EA Caught Using Automated Bots to Support Their Game's Boycott Campaign

Electronic Arts has seemingly been caught utilizing automated bots in order to support a boycott campaign pertaining to one of their titles.

[R4MBO]

EA are beyond pathetic.

[thorstein]

So. You don't think the group that are protesting them aren't using Automated Bots? Hmmm....

[ChiVoLok0]

That's not going to matter when EA has 10 billion votes in their favor. Because we all know there are more then 10 billion people living in this world.

[BattleAxe]

The Golden Poo Award was well earned.

[Christopher]

I see absolutely nothing that points the finger at EA. anyone can create multiple signatures on the petition. Anyone.

[Anon1974]

Exactly. But hey, it's cool to hate EA. I mean, how dare they put out excellent products for everyone to enjoy. The nerve.

[dirigiblebill]

Indeed, Cgoodno, but if there's one thing you can rely on N4G to do it's stop reading at a scary headline...

Stay classy, msxboxworld.

[MaxXAttaxX]

Come on now. A LOT of their products are not "excellent" and neither is some of their services, like Origin.

[vega275]

This coming from a Guy who display nothing but hate for anything MS and you talk about people thinking its cool to hate EA. Your hypocrite is showing, you might want to tuck that it

[SilentNegotiator]

EA stirring up a fake or miniscule protest to get attention and get blind support from people on the internet?!

Oh my word! They would never do tha-
http://www.1up.com/news/fak...
Oh right.

[Nimblest-Assassin]

If this is a engineered protest EA concocted inorder for attention ,then that is pathetic.

But they came up and announced the Dante's Inferno one was done for marketing purposes, and that was done in front of E3... so it makes sense. But if it is an enginnered one like Dantes Inferno, the EA is truley pathetic.. but I doubt it due to the intense amount of hate ME3 got over Cortez's romance in ME3.

Here is the link for this protest: http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

A similar issue happened with skyrim if you remember: http://kotaku.com/5862623/a...

Since Cdoongo had to edit my comment below due to the offensive review I had cited, the reason I am open to this idea of gay relationships is because I am from Canada. We are very open to gay relationships, we have the pride parade every year...

Sure its a little "much" (okay its very much, people will walk across the street, techniqually streeking, so if you do not like that, do not watch the video) http://www.youtube.com/watc...

but still people have the right to express their sexuallity... not to the degree of the parade, but still people should be allowed to practice it right?

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

Assassin, I'm from Canada as well, Toronto in fact. And I can tell you as a fact, we are not THAT open to homosexuality. There is a shit load of discrimination here still. If anything I'd argue half of us are EXTREMELY Liberal, while the other half is EXTREMELY conservative. We barely have a middle ground.

[ChrisW]

I don't care about some stupid protest against gay characters in Bioware's games. What I care about is EA's practices and their stupid Origin, which is why I refuse to buy any current AAA title by EA. That's the true reason behind any boycott currently against EA. Not some fake anti-gay protest that's trying to gain the attention of LGB to further push their agenda or deflect attention from other problems.

[humbleopinion]

Making this connection is pretty stupid. The fake dante inferno protest was carried after prior PR messages to the press so everyone knew what this is about, it was just a marketing PR/AR game where the marketing company (and not EA themselves) also sent the press kits representing the seven sins. Everybody new they were "playing" an AR game.
It was actually a very well carried PR stunts. EA had far worse ones like the "free gas" for mercenaries 2, not to mention other companies like Sony marketing agencies pretending to run fan sites (All I Want For Xmas is a PSP...) but only without notifying the press about this stunt.

This crap on the other hand is some idiotic headline trying to get site hits, blaming EA for something which is clearly ridicilous: reposting the same message from 3 different fake users!
Wow! This is going to make so much difference! EA probably invested billions of marketing dollars in this amazing stunt.

It's not as if any anonymous user could have abused the system and re-posted the same message three times, be it some person who wants to stand by this petition, or someone who's actually trying to ridicule this petition (and then post about it on reddit). It makes much more sense that corporate EA suits sat down and wasted their time on a pity petition...

