Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by k-damage

Once again, if one can spend money to boost his product, why wouldn't he spend money to bash a concurrent ? In the end, half-full or half-empty glass, the effect is the same ?

The effect isn't the same.

The effect isn't even close.

$50,000 ad budget spent on hyping your game gets results.

$50,000 spent bashing your competitors would achieve almost nothing overall, and definitely wouldn't achieve anything for the competiting product.

You don't piss away ad budget blindly.  If the return on investment doesn't happen in the form of $50,000 or more new revenue coming in to your business, you're just throwing money away.

Valid point, except it is assuming there are several serious competitors. But as I wrote earlier in the thread, most serious MMOs are not releasing the same year. And if they are, you can still narrow it to one because MMO gamers won't play two at once, and will chose the best of all upcoming releases. 

So concretely, there is always one serious competitor per year against the current MMO superstar. Which can be the said target of negative reviewing. It's not that complicated to find the highest competitor to a superstar, really, you just have to look at the most hyped.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by k-damage

Once again, if one can spend money to boost his product, why wouldn't he spend money to bash a concurrent ? In the end, half-full or half-empty glass, the effect is the same ?

The effect isn't the same.

The effect isn't even close.

$50,000 ad budget spent on hyping your game gets results.

$50,000 spent bashing your competitors would achieve almost nothing overall, and definitely wouldn't achieve anything for the competiting product.

You don't piss away ad budget blindly.  If the return on investment doesn't happen in the form of $50,000 or more new revenue coming in to your business, you're just throwing money away.

If you only have 50k to spend then you don't want to spend it only on bashing your opponent, but you could spend 49k on adverts and 1k on bashing. That extra 1k won't get you a much better ad campaign, but it might sway people enough people to make it worth wild to bash the competition.

How much mud slinging isn't being done in politcal campaigns. I see no difference to be honest.

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by k-damage

Once again, if one can spend money to boost his product, why wouldn't he spend money to bash a concurrent ? In the end, half-full or half-empty glass, the effect is the same ?

The effect isn't the same.

The effect isn't even close.

$50,000 ad budget spent on hyping your game gets results.

$50,000 spent bashing your competitors would achieve almost nothing overall, and definitely wouldn't achieve anything for the competiting product.

You don't piss away ad budget blindly.  If the return on investment doesn't happen in the form of $50,000 or more new revenue coming in to your business, you're just throwing money away.

Valid point, except it is assuming there are several serious competitors. But as I wrote earlier in the thread, most serious MMOs are not releasing the same year. And if they are, you can still narrow it to one because MMO gamers won't play two at once, and will chose the best of all upcoming releases. 

So concretely, there is always one serious competitor per year against the current MMO superstar. Which can be the said target of negative reviewing. It's not that complicated to find the highest competitor to a superstar, really, you just have to look at the most hyped.

So by that logic, any MMO company that did this would aim for Wow, as they are easily the biggest competitior. And conversly, since even with the drop off they've had, Blizzard is still drowning in money, they would have NO need to go after all the small fish that are their competition.

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by k-damage

Once again, if one can spend money to boost his product, why wouldn't he spend money to bash a concurrent ? In the end, half-full or half-empty glass, the effect is the same ?

The effect isn't the same.

The effect isn't even close.

$50,000 ad budget spent on hyping your game gets results.

$50,000 spent bashing your competitors would achieve almost nothing overall, and definitely wouldn't achieve anything for the competiting product.

You don't piss away ad budget blindly.  If the return on investment doesn't happen in the form of $50,000 or more new revenue coming in to your business, you're just throwing money away.

Valid point, except it is assuming there are several serious competitors. But as I wrote earlier in the thread, most serious MMOs are not releasing the same year. And if they are, you can still narrow it to one because MMO gamers won't play two at once, and will chose the best of all upcoming releases. 

So concretely, there is always one serious competitor per year against the current MMO superstar. Which can be the said target of negative reviewing. It's not that complicated to find the highest competitor to a superstar, really, you just have to look at the most hyped.

So by that logic, any MMO company that did this would aim for Wow, as they are easily the biggest competitior. And conversly, since even with the drop off they've had, Blizzard is still drowning in money, they would have NO need to go after all the small fish that are their competition.

I think that Wow is getting this kind of paid bashing. It's just that the game is so popular, official / non-official forums are so massive in post counts, that it would request an insane amount of budget for such an action to be 1) efficient, 2) recognizable. 

When you are a "small fish", or a newcomer with no big marketing budget, in this case it would be far easier to aim at "everyone else but WoW".

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by k-damage

Once again, if one can spend money to boost his product, why wouldn't he spend money to bash a concurrent ? In the end, half-full or half-empty glass, the effect is the same ?

The effect isn't the same.

The effect isn't even close.

$50,000 ad budget spent on hyping your game gets results.

$50,000 spent bashing your competitors would achieve almost nothing overall, and definitely wouldn't achieve anything for the competiting product.

