Warner Bros. Hit with FTC Settlement Over Paid Shadow of Mordor Videos

[Something Amyss]

The question I posed to this (or similar things) when it was bouncing around on Twitter.


When did LPers ever claim to be objective journalists to start with?

Now, there are some who do that, making reviews or covering game news. But you're primarily looking at an entertainment medium where it'd be more akin to seeing someone drink a coke or drive a toyota on a TV program. Which are usually paid product placement, but also not required to put giant emphasis in their opening credits.

The problem is, even gaming "journalism" is hobbyist journalism and has deep ties to the media. You don't have hobbyist/enthusiast journalism without enthusiasm, which leads to certain ethical sites promoting the hell out of broken games like The Division without any sort of critical or journalistic eye.

It's all journalism in the same sense homeopathy is medicine: most people don't give a crap and some people take it way too seriously.

However, I think the idea of disclosure of direct sponsorship is a good thing and should be prominently displayed. I don't even mind that it exists: several of the YouTube channels I follow will do sponsored reviews or ads from time to time. This is not some incidental element of a video, it is the core. It's more akin to an infomercial, which does have FTC requirements.

Its weird that WB was so shady with shadows of mordor. I mean the game was really good, but they went to some really weird places for the marketing.

Not really weird, no. They likely didn't know they had a game that would be well-received and as such did what they could to make sure it was treated positively. Which would be fine if they didn't, you know...break the law.

 

[Gatlank]

WB shouldn't be the only one punished. If any youtuber didn't disclosed the deal and hided it from their viewers, it should also receive some sort of punishement.

I think the real story is...its fucking 2 years later.

TB even made a video about it at the time but i guess better later than never.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

Under the proposed settlement, Warner Bros. would be prohibited from "misrepresenting that any gameplay videos disseminated as part of a marketing campaign are independent opinions or the experiences of impartial video game enthusiasts. Further, it requires the company to clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connection between Warner Bros. and any influencer or endorser promoting its products." The company must also take steps to insure that any influencer they hire in the future complies with the same requirements.

So the settlement is that they have to do exactly what the law required them to do in the first place. I fail to see how there's any punishment involved here.

This is more in the vein of "This is your slap on the wrist. If you do this again, you're going to be facing much harsher penalties." It's more of a documentation step at this point than a penalty.

And making it public this way was part of the punishment too. Sort of like parading WB (and by proxy, the YouTubers) through Westeros shouting "Shame! Shame!" It's an important first step, and while I wanted to see an actual penalty, I suspect it will deter folks -- both publishers and YouTubers -- from this kind of stuff going forward.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

PewDiePie playing a game and seeming to enjoy it seems on par with Kanye West tweeting that he just had some good McDonalds. Its entirely likely he's being paid to do so, and a million people may consider this a logical opinion to live by. But he's not the restaurant critic in the newspaper or my personal nutritionalist trying to push the same thing on me. He's self-employed, so no ones paying him to do anything other then whatever he feels like doing.

Sure, he's not really a critic. He's more of entertainer. But he's still being paid to promote a product. He was literally paid to push Shadow of Mordor. The fact that he's self-employed is irrelevant. He makes his living doing this. He should know that putting a two word disclaimer below the Show More button is essentially hiding it, and that being up front with his audience requires more than that token effort.

A common thing in LPs, for instance, is to edit out excessive deaths/retries, unless they're entertaining somehow. Am I suddenly liable for misrepresenting Wolfenstein : The Old Blood because I cut out 15 final boss tries before I figured out it was a stealth mechanic and made the game seem more seemless and intuitive then it actually is?

The agreements WB struck with YouTubers was not about how much blood or death was on screen. It dictated that streamers talk about the game in a positive way, prohibit any negative statements or sentiments, avoid showing any bugs or glitches, and encourage people to visit the game website and/or buy the game. Those are things that any YouTube viewer deserves to know about the content they are watching.

 

[UberGott]

PewDiePie playing a game and seeming to enjoy it seems on par with Kanye West tweeting that he just had some good McDonalds.

