So...how about that sponsored Battlefront article, eh?

[tippy2k2]

I'm starting to think that Escapists (and every other website) don't have control over what content goes on advertisement space. I remember when the Escapist hosted an ad which was pornography related (which was quickly removed I think).

In a way, they don't.

Now I know Cracked has become everyone's favorite whipping boy lately but...

http://www.cracked.com/article_23364_9-things-readers-hate-about-cracked-explained.html

Read #9

If you don't feel like doing that, I'll just give you a quick TLDR; most major websites don't pick their ads. The ad space is given to an ad agency and said agency is the one who does it. Sites make rules and regulations for what they should (and shouldn't) have for ads but those are sometimes either ignored (or if you want to give ad agencies the benefit of the doubt, sometimes mistakes happen).

That is also why the Tech Team [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team] says that if there is an ad playing music or other obnoxious bullshit tactics, you should tell them because those types of ads should not be here.

 

[The Enquirer]

I understand that the Escapist may be hurting for cash or something...but running a puff piece seems below the Escapist.

I'm willing to accept the possibility that the EA worker who typed it up genuinely believed every word of it; I just wish I knew who the person was...but the article had no listed author.

And I wish people could respond to the article itself...but it apparently has no forum link. I posted this here.

I don't know. The whole thing just feels...sleazy.

EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/sponsored/?ds_t=3687

I'm not sure why EA would actually pay to out an ad up here. The whole site, including employees seems to be very much against any of their products. It's more or less so falling on deaf ears.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I'm not sure why EA would actually pay to out an ad up here. The whole site, including employees seems to be very much against any of their products. It's more or less so falling on deaf ears.

Just remember, EA are rumoured to spend up to fifty percent of a game's total budget on it's publicity campaign.

They put adverts freaking everywhere, if there's a space they pay someone to put whatever their new game is up in it. Even if that includes paying someone to write terrible fan fiction to put on a website that was broadly disappointed with the very product they're hawking.

You've put more thought into the advert's placing than EA have that's for certain.

 

[Something Amyss]

I understand that the Escapist may be hurting for cash or something...but running a puff piece seems below the Escapist.

Just for context, one of the actual "featured articles" on the sidebar for a while was a piece by someone involved in a game actually promoting it. I forget the name, but it had something to do with conspiracy theories.

Even if The Escapist is advertising battlefront, we have Yahtzee's article on why it kind of failed at what it's supposed to do. It balances itself out.

That's not how journalism (or even balance) works. That's the equivalent of saying that Fox News balances out MSNBC. One does not find journalism by the balancing of extremes, or by simply providing a counter-weight to something which questionable.

I mean, it appears that this was an advert and has been removed, but the point remains.

I'm not sure why EA would actually pay to out an ad up here. The whole site, including employees seems to be very much against any of their products. It's more or less so falling on deaf ears.

Well, article-like nature aside (I didn't see it, so I'm just going to take it as true), isn't that exactly what we want? Do you really want game companies only advertising where coverage will be favourable? That's the exact sort of scenario in which the publishers have the most coercive power, which leads to things like the Kane and Lynch debacle.

 

[dragoongfa]

I saw it earlier and it immediately clicked as a written advertisement to me, kind like the promotional leaflets of old that malls and shop handle around when you enter the premises.

 

[runic knight]

Certainly reads like a fluff piece. Completely shallow, largely boiling down to "this is cool guys! This is star wars." Surprised they even mentioned the previous games though, considering how much they abandoned them with this game.

Still, wish it wasn't trying to pretend to be an article though, reading that was so sleezy.

 

[CaitSeith]

Advertisement trying to look like a website review? Am I the only one who got the same sensation as when reading a phishing email? Even if it isn't as malicious and dangerous (and by that I mean not even close), I still can't help perceiving it as not being somehow sleazy from EA.

 

[vallorn]

Good god that's extremely skeevy. I know native advertisement is a thing nowadays but that article somehow goes one step further, and it doesn't help if the staff can't see it because of pub club. At least it wasn't hidden completely like it would be on kotaku or polygon.

 

[Strazdas]

ech, this is nothing. its clearly labeled as advertisement and is even marked as such in escapist code, so people with adblockers pub club membership wont even see it. I remmeber this exact style of advertisement happen here when Windows 10 came out. people in the comments of the "article" called the shit out of that ad.

Its way better than it used to be though. i remmeber news articles showing up talking about this new brand of whiskey being released and how cool it is. and not a single marker of it being advertisement. that was before FCC cramped on native advertisement though so probably fully legal anyway.