EA accused of secretly paying YouTubers for coverage

[ExDreamer]

 

Following accusations that Microsoft paid YouTube commenters to give the Xbox One favorable coverage, a similar accusation has been hurled at Electronic Arts, according to a post on NeoGAF outlining the plan (via IGN). In itself, a company paying someone to talk about their products isn’t an issue, but both Microsoft and EA have been accused of having the people paid sign non-disclosure agreements barring them from revealing their arrangements with the companies in question, which may be a violation of FTC guidelines.

 

According to the EA “assignment” posted on NeoGAF, from December 10, 2013 through January18, 2014, the publisher was willing to put up money for certain types of coverage of its next-gen and PC games, including: Need for Speed: Rivals, Battlefield 4, FIFA 14, NHL 14, Plants Vs. Zombies 2, and Madden 25. EA offered $10 per CPM (Cost Per Mille), or $10 for every 1,000 views of the YouTuber’s total views. Different games have different “view caps,” but they are extremely high in most cases – Need For Speed Rivals had a view limit of 6 million, while Battlefield 4, for instance, has a view cap of 20 million. At $10 per thousand views, that could add up to some serious money. By comparison, Microsoft was only offering $3 CPM, with a view limit of 1.25 million.

 

On the face of it, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. EA is asking YouTubers that stream video to focus on certain aspects of their games, such as “Get to a heat level of 8 with 100,000 Speedpoints, put these on the line as cops swarm you” in Need for Speed Rivals, and focusing on BF4’s “levolution” (where you trigger an event that alters a multiplayer map, like bringing down a skyscraper). EA is asking those gamers to produce videos that make their games look exciting while highlighting certain aspects of it.

 

 

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-accused-paying-youtubers-highlight-games-without-telling-public/#ixzz2r67YAonV

[SAV1OUR]

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-accused-paying-youtubers-highlight-games-without-telling-public/#ixzz2r67YAonV

at least plants vs zombies is fun 

[TheMissxu]

at least plants vs zombies is fun 

Too bad you don't have AMD because it will be supporting Mantle

 

But, for real, does anyone play that on the PC?

[SAV1OUR]

Too bad you don't have AMD because it will be supporting Mantle

 

But, for real, does anyone play that on the PC?

i did when it was originally on pc  

[TheMissxu]

i did when it was originally on pc  

Burned... (Yes, I am referring to myself; I only knew of it on iOS, but a quick search and wikipedia shows otherwise).

[iNothing]

i did when it was originally on pc  

It did come with some TF2 items aswell

[geogga]

Well at least it was focused on certain aspects as you said. Some of these aspects may lead to an increase of sales, for instance levelution may attract someone so I can understand that. since microsoft wasn't mentioned in the last paragraph, I more worried about them. I mean why do that when xbox is known to everyone in the world? Battlelfield on the other hand is in a much worse situation so..

[James_AJ]

was this NOT obvious when all the gameplay channels covered Need for Speed Rivals on the same day TWO WEEKS after it came out? And none of them said a bad thing about it?

this sort of practice is commonplace, imo

[Imaginaerum]

Too bad you don't have AMD because it will be supporting Mantle

 

But, for real, does anyone play that on the PC?

Could be useful if PvZ required anything more than a calculator.

 

As for EA, who knew! Machinima wasn't the only one! Maybe IGN will be next...

[MasterJV]

At least it's not as bad as what Microsoft was doing. Microsoft was paying them to give them positive reviews. EA is only paying them to talk about their products.