EA Comes Under Fire for Shady PR Stunts 228
EA has come under heavy fire lately for some deliberately shady PR techniques. You can't argue with the result, however, that has pretty much everyone (including us) talking about it. The question is: will extensive discussion, and the resulting widespread anger that seems to accompany it, actually help their game sales? Stunts have ranged from their "win a date with a booth babe" contest to paying game site editors a faux "bribe" to fit with their sin motif. "Outraged Christian bloggers, complaining female and LGBT gamers, editors being sent checks made out directly to them — all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage. The campaign has been childish, daring, and borderline tasteless. Writing checks directly to game writers is cheaper than advertising on a site, with a much better result."
Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage.
Submitter and the editor didn't actually see the ironic thing here?
For that matter I didn't actually had heard or read about this game, but thanks to slashdot now reporting about this, I think I will just google it. Just to know what it is about. Maybe I even buy it - after all everyone is talking about it. Good work Slashdot!
So what kind of game it is? Does it look good? What features are there? Is it fun? Is there multiplayer, and how is it? Is it fun to play with friends?
In the latest chapter of this fun tale, EA has finally decided to simply send editors of prominent gaming sites checks for $200. The point? If the checks are cashed, the gaming press is greedy. If they're not, the gaming press is wasteful. "By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by harding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality. Make your choice and suffer the consequence for your sin," the included note stated. "And scoff not, for consequences are imminent." The sin theme remains, if nothing else, on-topic.
This has to be one of the first times money has been sent directly to reviewers and editors with the hope that the story is broken publicly, and that's what makes the stunt so devious; of course it's going to be written about. Joystiq cashed the check and donated the money to charity, Kotaku posted video of their check burning. Without having a list of sites that received the faux bribe, it's impossible to tell if anyone actually cashed the check and kept the money.
Cheapy D, who runs the popular deals site CheapAssGamer, weighed in on the check. "Kotaku charges an $8 CPM (cost per 1,000 banner impressions) for their standard advertising banners. Their news post about this PR stunt will likely surpass 40,000 views," he explained. "To err on the safe side, let's say the total cost of the check and fancy box is $300. Since [the post's author] burned the check, EA basically spent the equivalent of a $2.50 CPM for a front page news post on Kotaku. That is an incredible value. Nice job, EA Marketing!"
This sounds like a fun stunt. And now it continues on slashdot too. Someone is going to get a nice christmas bonus!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Marketing (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. It helps them so they don't have to write great games, and just keep churning out the medeocre sludge that EA's trademark stands for.
Caveat emptor (Score:2)
We have already seen 'astroturfing' being done by political organizations to fake grassroots support for candidates, political parties, and political issues. The more of this blatant abuse we see, the more skeptical the world will be of these fabricated events.
I realize I'm dreaming here, but maybe someday, people will learn to mistrust what they see and hear in the 'media'.
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MTV owns Harmonix. EA just publishes their games. Otherwise, agreed.
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I would give them more credit than that. In the last couple of years, EA's really put out some quality games, mostly because they have gone from a buy-and-assimilate mode to a buy-and-nurture mode. In recent memory, that means Black Box (Skate), Harmonix (Rock Band), Criterion (Burnout: Paradise), and BioWare (Mass Effect), which is nothing to sneeze at. All this without forcing out a new Rock Band game every three months on every available platform. No, Activision is the new king of sludge.
If by "nurture", you mean the way Lennie "nurtured" his small pets [wikipedia.org], or the loving way Microsoft "embraces" competing companies, then sure.
I'm sure it starts off comfy, but you can bet the squeeze will come eventually. They won't be able to help sticking their finger in the game development pie. Everyone thinks they can design games.
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Makes sense to me, advertise your game heavily influenced by the 7 deadly sins by using marketing tied to the 7 deadly sins.
