As you may remember, Electronic Arts sent us a $200 check to test our "greed" as a promotion for Visceral Games' Dante's Inferno. And this is what happens when you cash it: EA then sends you a (fake) severed hand in a wooden box, of course.
The packaged arrived last week while I was in Tokyo, so for about five days the severed hand and its wooden home sat on my desk while my cats batted at it with their paws. The message is clear -- because we cashed the check and did this, we're destined for the Fourth Circle of Hell, Greed. The inside of the box reads:
Foul Horder, The Fourth Circle of Hell Awaits
A hand that clutches gold cannot reach forth to help his fellow man. You have hoarded the wealth of the world and incurred the debt of greed, and the wages of your sin were paid by the innocent. For the wealth of one shall always come at the suffering of another.
We have to wonder, though -- what would we have gotten had we immediately donated the check to a charity, or simply didn't cash it at all?
LAUNCH GALLERY (8 IMAGES)
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Contest:
9:40 AM on 09.28.2009
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I wouldn't have cashed the check, but after seeing that ghoulish thing, I would have regretted not doing so!
Greed is good after all.
What's next they offer you a stripper and send you a severed penis?
Publicity from EA should be directed at the PUBLIC, not the gaming blogosphere so excited to be recognized and acknowledged for their trivial existence that they end up posting about things anyone with journalistic integrity would see right through and ignore.
Tell me, how much did Chase Bank pay for the banner ad? EA gives you a tiny little check and you write post after post about it (with pics), yet have you written posts about Chase Bank? I'm sure they gave you a lot more.
Suckers.
Watch the movie Teeth. You won't be disappointed.
Great PR from that company...
Why are some of you so upset that blogs are covering what is actually a pretty inventive PR maneuver? If some people think it's cool/interesting/weird, then it's worth giving coverage to. I'm also curious at what the people who didn't cash the check get. They have to get something.
That said... "For the wealth of one shall always come at the suffering of another." C'mon, that's just a flawed understanding of economics. :)
It's not free. EA directly paid them (at least) $200. This article and the other articles about Dante's Inferno are paid advertisements.
I would love to see the mental hoops people will try to jump through to explain how, this isn't really a paid advertisement.
But; it is. Journalistic integrity be damned. This isn't a new problem, or just Destructoid's problem. Game "journalists" accept free gifts, games, and trips all the time from publishers.
But surely this doesn't influence their decisions, oh no. Somehow they transcend humanity and are able to be unaffected by the constant stream of bribes. Sort of like how your local Congressman is unaffected by the millions of dollars in donations from corporate interests.
Congressmen and games journalists are just better than the rest of us. Common-sense ethics and integrity? Pfft. Then I wouldn't get a free trip to Valve HQ to playtest L4D2 months before release.
You should consider that next time you're being bribed. At least ask for a free flight and room and board in Seattle, even Valve does that for you.
I see your point, but unfortunately that's not how we operate and that's not our thinking. If you want to call shenanigans on how we obtain our coverage or why we cover certain titles, be my guest. It's our job to cover these games whether it be posting screenshots, videos, interviews with devs, or previews. Feel free to comb our Dante's Inferno news and preview articles, all of which contain both positive and some quite negative opinion of the title.
As for the "free vs. paid publicity" argument, it's total nonsense. We publish up to 55 (if not more) stories per day on a wide variety of games and related subjects. Again, we do this because our readers -- this is shocking, so I hope you're sitting down -- want to read about and discuss games. We don't do it because publishers want, request, or pay us to do so.
And yes, of course this entire thing was a publicity stunt, but because of what we do (cover all things related to games), of course we're going to cover it. In that sense, sure, EA's PR team has done quite a job of "playing" us.
Yutt, it's unfortunate that you're so jaded and un-trusting that you feel the need to come in here and start tossing around questions of our ethics. I'm certain you can find another blog, Web site, or magazine that you trust more. One that you feel upholds your standards of integrity by not accepting travel, in what your mind are "bribes," or one that doesn't accept product (free of charge OMG!) for evaluation.
For your information, all of the Dead Rising 2 our coverage that came out of Tokyo Game Show was "paid for" by the awesome beef kabobs and beer they had at Capcom's event in Ebisu. Because, you know, we wouldn't have covered it otherwise. /rolls eyes
I'm not "jaded", I am aware of obvious problems with the system of gaming journalism, and point them out regularly here and elsewhere. It isn't for Destructoid's benefit, I know you are too entrenched in the system and benefit from it too much to change. It is for consumers to be informed and aware of obvious problems going on behind the scenes. Where gaming journalists are snorting blow off hookers asses with Gabe Newell, and then typing up their review of Left 4 Dead 2 that night.
Consumers are supposed to be untrusting. Journalists should show us that they are above such nonsense and do their best to point out and avoid manipulation by the PR teams that have vast financial resources solely aimed at biasing public and journalistic perception of their game.
I know it probably hurts to admit Destructoid was played by EA's PR team, but that's just a simple fact. They spent a few thousand dollars on a bunch of props, (that are only indirectly unrelated to the actual game, mind you), and managed to get tons of free publicity from Destructoid and other sites.
