Free Stuff Now Has a Cost

[Logan Westbrook]

Free Stuff Now Has a Cost

New guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission on advertising and endorsements means that sites will now have to declare their freebies.

I'm going to level with you good folks, publishers send us games to review, in much the same way a movie studio might send a critic to the premier of a movie. Now that probably doesn't come as much of a surprise, but thanks to new guidelines from the FTC, you'll probably end up seeing a lot more declarations like that in the future.

The new guidelines would mean that sites would have to disclose any connections between the games they review and the ad revenue they receive, and have also been expanded to include bloggers in that net.

"[The new rules] address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

These guidelines are not mandatory however and if the FTC believes that a site broken the rules, the burden is on it to prove it, but, if followed, could help to counter-act claims of bias from the gaming community.

Source: GamePolitics [http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/10/05/ftc-freebies-must-be-disclosed]


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[Bigeyez]

I don't see this as bad in any way. Consumers should know any factors that might weigh in on a reviewers decision. This helps reviewers as well because with everything disclosed ahead of time we'll, hopefully, get no more cries of "publisher x paid off reviewer y!!!". It's a level of transparency that helps everyone involved. Besides a lot of reviwers/bloggers already disclose any freebies companies give them so it's just reinforcing what good reviwers already do.

Edit: See comments like those below me are the perfect example of why full disclosure helps reviewers. It'll finally get people to shut the hell up about "zomgz they got paid to give [insertgamehere] a good score!!!".

 

[randommaster]

I honestly have no idea how this will work out, but here's hoping to less 10/10 reviews across the board for Halo 3-type games.

 

[Quadtrix]

Yeah, anything that helps eliminate bias is good thing.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Goodbye, gaming mags.

"This game is really really good. And look - they gave us free shit! And shit to give away in competitions!"

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Guess Gamespot is finally busted, eh?

But I don't see a problem with requiring places to declare anything that might have biased them.

 

[Aqualung]

Good! I'd like to see how much money IGN got for giving GTA4 a perfect 10.

 

[DeadAccountMoveAlong]

I have faith that the Escapist honestly reviews games, even with ad-space and freebies.
However, this may be the end of Gamespot.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Remember kids: there is no such thing as a free lunch. But that's a good rule I guess, no more sneaky bought reviews.

 

[theultimateend]

Guess Gamespot is finally busted, eh?

But I don't see a problem with requiring places to declare anything that might have biased them.

Aw . You ninja'd what I was hoping would be a swift and clever response.

Kudos to you.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Good! I'd like to see how much money IGN got for giving GTA4 a perfect 10.

When it clearly deserved it. Whereupon you start with the "I quote Yahtzee so I am correct" portion.

 

[bjj hero]

It's a good move. Only a handful of 14 year olds will complain about bias if you were given a game days early to get a review out. Most people have a better idea about the real world.

Free games and T-shirts dont lead to bias.

Buying mountains of advertising space does.

 

[Kross]

Due to how loosely this appears it will be enforced, I imagine the people that were doing sneaky things before will continue to do sneaky things in the future. And the rest will have little disclaimers like "Acme provided us an early copy of this game for review purposes."

I do know that a lot of the less mainstream games out there don't necessarily get a shot at being reviewed unless an editor happens to have spare money to buy and play it on his own. Or they've already spent all their money on Booze. Especially with the abundance of indie downloadable games that are available now on all the platforms.

 

[bjj hero]

Good! I'd like to see how much money IGN got for giving GTA4 a perfect 10.

When it clearly deserved it. Whereupon you start with the "I quote Yahtzee so I am correct" portion.

For the first few hours I can see why it gets high reviews. I just got bored half way through. I think the "score" gets lower the more time you put in.

 

[Bigeyez]

Due to how loosely this appears it will be enforced, I imagine the people that were doing sneaky things before will continue to do sneaky things in the future. And the rest will have little disclaimers like "Acme provided us an early copy of this game for review purposes."

That little disclaimer is perfectly fine though. After this regulation I would hold those who willingly(sp?) disclose their little freebies in higher regard then those who refuse to do so. Thats one of the reasons why I like bloggers like Tobold. He always tells his visitors every little freebie he gets be it a t-shirt, beta invite, whatever.

Those who truly do backroom deals (which is a small minority of reviewers even though people make it out to seem like all reviewers are corrupt) will keep doing what they do but hopefully this will discourage them a bit.

 

[Simalacrum]

...I'm confused, what does this new rule thing do exactly? Does it expose biased opinions, etc?

 

[Joshimodo]

Good! I'd like to see how much money IGN got for giving GTA4 a perfect 10.

This.

Maybe it'll actually make developers work on/finish their games now, if they care for ratings. I'd like to see a developed version of Killzone 2, GTA IV, FarCry 2 and Gears of War 2.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sounds fair. I don't know how they plan to enforce this though.