Online Gaming Magazines (like their offline counterparts) have had a reputation of selling good reviews and praise to publishers in exchange for exlcusives and advertising money epecially after the Gerstmann-Gate incident. This has not been limited to just gaming magazines but also gaming sites in general. (Of course most gaming sites deny being influensed by advertisers the same way that most kids will deny stealling cookies.)
I've even heard of several Bloggers being bribed by companies to market their products and create a impression of a genuine grassroots movent. (Astroturfing)
Nvidia had been accused of hiring a company to place people on forums creating multiple "trustworthy" personas to spread Nvidia's viral marketing messages with.
| "I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.
I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster." |
So, game companies could not only be getting Magazine publishers to shill for them but also Bloggers, Forums Posters and other comment posters to spread viral messages to promote their products and likely to attack competitors products.
So how can we tell the difference between a Fanboy or a Shill?
Between geniune community promotion/rejecting of a product or Astroturfing?
