Shadowiness of Mordor Contracts

I love late night talkshows, most insomniacs do. Nothing beats a good monolog at the end of a long day. Well, maybe a few things, but let’s stay on track. While I love a good monolog, that’s usually as far as I get. When the interviews start, I usually “start flipping”. That’s almost a Larry Sanders reference! Never mind. You see, I don’t really care about what some celebrity is coming to plug on the late night circuit because the conversation is just choreography between producers and show runners. Its whole point is simply to raise awareness, there is no real consumer value to the content. No talk show host will ever say “I saw your movie, it kinda sucks”. No, all content must be positive and hence, all content lacks relevance and integrity. This is exactly what Total Biscuit is fighting for in his recent revelations about the contracts surrounding the promotional arrangements for Shadows or Mordor – relevance and integrity.

For those who may not be following this, a PR firm called “Plaid Social Labs” was charged with the responsibility of handling the contracts for YouTube reviewers who wanted to get their hands on a pre-release copy of Shadow of Mordor. However, before the review copies were sent out, reviewers had to sign a contract and adhere to a set of stipulations.

MCV UK published a list of the stipulations which included the need for reviewers to
• Maximise awareness for the game during the ‘week of vengeance’
• Persuade viewers to purchase game
• Not show bugs or glitches that may exist
• Discuss the story
• Not mention LOTR or Hobbit movies, characters or books
• Include discussion of the Nemesis system – “this really should take up the bulk of the focus, such as how different the orcs are, how vivid their personalises are” etc.

It does not stop there
• Videos will have a strong verbal call to action, a clickable link in the description box for the viewer to go to the game’s website to learn about the game to learn how to register and play the game,” the agreement added.
• “Twitch stream videos will have five calls to action. Videos will be of sufficient length to feature gameplay and build excitement.
• “Videos will promote positive sentiment about the game”

Also stipulated was that standard FCC disclosure should be contained within the body of the description after the links and call to action. Basically, Youtubers had to acknowledge that this was a paid promotion, as to not do so would be a violation of Federal advertising laws, something that Microsoft and Machinima learned a lot about recently in a scandal of their own. Finally,and perhaps most importantly, they retained the right of final approval, meaning that they could pull any created content not to their liking.

This represents an attempt to exploit a fledgling medium. What this contract tries to do is handicap the independence of the review process on YouTube. If you cannot speak to the flaws, you cannot review a game. All you can do is cover it and, in the process, promote it. It is an attempt to convert Youtube into a PR machine, or, in keeping with the intro, one big talk show circle jerk.

Now, nothing is wrong with this. Talk shows make a lot of money and personalities on YouTube are there to do that. As long as they recognize that what they are doing is paid promotion and identify it as such, then there is no conflict. Conan O’Brien does not review movies, he just shamelessly plugs them whilst trying to entertain us. What many fail to realize is that once you agree to this, your content can never be a review. The review has already been written by the publisher in much the same way as a talkshow interview is dictated by handlers, agents and PR. What the publisher is now doing is dangling a carrot in front of you in the promise that it is yours if you agree with their review of their own game. Do you walk away from the carrot or do you squint your eyes in an effort to convince yourself of a compatible vision?

In response to this controversy, popular YouTuber “Boogie2988” responded with a statement which included the following excerpt.

“I also negotiate an ‘out’ for these types of contracts. The ones that I sign give me an option to back out of the deal at any time. Now sometimes this means that I will have to pay them some amount of money to be able to do so,”

I love Boogie, and I will continue to watch his content, but he is missing the point. I am not a mind reader. There is no way for me to verify his true opinion. Only he knows that. His argument is that if he does not agree with the PR message, he will not agree to it or that he will back out of the contract. The thing is, they don't want his opinion, they want him to entirely agree with theirs. That is a totally different proposition. What if these contracts become a standard for YouTube promotion? Will you be able to afford to back out of all that you disagree with? How long can you go without a carrot? What if you agree with 80% of the message? Do you compromise on the remaining 20% or do you walk away? I have no problem with him making money from paid promotion. Hell, most of the time I go to YouTube for the personalities, not the game itself. What I want to underscore is that these contracts further decrease the transparency of the publisher-reviewer relationship and with it, no review put out before the 30th of September can be called a review. It’s simply a product endorsement deal based on your celebrity. I’m not going to do the work of figuring out which content is paid and which is a genuine review. I will never take your recommendations seriously. I’ll just show up for laughs so you better have a good monolog.

To his credit, he understands this and basically tells people that he will do his best to be transparent and that they can decide for themselves what content of his is worth watching. I just wish they were in a position to put up a better fight. Unlike other mainstream journalists, he has no monthly salary. He has no management or lawyers to fight for him or his rights. He has to make a living as best he can, with the tools at his disposal. He needs product endorsement – I accept that. Many viewers fall outside the geographic range of advertisers and many now use adblock which means that making a living on youtube is difficult. However, he and his counterparts are signing away the right to have a critical voice. Again, that never stopped anybody from having a great career. They just need to accept that they cannot have it both ways.

