negative towards Xbone literally everywhere?

Surely those 20% that are positive must be real Xbox fans rather than paid corporate shills.

EDIT: disregard what I said. There's proof further down the thread. I don't want to be accused of being a corporate shill.

This doesn't surprise me a bit. As far as I know, plenty of companies do this type of thing all the time.

Exactly. Can't even believe people are surprised by this. You would be stupid not to do this.

You're right, I think vgc is too small for this. Or if such a person was on here, it would only be coincidental and they would have joined the site for other reasons.

However this is becoming a real problem on Neogaf. From a mod: 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=60276093&postcount=352

We note.

We notice.

Hey, would anybody be interested in a thread where I detail some of the social agency email addresses that have come up during my offsite research into some of our more recently vocal members? 

It's fascinating.

They've almost all been pro-Microsoft but I'm sure all the big companies do it in some form. Most recently a user called Glassbox on gaf who posted lots of articles that defended Sim City was outed as a Maxis employee. 

It's possible they don't think it's something to hide. The internet needs corrected on its bad perception of Xbox One etc

At this point, not even Xbox fans would defend this. There's nothing positive about this for the customers. Xbox fans will defend the value of buying one for its games or features, but not the policy itself.

Corporations manipulate us all the time huh :(

Microsoft aside it's just sad that this is possible. But you can't really stop it i guess.

This is not exactly the same, but you have companies here, The Netherlands, that buy almost half the tickets of popular events only to sell them back to you through their own website for 4x times the original price. It's fucked up!

Well if they think it's not something to hide, then that's another scandal by MS management, another example of how out of touch they're with the market.

About defenders at the grass root level, I disagree. I think we do see the usual suspects defend MS, like here on our site too. We've alerady seen practically all of the dozen or so of the most fierce Xbox lovers here defend the policies and controversial features of the Xbox One. So I think it's in the genome of a fan or fanboy to remain loyal and defend.

Either we've got a few moles here on VGC, or this isn't completely correct.