Their execution was a little... off on a couple of the stunts (lust). This latest greed ploy, though, is quite good. Guaranteed to get press, generates lots of debate (and therefor attention), and doesn't hurt anybody. Well, I suppose if a reviewer gets caught cashing the check they could lose credibility, but it's better than asking a convention full of geeks to commit "acts of lu
Re:Marketing (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, I just now caught it. Teaches me to skim the article. /duck
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Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] also seems to have an another interesting marketing plot
Electronic Arts partnered with GameStop for a one-day only promotion of Dante's Inferno on 09-09-09. Those that pre-ordered the game were offered a $6.66 discount, the Number of the Beast.[5]
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This idea is so old you have no idea. This is just one of the few times the press has covered it. Literally the concept of harnessing the streisand effect goes back around 50+ years, just in different forms.
Things that are "banned" or go against old-folks values, are another. good ole basic reverse psychology.
You didn't think those bollywood threats about products being illegal were because they actually were, right?
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[...] It's almost on a level with exploiting Murphy.
That's actually the whole point or Murphy's law. It it not a "oh, woe is me, everything is going to fail." is more like "even if everything fails, we're good"
Endorse it to the RED CROSS..... (Score:2)
donate the amount to charity in your name and drop EA a note to say thank-you :)
Ironinc? = Addressed (Score:2)
all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage.
Submitter and the editor didn't actually see the ironic thing here?
FTFA:
No matter how upset a few groups may get, this has been a successful way to market the game; we're very much aware we're falling into the trap ourselves. The question is a simple one: are we sinking to EA's level, or is it the other way around?
But you know, no need to read the article on slashdot or anything...
Re:Marketing (Score:4, Informative)
You forgot to quote the following from the article: "No matter how upset a few groups may get, this has been a successful way to market the game; we're very much aware we're falling into the trap ourselves. The question is a simple one: are we sinking to EA's level, or is it the other way around?"
So, no, you're not the only one who "gets" it.
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Greed or waste? Why not cash it and send the money to one of the Gamer charities (I thought there was one that raised money for children's hospitals for example). Make sure that you credit them for the contribution and be done with it. Certainly not greedy, and certainly a better use of the money than [random blogger] has for it.
EA doing something sleazy?!?!?!? (Score:2)
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What they didn't report is that each of those 200 dollar checks bounced.
Re:EA doing something sleazy?!?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Not in general. On the radio, it's illegal [cornell.edu] unless the payment is disclosed, but that regulation's under the FCC's power to regulate radio. For general websites, newspapers, books, etc., there's no anti-payola legislation.
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Dear EA:
I just wanted to let you know that I am an Interactive Entertainment Specialist (game reviewer) for PSXnation and would welcome any publicity, gifts, or checks you would like to send my way. I will give you a fair review of your product.
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First, I don't believe it is against the law. (Bribes in goods/monetary exchanges/contracts are, I just think that reviews fall into the grey area.) Second, the "bribe" made no request or attempt at being designed to influence the reviews. Its a publicity stunt, not really a bribe because they didn't ask for anything in return.
Not a bribe - true, but only because they don't specifically make a request. However, they get plenty in return: outrage and a huge amount of free publicity. Truly beautifully done.
Frankly, I think the note included with the money presents a false dichotomy... but I'm guessing/hoping most of the peopel receiving it would have realized that too.
"Outraged Christian bloggers" ? (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, remind me not to get on their bad side! They may pray me to death with their eerie powers...
Re:"Outraged Christian bloggers" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wow its a Friday night they must all be at home (while their children are with the priest) and therefore have nothing better to do than downmod you :O
Re:"Outraged Christian bloggers" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drop Christian and you have "Outraged bloggers" in general. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the keyboard is as dull as a blunt pocket knife.
Re:"Outraged Christian bloggers" ? (Score:5, Funny)
An ICBM is duller than a blunt pocket knife. That doesn't make it less mighty.
It's kind of scary how much impact the blogosphere can have... a bunch of bloggers get upset... their blog posts are picked up by some intern or volunteer at the Church of the Evangelical Scoundrel, who passes it on to his superior... the head of the Church of the Evangelical Scoundrel gets the ear of his local and state politicians... and the next thing you know, Jack Thompson uses his eye tooth to hatch from an egg, and all video game players are forced to confess their sins before a Grand Theft Auto De Fe.