Long have gamers spoken of conspiracies amongst publishers and reviewers. Long have they been denied and few have been proven. Gamespot’s firing of Aaron Thomas over his Ratchet and Clank review as well as that of Jeff Gerstmann over his Kayne and Lynch review comes to mind. The action was in response to publisher threats to remove their support of the site.There has always been an acknowledgement of the symbiotic relationship between publishers and reviewers. Publishers want their content promoted by publications ion the best possible light – a reasonable desire given the investment involved in making a game. Reviewers need early access to games and ad money on the one hand, but equally important is a loyal readership on the other. Theirs is an exercise in walking a narrow line between maintaining good relations with their publishers and their audience.

However, you can’t serve 2 masters, and when pushed, they find themselves serving the audience, without whom there is no career as a reviewer. Publishers will always do their best to exert influence over how their property is treated, its their right. Its the nature of all entertainment media to be honest. The more powerful you are, the more likely it is that you will get the best possible outcome or review. This is not something exclusive to the gaming industry, and realistically, it is not something that we will ever be rid of.

There are limits to this influence though. You can't seriously be pressured to give Duke Nukem a 10 and expect to be respected afterwards. Its the job of the reviewer to stand their ground and know where the boundaries are. The fact that Gerstmann stood up to his management team proves that there are many journalists willing to suffer for the integrity of their work. Many take this more seriously than you will ever know or accept. He was not the only one, as Alex Navarro, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella left GameSpot with him. A trusting audience will follow you anywhere, in this case they followed them to GiantBomb, which as voted by Time Magazine as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011. The same publishers that caused the problems followed them there as well. This is what I wished you tubers had done; they should have banded together and refused those contracts. They could have made videos in protest and started a backlash against the company. It was an inexperienced management team at Gamespot that fired these guys and in similar manner, it was a group of inexperienced Youtubers that agreed to these terms. Many do not have professional guidance or peers to turn to, its all very disjointed and informal. In the process, they have made the lines between promotion and critique of games even more blurry.

This entire scenario, to me, underscores the need for YouTube personalities to take themselves and what they do more seriously. They have power and influence, and the fact that publishers want to do business with them proves that. But this event threatens their brand. The brand of an ordinary gamer far removed from the trappings and influences that have long served to cast suspicion on the very people that they are set to replace. There are no easy solutions here. They rely on the content to make a living. At any point in time, publishers can decide to “content id” them into extinction. They exist because many publishers have chosen to turn a blind eye to copyright and revenue claims, unlike the TV and movie industries. All of that can change very quickly though. Without management,training or the support staff of a traditional media outlet to negotiate terms on their behalf, they seem to be on a path to be exploited by publishers like never before. When you agree to give publishers final edit over your work, you are no longer working with them, you are working FOR them.

[Chris558]

Even if this is true the game is amazing

[ab5olut10n]

Good read

[longcat]

Thanks man. Appreciate it

[DefenderOfDoom2]

Great blog! The reason i believe, that you do not have that many comments, is because this same type of article, came thru N4G over a week ago .

As far as BOOGIE2988 goes, i kinda agree , but i give him a free pass for taking these types of deals because he really does not do reviews and also made a video explaining this deal to his audience . I think BOOGIE2988 is more known for , well being a great entertainer. And he is just , nice, funny and good at what he does , which is just talking about the video game industry .

Now GIANT BOMB , well not much i can say, but i think JEFF GERTZMANN is freakin awesome !!! Also BRAD , VINNIE , PATRICK , RYAN DAVIS (RIP) and rest of the GIANT BOMB crew are the best at what they do! Cream of the crop! Their website is awesome ! Their QUICK LOOKS on YOUTUBE are awesome! What i love about them the most , is they are very honest and professional .

[longcat]

Thank you for reading and thanks for the comment. Giant Bomb is awesome indeed!

Boogie is indeed a good entertainer and i think he can survive in that vein. I think a lot of the problems and distrust stem from outlets serving the dual purpose of Promotion and critique, which presents the audience with a confusing product. Again, there are no easy solutions.

[DefenderOfDoom2]

Yeah , again i totally agree with your last paragraph . There should be more disclosure . That is why i go to people i trust , like TOTALBISCUIT , GIANT BOMB , and SUPER BUNNYHOP.

The good thing is, that the video game audience is more aware of shady deals today . But again like you said , for the most part , we will not get full disclosure ,from most of the people who cover video games .

And by the way the LARRY SANDERS show is one my favorite tv comedies shows of all time! "HEY NOW"