Where is this place going to? How come sites posting this kind of baseless claims with no actual proof as to who's behind these things are not blacklisted?
EA is responsible for a lot of other more serious crap actually hurting the gaming community, so there's no need to make stuff up just to get hits.

[Nimblest-Assassin]

For defending the rights of homosexuals?

Look, lets look past their online pass crap, their day 1 dlc, and all of their other tom foolery they do to get money.

They are trying to support the rights of gay characters in videogames.

And these games are not forcefully making the character gay, its up to the player to choose whether or not the character is to be gay.

Even though the relationships in those bioware games still need a bit of work, its a choice.

People are protesting because of the fact that their is the "option" of being gay in their games. It is not forcing you to be gay.

You know why metacritic is a piece of shit, a good amount of those zeros out of 10's mass effect 3 and the old republic received were about the option of being gay. The rest of the negative reviews were for the ending and the day 1 dlc, which is why Metacritics user reviews are some of the stupidest things on the internet since most of them are done for stupid reasons in order to bomb a games score, and are usually 2 sentances long of immaturity.

One of the reviews, I kid you not went like "mass effect 3 is a game that lets you f*** gay ni*****".

Seriously, are people that upset with the fact this choice exists?

One person even said, Mass Effect 3 forces you to be gay..really?

Because when I played the game, I romanced Miranda from Me2 to ME3... not Cortez.

These are not gay people upset over how they are portrayed, but rather people upset that the option to be gay even exists.

AND IT IS COMPLETE BULL****!

Lets watch the Cortez romance and look at the dislike bar

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Now look at the Specialist Traynor romace and look at the disagrees

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Almost 1/2 of the cortez one is dislike.

If you are gay, or are just unhappy with how gay couples are portrayed it is understandable, since the romances still need a bit of work.

But this protest is just because people are uncomfortable with gay people.

And lets face it, its mostly people are uncomfortable with gay men, lesbians are apparently hot.

Im a straight male, understand that... but I just find it stupid that discrimination against homosexuals is still present in this world

I know this is a protest for the old republic, but the same issue is in Mass Effect 3..which is weird because they both enable the player to have gay relationships

[Drake117]

I completely agree with you. But unfortunately people are too lazy to read the article and figure out what its actually about and in their minds EA is the scourge of the world. Any one could of created those petitions either way in the end they are trying to defend the rights of homosexuals...

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

"They are trying to support the rights of gay characters in videogames."

This alone makes whole whole point invalid. There is nothing against gay video game character, no laws or anything of the sort.

Also I just wanted to point this out as well because it screams ignorance.

"And these games are not forcefully making the character gay, its up to the player to choose whether or not the character is to be gay. "

Does that not imply that being gay is a 'choice'? From all the homosexuals I know, they claim it isn't a choice but just something natural in them to be attracted to the same sex. I'd argue if anything, giving choice here makes it more offensive to the gay community.

*Needless to say though, I thought ME3 was a great game, just I feel saying being gay is a choice to be somewhat unfair of an assumption to make. I think it would have been better if the character simply was gay. I think that would interest people a lot more as well

[TruthbeTold]

Vashlion,

I don't think it implies that it's a choice, but that in this game, characters are malleable, and are what the gamer says they are when it comes to sexuality, as well as other issues.

I look at it as each gamer has their own alternate universe in the world EA created. In your game a character may be this, in another's, it may be that. So the choice as to what the reality is for these characters is up to the gamer, but the characters themselves are all potentials until the person co-writing the story as gamer decides on the specifics.

[Clarence]

Well said. I can't believe that in this day and age people are still tripping off people who are gay.

Im glad EA is supporting gay rights.

[wsoutlaw87]

@vashlion what are you talking about? How does that make being gay a choice. You create your character how you want. You can choose what race you want, does that make race a choice? They are supporting a gay persons choice to have their characters also be gay. Letting someone choose who to marry but not allowing same sex marriages isn't really right. Ea is just giving gay people (or straight) a chance to make their character gay. I believe Bethesda allows this too in their games.