Don't underestimate the powers of Christian bloggers.
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More like EA's competitors write a check to the local pastor of the loudmouth fundie church, he preaches, tells them what to do, and suddenly you have the media bending over backwards for the opinions of these nuts.
Works with pastors giving political endorsements or are we still too naive to accept corruption in the church?
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...except that more people will read THIS post than any christian blog.
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The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the keyboard is as dull as a blunt pocket knife.
A club is pretty dull too, but it can be mightier than the sword, depending on the swordsman and the clubman. The keyboard is only as dull as a butter knife when its wielder is. Most bloggers suck at writing, but not all do.
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Yet, if I hit you in the head with my trusty IBM type-M you will probably die.
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No, like this [howstuffworks.com].
I guess it was money well spent (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most people won't even cash those checks as they honestly look pretty dang cool. Plus it's one of those bragging symbols, "hey, check out this check I got from EA to pimp their game!" It's kind of like getting a check from Knuth.
Re:I guess it was money well spent (Score:5, Insightful)
But getting a check from Knuth means you found a bug in LaTeX. There is genuine pride in debugging a piece of software like that. Being a video game blogger? Not so much.
I'll be honest... I'd cash it and then not comment about it. Maybe I'd send a private e-mail to EA thanking them for their generosity and informing them how I feel compelled not to comment on this game because of the clear conflict of interests involved.
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But getting a check from Knuth means you found a bug in LaTeX.
Not necessarily. I got mine for catching a typo and an abuse of notation in preprints of part of TAoCP vol. 4.
(Replying because I don't have mod points. Your second paragraph blatantly deserves 5, Insightful).
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But if you were running a gaming website, you could cash in twice - once from the check, and once from the publicity that reporting on the check would bring.
I think the problem here is that it's beneficial to EA AND to the websites... wait, is that really a problem then? Well, I guess for the general public it is - unless it's a really good game!
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That's great until the post the cashed check and report your sin.
There genius it's open and there is no real win...
Everything can be twisted into a sin in the bible.
Genius.
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Sins are a slippery slope. If I get a check that's personally addressed to me, I'd consider that either a gift or a bribe. Bribes are illegal. Gifts aren't, though you're beholden to report them to the IRS. There's no greed in taking the money. The only greed is in reporting it publicly for your own benefit... which also benefits EA. Thus, the only guilty parties are (indirectly) EA and (directly) the people who blogged about it so they can rake in advertising dollars.
I suppose I'm guilty for commen
Re:I guess it was money well spent (Score:4, Funny)
It's kind of like getting a check from Knuth.
...In the way that meeting the guy who sings for the band playing at the mall on Labor Day is like meeting Bono.
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Previous posts say Joystiq donated theirs to charity, so they must be real checks.
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...or Joystiq lied to make everyone think they were "noble."
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I'll resist the marketing pressure by refusing to read the story or participate in the discussion.
NO, wait, aww shit...
Re:I guess it was money well spent (Score:4, Funny)
assuming ScuttleMonkey wasn't a recipient of one of the $200 checks.
I certainly plan on lodging a formal complaint. Where is my $200 EA?
Marketing... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if there might be a better place for creative, unconventional thinking, for risk taking, and for the willingness to not water down an idea because it might offend someone. Oh, at EA? Nevermind!
The reason for EA's existence (Score:2)
The current economic model for games means that there's a few huge winners, and a lot of games that ultimately lose money. In this environment, the selective pressure is massively against smaller independent studios. A small studio has to publish a hit every time, and this is becoming nearly impossible to do because of the expense involved in making a game with modern graphics. There's only a few success stories, and many failures. EA, on the other hand, can cash in on it's big hits and can afford to fi
Re:The reason for EA's existence (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a self-inflicted malaise as far as the independent studios are concerned. There is absolutely no requirement to use "modern graphics" (whatever that means, I assume you are talking about ridiculously detailed models with megazillions of polygons). That is because there is absolutely no direct relationship between game play and the graphics quality. Some of the most popular games have graphics reminiscent of the 1990s or even 1980s, while some of the greatest bombs sport fancy 3D engines with programmable shaders, deformable environments and what not.