Y'know, while I stand by what I wrote about why critics being honest is important... I actually agree with you on this.

I didn't mean to say that PewDiePie was a serious critic, only that he - along with more traditionally grounded, critical voices like TB - have become the sort of marketing phenomenon that can move product in a way that traditional critics and celebrity endorsements are not. PewDiePie would likely never consider himself a critic, either, so I can't really fault him for not holding himself to the standards of one.

For what it's worth, I also think he did his part in disclosing that it was a paid promo before the FTC really pushed that angle for YouTube, and it's kind of a pity he's getting shat on for it now, as PDP was one of the better acts out there in terms of explaining that they were getting paid to shill a product. I get it, the Pewds has gotta get Paids, so long as he makes it clear that's what he's doing I don't really care.

It's also worth noting that one of the most in-depth and meaningful critical analysis' ever put together in the YouTube age could well be Mr. Plinkett's brutal evisceration of the Star Wars prequels. Are the Red Letter Media crew "critics"? Absolutely! But is Mr. Plinkett's feature-length review(!) purely a comedy show, or is it every bit as serious a piece of criticism as any college-level essay?

By the same measure, the average LP of a new or unreleased game has the potential to be as much a work of criticism as it does entertainment. I'unno, it's a very gray and murky area we're trudging through here. Which is exactly why disclosure is important in the first place.

 

[Thyunda]

Add on that most Youtuber's play a character, effectively a fictional person. Even if based on an exaggeration of their own personality. There's a divide between the character of PewDiePie and Felix Kjellberg the real person, in the example. Its relating a fictional character's enjoyment of something to an objective recommendation.

James Bond drives around an Aston Martin (though I think its been changed in the last movie or two), which Aston Martin paid for that to be the case. I don't suddenly take that to be Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery recommending the car to me objectively.

Now, if the videos are reviewing the game while playing it, or being presented as an unfiltered preview, then its obviously in another area.

Your first part is the important issue. The character of PewDiePie is the 'influencer,' as the corporations rather cynically put it, but it's a flimsy defence for Kjellberg. As PewDiePie is not a clear parody of anyone in particular, and merely an exaggeration of Kjellberg's own personality, you cannot say "well just because PewDiePie likes something doesn't mean Kjellberg is actively trying to sell it."

For another example - Laura Kate on the Podquisition talked about how she was offered money to advertise a gambling system that was close to being marketed in Europe. This particular gambling system was outlawed in Japan (if I recall correctly and I probably don't) and she wanted to state this in the article she was being paid to write. The company rejected her proposal, and told her the article must not mention that negative aspect - so she dropped the deal and refused to write the article at all. In the same episode, Gavin Dunne mentioned that he regularly refuses sponsorship from companies in exchange for extra songs, because he doesn't feel like the songs would be adequate for his audience and would only be a paid advertisement.

Your James Bond comparison would only make sense if Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery were recommending the car to you - or rather, because the target audience is different, it would be more like Daniel Craig appearing during...I dunno, what do teens watch these days? Family Guy? Okay, it'd be like during an advert break if Daniel Craig suddenly appeared onscreen and declared "Hey teens, did you know you can afford an Aston Martin of your very own?! Look how great this car is! On our finance plan...et cetera, et cetera." PewDiePie appeals to a younger, impressionable audience, and as a Let's Play, he is presenting the footage as an unfiltered preview. You could also make the argument that he's deliberately playing up how much fun his character is apparently having - because I can guarantee he won't have said "well this is boring" during a Warner Brothers game.

 

[Kahani]

This is more in the vein of "This is your slap on the wrist. If you do this again, you're going to be facing much harsher penalties." It's more of a documentation step at this point than a penalty.

But that's the point - there doesn't appear to be any slap, and there doesn't appear to be any reason not to apply an actual penalty. If you murder someone, the police don't just document that you did it and say that they'll totally take it seriously if you do it again. WB broke the law. Repeatedly. The crime is already well enough documented for the FTC to investigate and take action, it's just that for some reason that action has been to do nothing other than say "this crime has been documented". Asking them not to do it again isn't a slap on the wrist, it's letting them off scot free.