[GraveLord]

Those 6 disagrees you got are trolls on EAs payroll.

[Nimblest-Assassin]

No.. I agree that EA does a lot of sh*t for money... thats fine.

I disagreed because of the idea that he said they were pathetic for supporting the gay community.. which he did because he never read the article.

They are trying to support gay rights with this. So what if they are using bots, it actually has a good purpose.

And the guy who is trying to prove they are bots is from reddit... you know the homophobic capital of the internet?

[Mythicninja]

Paid trolls / shills definitely exist as several former shills have come out. They aim to create the appearance of non coherence in the gaming community on issues that are critical of their employers. Cheap viral marketing.

[dirigiblebill]

Don't be misled by the headline. There's no proof of an EA connection here.

[wsoutlaw87]

where did they prove ea was doing this in any way, in this article.

[SPAM-FRITTER-123]

whats more pathetic is that you believe this drool.

game devs can not please everyone. whats next....rainbow trout enthusiasts complaining about no rainbow trout in the old republic.

[Sanetoshi]

I don't see anything that confirms this was EA's doing, just that there were bots.

Also, the bots aren't supporting a boycott campgain. The bots are commenting on a petition give EA props for supporting the LGBT community. Screw the haters, I'm glad EA is supporting LGBT folks, and anyone who doesn't like it is no friend of mine.

[v1c1ous]

there is no controversy regarding the game's gay characters.

ME1 came out a long time ago, they had their time in the fox news spotlight, and that was that.

to suddenly come out now and say there is some sort of controversy after ME1-3 and Dragon Age so close to the ME3 bad PR stuff just screams to me like EA is trying to distract the general public.

EA doesn't want their investors to find out the true reasons, so they are creating a supposed backlash from a few fringe religious groups (which do this kinda thing everyday) and are zooming it to levels that are non-existant.

[LtSkittles]

What? This is about the Old Republic not Mass Effect.

[Sanetoshi]

Except that even if EA are the ones responsible for this, they aren't elevating they people complaining. They're elevating the people defending. That's what this is about, so they're doing the opposite of what you're saying. :|

[Consoldtobots]

Yashua said the "great falling away" would come and lo and behold half the world swallowed it hook line and sinker.

It's only cool to be "gay" today because homosexuals don't reproduce, thus making them darlings of the population control crowd.

[ShadesMoolah]

Not quite the bots I had in mind.

I was expecting all player models in BF3 multiplayer to have gone super happy gay, and donned Adam Sandler's tux from The Wedding Singer, or something to that affect.

[ziggurcat]

these aren't the bots you're looking for?

[Wumbo]

Ea is dEAd to me.

[SuperBeast811]

You know if you take everything a company does so personell you will end up hating them all and missing out on alot of great games.They all do shady things at one point or another but the "artists" who work for them and create the games do not have anything to do with it many of them are regular folks like us making the same amount of money and they work hard they deserve our support.Do you agree with everything your company does?(assuming you have a J.O.B)

[AllroundGamer]

"EA Caught Using Automated Bots to create new games" would be a much better story (but also a true one perhaps...) :D

[MidnightSpecial]

Hehehe. Nail, meet head...

[turgore]

Im sick of this hetero normative society that constantly tries to destroy other people's happiness.

[Deadpool616]

Now EA is taking advantage of a community to distract people from the real issues. Not a very classy tactic, but it seems as though some people are falling for it.

EA will do anything to distract people from their recent "Worst Company in America" title. Even if it means taking advantage your sympathy for a cause.

I didn't think EA could stoop any lower, but they certainly proved us wrong.

[1nsomniac]

HAHA what!? does anyone actually think that any company deals with anything on an independant basis??

You get a list of pre set responses that are basically copied & pasted. Same as every other company if you think a company the size of EA is any different then your a moron!