In fact this whole obsession with graphics to the exclusion of everything else seems to me very much like a hardware vendor instigated mass psychosis, helped along by the likes of EA and others who wish to achieve a strangle-hold on the gaming industry by setting up massive, artificial, budgetary "barriers to entry" for competitors. Which also happens to be a pre-requisite to cartel-forming, creation of oligopolies and finally monopolies.
Re:The reason for EA's existence (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet there IS a correlation between graphics quality and the number of people willing to shell out $50 for the game.
For a disconcertingly large number of gamers, graphics quality is an indicator of game quality when making purchasing decisions -- especially for people who buy games for other people to play (parents buying for their kids, for example).
It's been true since day 1, graphics have always sold games. I believe we're at the point where the relative increase in graphics quality now is outweighed by gameplay factors, but that's just me and some others... and I don't spend more than $20/yr on games. So why would the studios care about me?
Re:The reason for EA's existence (Score:5, Insightful)
So charge less?
I am buying the new monkey island this weekend.
That is not modern graphics, neither are the penny-arcade games.
Quite frankly $50 is too much for any game no matter the graphics. For those I wait a month till it is $40.
UFO:AI is one of the best games I have played in years and is free.
Re:The reason for EA's existence (Score:4, Insightful)
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People spend money on games with better graphics. End of message. It's not for you to decide what people want, it's consumers, and they want games that look more realistic and detailed and immersive. No one is happy with even the current state of the art.
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so EA game projects are going to be lower risk sequels whenever practical
So you think EA is going to make even more sequels?
How is that even possible?
They already make sequels for every title that doesn't make too much of a loss.
Are they going to do "2009 1/2" editions now?
Outrage! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid People, Untie! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, you are gay, bi, or just some sort of feminist who is offended by anything with a penis. Whatever. The contest is just asking for you to take a picture of yourself with a booth babe. That's it. Take a freaking picture.
Now, last time I checked, a lot of people take pictures of booth babes. in general, its a pretty acceptable practice (except in England, where cameras are only used by terrorists...) that has been going on for years. Now, you can complain that there isn't equal representation of 'booth beefcakes' (or whatever else you might want), but that really has nothing to do with EA's contest, does it? You might be a transgendered feminist lesbian hemaphrodite, all you have to do is stand next to a booth babe and have your picture taken. IS THAT REALLY SO AWFUL?
Pretty much anyone complaining about this PR campaign are idiots in my book.
not the whole company (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds to me like EA has some madly-ambitious marketing executive who gets paid based on the number of sales, so he has authorized any wacky stunt imaginable to drive sales to their target audience (young men).
If additional sales could boost your yearly bonus check by $1,000,000.00, would you give a shit if you "offend" someone? No. Money talks, and it does so a lot louder than angry bloggers.
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Nah, it's just the natural progression when your creative talent realize they can make more money for less work by transferring to the marketing department. You really don't need many writers and such to throw together the formulaic BS story for Flashy Graphics Sequel 9.
Instead of looking at it cynically, though, I think we should all be very excited. Here is a company, formerly known for selling over-priced, often crappy games, that has decided to give away their best work! There's no need to actually buy
Re:not the whole company (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably less someone getting paid based on number of sales, and more getting paid based off how much impact the people above the exec thing they had.
I've seen execs rewarded for horrible sales simply because they convinced their bosses/clients that it 'would have been so much worse if I had not done XYZ'.
I don't get whats so shady about it. (Score:2, Interesting)
They staged something at E3? It's cute and a good technique. Considering you get the odd Cosplay at E3, why the hell not...
