Only $3?at least $10 and i will think about it

Fucking lame regardless of whether or not its legal, just goes to show with games media, if partnered youtube broadcasters will fudge their opinion of something for a few dollars, what in the heavens are we trusting general gaming media for?

P.s. any positive effect this campaign will have is going to be negated by the bad press of the angry coverage about the questionable practices.

Damn MS, cool it with the evil.

Wow that's actually good marketing

This is an extremely unethical, deceitful practice and I am very glad it has been exposed. I hope Machinima's reputation is severely tarnished, and I hope Microsoft are fined heavily by the FTC. To those who say it is only marketing, it is not, it is propaganda. People are being paid to lie to you and misinform you, it just shows how little Microsoft actually care about their customers, and how unethical they are.

Well, if they took the bait, that's their fault. You jump in on a promotion where the clause says you can't discuss getting paid and you can't say anything disparaging about the product, then you're already kind of tainted. The most ridiculous part is that it's for so little money. This is the cost of having doubt cast over you forever.

Bribery is also giving a console for free

So, to compare your thought.

So, the drug dealer on the corner is not the problem, just the people who manufacture the drugs?

Every person invovled in something illegal(even though I think this is not illegal) are themselves doing something illegal.  What you want to do is pick and choose who is right and wrong.  If you believe that M$ is wrong in what they are doing, then all parties involved are wrong, even the people who watch the videos(after knowing why or how they were made). 

In the U.S. any form of traditional advertising such as TV (excluding infomercials), radio, or printed ads are considered assumptive and require the consumer to assume that anything being said is paid advertising. The only exception is if the add contains any form of non-celebrity endorsment in which case they must disclose that it is a paid endorsment.

Any other type of advertising, whether it be infomercials, Youtube videos, blogs, product placement, ect. They are required by law to disclose that it is a paid advertisement because it isn't obvious which are ads and which are not. For instance if you watch a video about the Xbox One  and there is no mention of it being a paid endorsment how do you know that what you're viewing is actually the opinion of the person who made the video or if they're being paid to say that?

Your example doesn't fit. Mostly because a drug dealer knows that he is doing is illegal. What the Youtubers did was still morally wrong though. 

I will also say that it doesn't make sense in this case to blame the viewers because they weren't aware of the circumstances until after the "promotion" ended.