[catfrog]

if it was ea, all theyre doing is spending money on influencing public opinion, its marketing, what can you expect? theyre marketing the idea that gay and lesbian things arent ridiculous, that they dont want to alienate any of their customers by not including gay and/or lesbian scenes for customers who might prefer them.

in all honesty though, i doubt that this was EA, more likely it was a gay rights group, they have much more to gain than ea does.

in either case, its not like the people who are responsible for the bots are doing something that every large company in the world isnt doing, its marketing, they want to change your mind so you buy their product. they want you to believe that their product is what you need, whether thats squashing a boycott, making you believe you need their product, or outright lying to you, its all the same thing, and every large company who deals with large consumer bases does it, and while ea does do things i dont agree with, this is one of the more sensible things that they could be doing.

[SeraphimBlade]

I thought it was suspicious that they started going all public with the controversy after that "worst company in the U.S." stuff, I kind of expected that to just be manipulating people's opinion by getting attention. They may have had ulterior motives but I at least had some respect for supporting the game and Bioware's creative decisions.

But THIS?!

Shark. officially. jumped.

[hano]

There was no proof that EA actually used the bots, it could be gay activists for all you know.

That picture has no such proof. People should wait for an official statement regarding this.

I know there will be a mob with pitchforks now, but rationality should win.

[CHARLIEBROWNE]

Hate campaign against EA?

To much EA PR?

or conspiracy theory?

[RocknRolla]

Again with this topic. There were multiple article of this last week.. How desperate are website to get hits these days they'll post the same story with a different title *sigh*

[Genecalypse]

This whole campaign is PR damage control response to the "Worst company award" and all of the other negative PR theyve been getting for Mass Effect 3.

This way they can come out and say "Look were actually the victims here! Were fighting for peoples freedom!" And basically blaming the whole worst company award on the basis that some faceless group has been sending them massive amounts of anti gay hate mail and the award was just another part of it

This whole thing is a manufactured controversy. Its funny because Star Wars TOR DOES NOT HAVE GAY ROMANCES(and not even EAs first game to have gay romances), yet they state theyre being attacked because of that. Mark my words, they are using the Gay romance as a scapegoat in order to draw attention away from their other PR meltdowns.

Sad

[Voxelman]

Shouldn't the title be

"Someone uses a bot on Internet petition, people assume it was EA for no apparent reason"

Seriously find me one Internet petition with more than 1k signs that hasn't had a bunch of bots sign. There is no evidence that points towards EA's involvement. This is just wild speculation.

[MultiConsoleGamer]

I thought the E3 2009 publicity stunt was pretty obvious and very tasteless. These people were suppossed to be Christians but yet they left their bibles on the ground in the rain. They were all creepy and weird when you approached them. And some of them didn't even know basic Christian trivia. It was really a half assed viral promotion.

With that said, I think someone who hates EA is using bots to make it look like EA is using bots. Sound ridiculous? Maybe it does. But that's still how I feel.

[deantak]

I checked with EA on this. They deny that they did this, for what it's worth. I'm Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat.

[crazyh0rse]

if you look at the image in question http://i.imgur.com/sURQd.jp... and look at the comment section you have North Korea, Pakistan people with english names supporting this

[Gigglefist]

While I agree that homosexuality is perfectly fine and should be allowed in the game, I nonetheless do not agree with how EA went about it.

EA just won't let up on giving us ammo, will they?

[gcolley]

i dont read articles from this tabloid site

[Elvis]

Proof?.

[axerated]

who gives a shit even if they did? how can anyone call ea pathetic when its the savagely narrow minded public who're kicking off about a gay character relationship in a effing videogame? people baffle the crap outta me...

[zpoc]

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT EA IS BEHIND THE BOTS.

this is the stupidest shit i've read in a while. YES - it does look like bots (or people using pre scripted responses) are posting on the petition, but this is most likely the work of a pro-LGBT group, not EA itself. whoever jumped to that conclusion is a RETARD.