They paid writers to write about it? Isn't that like... their job? If someone pays you money to write something, you write something! I only consider Bribery truly immoral if its to commit an immoral act. To write? Writing isn't immoral under any circumstances, you can write as much as you bloody want and it won't hurt anyone physically, and if its hurts them in any other regard its the
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I only consider Bribery truly immoral if its to commit an immoral act. To write? Writing isn't immoral under any circumstances, you can write as much as you bloody want and it won't hurt anyone physically, and if its hurts them in any other regard its their own fault.
So if someone writes something libelous against me, it's my own fault if it causes me to lose my job or my spouse or my life?
I think you underestimate the power of the written word.
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Writing isn't immoral under any circumstances
Would you consider defamation immoral? What about written defamation then?
What EA is doing may not be immoral per se. But it might not be ethical; it may cause some reviewers and their employers to lose their credibility.
Aside, the note from EA accompanying the check is a false dichotomy.
Re:I don't get whats so shady about it. (Score:5, Interesting)
They paid writers to write about it? Isn't that like... their job?
They pretty much bribed writers to write favorable reviews. Thats why people started flocking to the internet rather than print for all their gaming reviews because just about all the paper magazines were written to have a favorable bias on some truly terrible games. No one wants to be ripped off when they buy a game, and some publications were even owned by the company that made games (such as Nintendo Power) that even went as far as to put in propaganda through the years of the evils of GameSharks and Game Genies, the evils of old ROMs and why you should always make sure that all of your games had a Seal of "Quality" on them.
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Yes and they wouldn't be in Congress if they didn't go to school and they wouldn't go to school if it weren't for their parents and you can Run this "This leads to that" chain as far back as you want - but in the end, what happens is because of SOMEONES direct action. You can make hate crimes, murder, rape, you can make all that legal, but in the end it has nothing to do with Congress, its the person who is committing these acts.
Am I condoning this kind of behavior? Not at all. I believe the laws are in pla
Re:I don't get whats so shady about it. (Score:4, Informative)
Even Orwell got this right with "War of the Worlds". It is just that a lot of people tuned in too late for the notice.
Um, War of the Worlds was written by H.G. Wells, and the radio announcer for the famous broadcast was Orson Welles... George Orwell had nothing to do with it.
Something must be done... (Score:5, Funny)
this is outrageous. Please, don't fall victim to this EA marketing ploy. It is unethical and EA should be shunned for this.
Please, as a show of unity against this marketing scheme, please send me all of the $200 checks. Once I have received a substantial amount of them I will take these checks and show EA where to shove them. It's the only way we can get our point across.
If you didn't get a check and would like to make a donation to the cause, please feel free to send that to me as well.
GAMERS UNITE!
Clever marketing, plain and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
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I disagree. Staging fake protests undermines the legitimacy of people who are actually concerned about an issue. Were the people who have been interrupting the town hall meetings around healthcare legitimate, or were they just paid for by the marketing departments of big pharma? Are big pharma marketers good marketers, who just scumbags who would take a buck regardless of the effect is has on our country?
Personally, I think you're confusing "notable" with clever.
Frankly, I fed up to here with the notion tha
Gay Blogger (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, this stunt projected a view of your target demographic as lustful heterosexual males, when in reality a larger and larger portion of the gaming population are women and LGBT people.
I'm pretty sure a lesbian would be happy with that reward too. I guess they could have had two male models on hand for a gay guy/female winner, but to portray it as anti-homosexual is pretty unfair.
Not totally related but - why would you even make a 'gay gamer' site - do tastes in games really vary that much with sexual orientation? Seems like his whole job is built around being controversial and 'different'.
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Seems like his whole job is built around being controversial
That goes for a lot of people. Most people are sheep. If somebody says, "I am like you, and I will champion your cause," most people will mindlessly follow that person, irrespective of whether the first or the second part of the initial assertion is true.
EA Marketing: Trolling for Lulz and Profit (Score:3, Insightful)
In theory, the best response of the media and industry should be the timeless wisdom of the net: "Don't feed the trolls". Ignore the faux protestors. Throw away the checks. Disregard the stupid "contest".
Alas, however, the mere fact that we have to keep repeating "Don't feed the trolls" is proof that EA will come out on the winning side of this, because the majority of fools in their target demographic either (A) enjoy being trolled, or (B) don't recognize a troll when they see it.