If your readers -- I hope you're sitting down -- "want to read about and discuss games", how about you start talking about the game and stop succumbing to PR stunts? How many of the 30 Dante's Inferno articles actually discuss the game itself? How many are just quoted and reworded press releases, or unabashed references to this PR campaign?
You're telling me it is unethical for a Congressman to accept free gifts, money, and vacations from lobbyists, for a doctor to receive gifts, money, or vacations from a pharmaceutical reps; but somehow game journalists are immune to this?
Am I jaded? Really? Or are you just trying to sidestep blatant ethical problems in your industry?
Let's set aside the massive difference in the impact of a Congressman's vote being bought, or a doctor handing out questionable medication, as compared to a game review being influenced by the fact that the reviewer didn't have to buy the game, because I think that puts the issue to rest by itself...
So you think a gaming website should purchase every copy of every game they ever review? That's an expensive proposition. One that means the less noteworthy games will almost never be reviewed. Look at it from the other side. It's not about the gaming sites accepting free copies of a game for review, it's about the game developers offering free copies of a game to make sure their new game gets reviewed. Now some games will obviously be reviewed regardless, but where's the cutoff? Which developers would be allowed to send out free games to reviewers and which would not? This is quite a slippery slope. If you say nobody, ever, for any reason should be allowed to send out free games to reviewers, then I hope you enjoy your 24/7 Halo 3 ODST coverage.
With regard to this specific case of marketing gone wild, you obviously haven't been impressed. The complete lack of detail regarding the game itself has completely failed to convince me to go make a purchase whenever it hits store shelves. From our sample of 2, this kind of coverage has made 0% sales difference. For the people who have been sold just by marketing stunts, they're probably the types who have also been sold by six-axis boob physics. Should we bitch and moan about the dozen or more articles I've seen talking about that too? There hasn't been any free shit involved that I'm aware of, but I'm more prone to objecting to that than to this.
Whatever "Holier than God" ideals you're trying to push on Dtoid are misguided. This article has over 40 Comments from people who read and pay attention to this stuff because they care and it's entertaining. They weren't tricked into it, though I'm sure you'd disagree. So please shut up and start a religion elsewhere.
Oh, and I'd like to see these "prizes" sent to all the big businesses who are made up of greedy bastards(MonSanto, Walmart, News Corp, McDonalds, Activision, GM, etc.)
I very specifically went out of my way to say that we were "played" by EA PR. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed that a game-related story was presented to me and I ran with it for entertainment and informational purposes. If, as you propose, we were to "avoid manipulation by the PR teams" we wouldn't and couldn't possibly provide the type of content we choose to on Destructoid.
"Where gaming journalists are snorting blow off hookers asses with Gabe Newell, and then typing up their review of Left 4 Dead 2 that night." So is that happening and we're just not invited, or are you exaggerating for the sake of argument? Be careful, someone may be adjusting their tin foil hat based on these over-the-top (untrue, might I add) statements.
Look, I get what you're saying regarding consumers questioning journalists and media output. I'm not saying no one should be doing that. But it's insulting to suggest that all of our content is either paid for or dictated entirely by third-parties. It's also wrong.
For the record, we've published 49 stories with "Dante's Inferno" in the headline and 110 stories about Braid. Still waiting for Jonathan Blow's check to clear.
You're smarter than that. I never once claimed Destructoid never had unsolicited articles, only that this particular set is especially ethically dubious. The number of Braid articles is inconsequential.
If 5% of Consumer Reports reviews were in fact paid advertisements masquerading as legitimate reviews, that would not be good. The fact 95% were legit is largely irrelevant.
I appreciate your responses. I think on my side of the fence you'd have similar concerns. You know, or feel you know, that your articles were not influenced by this. You no doubt feel attacked and offended knowing t
My point is, as a consumer, it isn't up to me to have faith in your integrity. You need to prove you are an honest and trustworthy reviewer. Destructoid as a news outlet need to prove that when pressured by PR, they hold the moral high-ground and will not be hoodwinked into running ads as articles to improve the article database count, rank on a useful Google keyword, or get a continued stream of personal perks from publishers.
If you and the Destructoid staff truly want people who are concerned about journalistic integrity to find other venues for gaming commentary, as Polo Guy above does - you certainly don't have a monopoly. I don't think that is a good long-term business plan, however.
This is all, of course, just my near worthless opinion. I do feel I have made many fair points that any intelligent, ethical person should take to heart.
@Polo Guy
I guess having an opinion that disagrees with you is now "trolling", eh? I never claimed that gaming news is comparable to politics in its importance to peoples' quality of life. Was that honestly the best criticism of my comment you can make? Trying to pin an obviously ridiculous claim to me? I never made any remote reference to "quality of life".
The point of my analogy, since I have to break it down to an elementary level for you to understan is: It is unethical to accept gifts from a party that you have the responsibility to be unbiased to.
It isn't complicated. It isn't a religion. It isn't even debatable.