Shadow of Warner Bros and Other Nonsense
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Once again, YouTubers are under the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
Warner Bros, makers of critically received game Shadow of Mordor, have been under fire, after an investigation has uncovered some rather dodgy marketing practices.
The US Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with the multi-media company, after the publisher had failed to disclose it had paid YouTubers for coverage of the game, and to give positive reviews of it.
Let’s backtrack a bit.
When Shadow of Mordor was first being released, there was a lot of… grey area about the status of review copies and how the game was marketed, and it confused a few YouTubers too.
TotalBiscuit, real name John Bain, a go-to voice in a time like this, said on Twitter way back when:
As an FYI, Shadow of Mordor on PC was given out early to a bunch of Youtube channels for brand deals. Expect lots of content on launch
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) September 28, 2014
I very much disapprove of this practice and hope it doesn't become commonplace. The mixed messages regarding review copies are troubling.
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) September 28, 2014
The message we got was "we can give you prerelease code but only if you do this paid brand deal". We refused, naturally.
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) September 28, 2014
He refused a review copy, because of the monetary aspect that Warner Bros were offering.
Now when someone pays you to talk about something, it is expected you give positive feedback, much like PewDiePie did when he released his video in 2014, covering the game.
Warner Bros managed to get around disclosing that it was paid promotion by telling the YouTubers to put the information under the description tab, meaning it wasn’t fully on display. The viewer would have had to click the ‘Show More’ tab to read the information properly, which is rather poor business practice.
This comes just after last week’s farce, where YouTubers Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Tom “Syndicate” Cassell were brought into the light after running gambling websites where kids as young as 13 could sell their CS:GO skins for potentially hundreds of dollars.
If you want a better look at it, check out TB’s video.
Warner Bros have settled the agreement, and hopefully we won’t see this again.
And if you want even more discussion on the Counter Strike gambling shambles, skip to 1:50:00ish.