The only proper response is to allow their trolling to fall, and fail, unnoticed. Their game doesn't work unless others play along.
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To troll the trolls, you first need to troll the trolls... ad infinitum
Hell, it looks like a decent enough game (Score:2)
Guerilla Marketing (Score:2, Interesting)
Is all plublicity good? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if anyone has actually done the research to find out if the old adage 'any publicity is good publicity'.
Marketing seems full of these 'of course it is true!' rules that they never bother to find out if they are actually, well, true. And some of the biggies are not.. for instance, throwing sex into an existing series usually results in a drop of sales/viewers, not a gain.
Then again, they would probably keep doing it anyway. The above example also applies here since even though at this point the numbers are out there and known, many marketers and execs STILL think that sexing something up will lead to larger profits.
I really do not think advertisers actually think through the effects they have.. only how to convince the people above them that they had an effect. Since no one bothers checking, it really just comes down to force of personality and ability to sell yourself to people like you, i.e. your bosses/clients.
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Nobody who is in marketing believes that. If your brand rep is as a "renegade" then perhaps any publicity is good, but that's only a special case. It's hard to imagine Gerber baby food, or Fisher Price, or Pampers brand managers thinking that any publicity is good.
What if (Score:2)
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They would post the cashed check, and explain her sin. I think Pride would be this one.
Thay may ahve accidental opened peoples eyes to the fact that the everything is a sin according to the bible.
Huh? (Score:2)
How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
EA is doing this since... well, I think they are pretty much defined by those methods.
I know that at least five years ago, the German Game magazine Gamestar was the only one not to have a story on some EA game, because they refused to rate it above 90% in order to get access to “exclusive” images etc. I think they even wrote about how EA offered them a pre-written “test” to print practically verbatim.
But this is not the only area where they are shady. If you remember the lawsuit, where the wives of EA programmers (or should I say “code monkeys”) sued EA, because their men never came home. Apparently, the internal rule was, to work until at least 8 PM, and never have free weekends or ask for holidays. If you would go home on the weekend, your boss would tell you, not to ever come back.
I also remember that everybody from Bullfrog (don’t dare to not remember them! ^^) quit the company, to found a new one, as soon as they were bought by EA. That company was again bought by EA. And that time, still 60% of the employees did quit on the spot.
Then their whole process of making games — from my perspective as a game designer — is just disgusting. It’s just like those Hollywood plastic fantastic default movies with ten writers. To them it’s just a production process. No heart, no soul, no free creativity. You just create a mass-product. Never a piece of art, how it should be. They are an insult to the whole business, dragging the reputation of us all down with them.
Now you’ve got an image of what kind of company EA is. Microsoft’s ethics are a freakin’ joke, compared to EA’s.
I wish I would be exaggerating.
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Yes, EA make a mass product, and many people like them.
Yes EA treats there employees like shit. I'[m not sure why people go to work for them.
There marketing for SIns has been creative, and clever. I hope more people start advertising out of the box.
All entertainment industries have people making money from creting a mass product. Hannah-Barbera has as many horror stories as EA, and many ones that are worse.
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So you're saying they're Evil Assholes.
Actually, come to think of it, I emailed them about getting a game working under wine on linux and they emailed back "go to hell nerd". After I stopped crying I got the game working just fine under wine.
You're right!!!!! They are Evil Assholes!
One thing we know for certain (Score:2)
IT worked.. (Score:2)
The Christians are just pissed because... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Christians are just pissed that their "moral" outrage seems to so consistently coincide with extremely popular titles.
So much so, in fact that marketing firms are now going so far as to stage 'faux Christian outrage' in the hopes that the outrage itself is the thing that contributes to the hits. This of course must be very annoying for the Christians who were hoping that the world was actually listening to what they were saying. It turns out that marketing departments haven't really been listening to the Christians at all, but instead -- happily noting the simultaneous occurance of increased revenues with the angry mobs of yammering Christians.