You don't piss away ad budget blindly.  If the return on investment doesn't happen in the form of $50,000 or more new revenue coming in to your business, you're just throwing money away.

Valid point, except it is assuming there are several serious competitors. But as I wrote earlier in the thread, most serious MMOs are not releasing the same year. And if they are, you can still narrow it to one because MMO gamers won't play two at once, and will chose the best of all upcoming releases. 

So concretely, there is always one serious competitor per year against the current MMO superstar. Which can be the said target of negative reviewing. It's not that complicated to find the highest competitor to a superstar, really, you just have to look at the most hyped.

So by that logic, any MMO company that did this would aim for Wow, as they are easily the biggest competitior. And conversly, since even with the drop off they've had, Blizzard is still drowning in money, they would have NO need to go after all the small fish that are their competition.

I think that Wow is getting this kind of paid bashing. It's just that the game is so popular, official / non-official forums are so massive in post counts, that it would request an insane amount of budget for such an action to be 1) efficient, 2) recognizable. 

When you are a "small fish", or a newcomer with no big marketing budget, in this case it would be far easier to aim at "everyone else but WoW".

Again I say this makes no sense. Since you can't harm your biggest potential rival, going after sub rivals is idiotic as it will just be wasted effort as even if you are successful, people are far more likely to go back to said biggest rival than come to your game.

There is a company for about anything...as much to your google findings.

There is way more logical explanation for trolls: There are way less people capable and/or willing of constructive, intelligent discussion than trolls.

People are bitching stupidly about anything so they do also about games. Not an intention, just human nature.

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by Moaky07

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by PyscoJuggalo

It seems like the OP is a viral marketeer.  

What ? So bringing a concrete proof to a case study is viral marketing ? It seems like you didn't read the OP at all, apart from the shiny blue links.

__________

Anyway, I'm happy to see other posters putting down mature and well thought opinion, thanks guys :)

HAH!!!!! Busted.

If I knew I would attract all paranoid tinfoil psychos here ... Anyway, I'm suppressing those links in the OP, if it can help you sleep at night.

Actually, I was thinking the same thing about the OP. You don't think this is related to all those black helicopters that have been flying around lately do you?

The problem with your theory is that aside from posts that are from the totally misinformed, new MMO's have all of the flaws that these 'haters' say they do.

Therefore even if they were paid negative reviews it doesn't really matter since they are largely true.

Edit: (and you'd be amazed how deep our, er their cover can go)  

Originally posted by Kyleran

The problem with your theory is that aside from posts that are from the totally misinformed, new MMO's have all of the flaws that these 'haters' say they do.

 

Therefore even if they were paid negative reviews it doesn't really matter since they are largely true.

Edit: (and you'd be amazed how deep our, er their cover can go)  

They are always based on real problems of course, but the matter is not really here : it's like saying that bullying at school doesn't matter, as it's always taking an existing mental, or physical "difference" in the victim. 

The problem is in how it's completely taken out of proportions for some purpose. I'm not saying that every out of proportions critics are necessarly paid fakers, but as a matter of fact we're seeing a lot of them each time a new MMO starts to have some higher hype.

Originally posted by k-damage

Is it all "hush hush don't speak about that" or what ?

Pretty much.

There's a problem with forums and these services.  Accusation without support, among a population that's used to calling each other names.  Works both ways; effectively no way to 'prove' that you aren't getting paid, so smears even at the corporate level are unlikely to be effective.

So...nothing you read from a player is trustworthy.  Isn't that cool?

Don't need forums any more.  Definitely don't need reviews, or public expression of opinions.

[Or, you could just ignore the possibility that you've got a corporate shill in your threads, as we all have for years.  Even if you're certain, you're probably wrong.]

We actually had a company like this we caught on our forums many years back.  Man, I can't remember their name now - it was something "rats" or similar.  They were not bashing games but filling our forums with overly glorious love for a few of their "clients."  At this time none of the clients were AAA game companies - just small companies trying to get cheap exposure.

From my experience your giant game companies like EA, NCsoft, FunCom, Sony, etc don't even dare stepping into realms like this.  They have too much to lose if they were to get caught doing anything like this.  They have the money to buy large amounts of premium advertising and they don't need to stoop to these levels.  

That being said though, we have also dealt with some "rogue" Community Managers from games that have urged official site communities to spam our forums or boost up our hype/rating meter and we have dealt with these as well.  In these cases the companies always claimed that the CM was acting on their own, etc, etc.

Originally posted by Admin

We actually had a company like this we caught on our forums many years back.  Man, I can't remember their name now - it was something "rats" or similar.  They were not bashing games but filling our forums with overly glorious love for a few of their "clients."  At this time none of the clients were AAA game companies - just small companies trying to get cheap exposure.

From my experience your giant game companies like EA, NCsoft, FunCom, Sony, etc don't even dare stepping into realms like this.  They have too much to lose if they were to get caught doing anything like this.  They have the money to buy large amounts of premium advertising and they don't need to stoop to these levels.  