Which is as it should be of course. Trying to ram one's morality down the throats of others is generally regarded as poor form.
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Isn't falsely attributing a viewpoint to someone else by impersonating them also generally regarded as poor form?
Not shady, creative. (Score:2)
How is sending those cheques shady? They didn't ask for a review or a mention on the website in return. Nothing was stopping those people from cashing the cheque and then doing absolutely nothing, or even writing a post on their website (or even just a letter back to EA) like so: "I received a cheque in the mail today from a company for no reason. I cashed it and bought some groceries. Thanks for the donation to my nutrition needs." The End.
The editor gets some free money without keeping it 'secret' and th
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I did read the article. And I have to agree with the OP; who cares if you're offending a bunch of bible bangers? The bottom like is that while they staged a fake christian protest, christians REALLY DO PROTEST GAMES LIKE THAT. So I find their outrage a bit on the hypocritical side.
As far as the woman being offended by a "win a date with a booth babe" promotion... I can't honestly say how that's offensive in the least. She needn't partake in the promo, and quite frankly, a lot of people would like a date
Re:Outraged Christian bloggers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Outraged Christian bloggers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps considering that EA's stunt caused you to come here and bash Christians their displeasure with EA's stunt is not as baseless and hypocritical as you suggest?
Hypocritical would be EA protesting about something violent (a war perhaps?) that the Christians (hypothetically) agree with and the Christians getting up in arms. I could not, for example,get a bunch of white southern guys, all put black-paint on my face, make a bunch of NAACP banners, and go protest the fictional arrest of some African American while acting acting as offensively stereotypical as possible and then claim African Americans are being "hypocritical" when they get outraged at my stunt.
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No, I'll bash these politicized christian groups regardless. They have almost single handedly destroyed the videogame and comic book industries with their censorship campaigns and political connections. What we need is less "think of the children" hysterics and more challenging and interesting art. Thie politically correct nonsense only hurts us all in the long run. Kids will eventually be exposed to naughty words and adult situations. We adults shouldnt be paying the price for the lack of parenting skill
Re:Outraged Christian bloggers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The mind boggles. Do you seriously believe that because some Christians are vocal all Christians agree with them? Or that because some black people behave like stereotypes that it's fair to say that all black people are like that?
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As far as the woman being offended by a "win a date with a booth babe" promotion... I can't honestly say how that's offensive in the least. She needn't partake in the promo, and quite frankly, a lot of people would like a date with some of them. I wonder if she's also offended by shows like the Bachelor or More to Love (win a marriage with a good looking guy, or win a marriage with a fat guy, respectively).
There are game shows about hooking up with rich or attractive or whatever men, and reciprocal shows where the "prizes" are women. They're separate games, with different audiences. Some folks find them all pretty disgusting. You want to talk about making a mockery of the institution of marriage, leave Massachusetts alone... just look up the Bachelor(ette) et al.
There wasn't a "win a date with a booth stud" option. As has historically been the case, they chose to objectify ONLY women, not attractive peopl
Re:Outraged Christian bloggers? (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize the bloggers are upset because EA FAKED the protested of their own game and blamed it on christian groups. Most of the 'christian bloggers' probably didn't care about the game or even know it existed until they were slamed for a protest they had nothing to do with. For once I think they actually have something to gripe about, after all the fake protests lead to people thinking exactly what you just posted, when in reality the bloggers were not the ones protesting.
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They did not blame it on christian groups, other people made that assumption.
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[off topic rant]
Could somebody in charge of this site please read a book on programming and then fix the site. I can't stay logged in half the time in any browser and pretty much nothing works right under IE. (And no you can't play this "IE doesn't support standards" card. This site fails validation.)
[/off topic rant]
I have no problem with staying logged in, and most everything works fine for me (mostly using Chrome on Windows XP). But one day, they broke Preview. It no longer shows extra line breaks properly. After you submit, they work fine, but in Preview, all the paragraphs are right together no matter how many times you hit enter, or insert <p> or <br> tags. Sort of defeats the point of Preview.