That being said though, we have also dealt with some "rogue" Community Managers from games that have urged official site communities to spam our forums or boost up our hype/rating meter and we have dealt with these as well.  In these cases the companies always claimed that the CM was acting on their own, etc, etc.

Holy cow, I didn't expect an answer from the Admin themselves :-)

Thank you for your feedback, there can't be more concrete proof (and clarification) about the phenomenom. It's a really good thing to know you're fighting those kinds, really.

Although, about my speculation on giant companies and the risk they would take on being caught, I guess it's really easy to "deny any link with the service provider". I'm sure this denial securization is even in the contracts, just like any regular "silent" service. It would also be the same kind of denial than the one you mentionned about CMs (I didn't expect this type of action, tbh).

It's interesting to read that this kind of service would be the "poor man's marketing". But I'm still stuck in my reflexion about giants being 100% clean. One another thing to consider is that hardcore gamers in general (aka the main audience of MMORPGS) don't even pay attention to traditional marketing like banners, promo vids, etc. They mostly make their opinion around word of mouth (which is logical, when you're a veteran you're used to know that traditional marketing doesn't bring any concrete answer).

Originally posted by k-damage

Holy cow, I didn't expect an answer from the Admin themselves :-)I'm sure this denial securization is even in the contracts, just like any regular "silent" service.

Wouldn't you expect, on the average, such a contract to be about as effective as the average NDA?  (Employer NDA, not beta-testing).

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by k-damage

Holy cow, I didn't expect an answer from the Admin themselves :-)I'm sure this denial securization is even in the contracts, just like any regular "silent" service.

Wouldn't you expect, on the average, such a contract to be about as effective as the average NDA?  (Employer NDA, not beta-testing).

I understand your point, but MMOs NDA is kind of a different affair : a NDA-breaking gamer does have tons of way to prove that he played said game. Plus he risks absolutely nothing important except not to beta the game anymore.

On the other side : a Reputation Control company blowing up its client's cover not only risks denial, and therefore credibility loss, but also risks to lose all of its other clients, therefore bankrupcy. While the said giant gamestudio would only have to deny, and do a bit of damage control. I'm sure such contracts also contain a security line mentionning huge financial damages to refund if said cover was to be blown up (once again, just like in any other silent service).

Originally posted by Admin

That being said though, we have also dealt with some "rogue" Community Managers from games that have urged official site communities to spam our forums or boost up our hype/rating meter and we have dealt with these as well.  In these cases the companies always claimed that the CM was acting on their own, etc, etc.

*cough* Darkfall *cough* Mortal Online *cough*

Originally posted by k-damage

On the other side : a Reputation Control company blowing up its client's cover not only risks denial, and therefore credibility loss, but also risks to lose all of its other clients, therefore bankrupcy. While the said giant gamestudio would only have to deny, and do a bit of damage control. I'm sure such contracts also contain a security line mentionning huge financial damages to refund if said cover was to be blown up (once again, just like in any other silent service).

Financial damages notwithstanding, NDA's are violated with surprising regularity.  Violating your security clearance, you risk your freedom, even your life--and yet cases turn up with fair regularity where even high-order clearances are violated.

A single security violation, and the jig is up for the company, no?

Occam seems to be shaking his head at a lot of your necessary assumptions.

Originally posted by k-damage

 

So I'll bump this thread by adding : If you have witnessed any of those bashing/praising agents, don't hesitate to share here. The only detail I'd like not to be mentionned would be the agent's contractor so that this thread doesn't turn into an indirect anti-marketing campaign itself.

If you suspect something like this, report it. Calling other users out specifically like this generally falls under trolling.Let the mods and if needed, MikeB, handle it.

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by k-damage

 

So I'll bump this thread by adding : If you have witnessed any of those bashing/praising agents, don't hesitate to share here. The only detail I'd like not to be mentionned would be the agent's contractor so that this thread doesn't turn into an indirect anti-marketing campaign itself.

If you suspect something like this, report it. Calling other users out specifically like this generally falls under trolling.Let the mods and if needed, MikeB, handle it.

Well that would explain why I got banned for calling out a blatant shill who has gone unchallenged on a certain forum.

Don't believe me? Go to The Secret World general discussion.

There are at least a few paid shills there who try and spread misinformation about upcoming titles like GW2 and hype lifetime subscriptions for their product.

Okay, I was temp-banned too for pointing a user post history as a "matter of reflexion" ... Wasn't calling out anyone, just trying to identify the possible forms of such services. If you're asking for us to report them, how are we supposed to recognize them in the first place ? Unless there is an option to hide one username from his post history, I really don't know how it could have been done. And anyway, "matter of reflexion" is far from "this guy is a witch let's hunt him".

Whatever. I got the message. Hush-hush.

I also wonder why you put it in the Off-topic section from the Pub, as the Pub contains far more offtopic subjects than this one ..

Or maybe you should add OffTopic section to Realtime Forum Activity ... ?

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-made-28000-a-month-writing-fake-book-reviews-online-2012-8

Now a reality.