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Doese Bioware/EA hire people to post on forums?

24

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  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Thebigthrill

    Ive given my opinion on SWTOR , Ill leave it at that.

    What I do find amazing are some of these swtor posters that defend this mmo (i refuse to call it a mmorpg) to the very end acting like it perfect, finding any way to twist reality to defend the greed of EA / Bioware.

    Ive even seen people defend the fact they are charging for content after basically giving the swtor player base nothing for a year.

    I read someone defending the fact that ea /bioware charged subs for holiday items.

    How many people on these forums if any or on other website forums do you think Ea pays to post positive feedback on swtor?

     

    Aren't we paranoid here?

    You can't understand the fact that there are games that you do not like, but others like and adore?

    Personally i don't like TOR .. i think it is much better off as a online ARPG ... and it needs better action combat (like Force Unleashed) . But going all the way to conspiracy theories, really?

  • AmarantharAmaranthar Member EpicPosts: 5,781

    I've always thought that it would be more likely that those RMT sweatshop owners would be the ones to hire posters.

    Game companies make their extra money by running private large scale auctions for them. It's sort of a "you scratch my back" thing.

    Once upon a time....

  • strangiato2112strangiato2112 Member CommonPosts: 1,538
    Originally posted by FromHell

    how else do you expect to get a "game of the year" award?

    It's happening again, different year, different title

    Are people really this dense?

     

    I only played GW2 for a month.  It wasnt my thing.  But its a GREAT game and more than deserving of GOTY, its the best MMORPG released since 2007.  Its GOTY worthy just based on the design of the capital cities alone.  Just because you don't like a game doesn't mean it isn't great too.

     

    TSW is also a worthy MMORPG too, but it doesnt feel as warm as GW2 to me.  GW2 was an obvious labor of love for the developers, I dont feel that with TSW.

  • MaelwyddMaelwydd Member Posts: 1,123

    lol made a post yesterday about pretty much the same thoughts. I have observed in the company I work for (music industry) that there are teams who's responsibility it is to monitor trending sites like facebook, twitter etc... and generate interest in products. They plant a post or a link, and then get others in the department to basically post a "hey guys, seen this..." post elsewhere to get people to talk about it.

    Personally I think it is shady business, along the lines of price fixing because they do it to ensure all tickets to concerts get sold by making people think "I better buy a ticket because it is really popular and might not get one". I am pretty sure the same thing gets done by big companies like EA (although I didn't see this type of thing specifically when I was there).

    Sometimes you will make more money doing something illegal then the cost of paying fines etc so I am sure it gets done all the time. The problem isn't really that it gets done, it is the fact there are so many mindless sheep who can't think for themselves and see they are being made to spend their money by playing on their stupidity and need to be part of the popular crowd.

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,892
    Originally posted by Barrikor

    If they really payed people to post on forums, I would have quit my day job a long time ago.

    lol, you and me both.

    Personally I liked SWToR. If they want to pay me to praise it I'm open for negotiations.

    I've said this before on serveral occasions but no one has ever taken me up on it.

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  • birdycephonbirdycephon Member UncommonPosts: 1,314
    It sure would be nice to get some recognition for supporting their products hint hint
  • erictlewiserictlewis Member UncommonPosts: 3,022

    To quote the OP yes I think EA does hrie folks to post on the forums.  

  • PsychowPsychow Member Posts: 1,784

    I'm pretty sure GW2 has some forum users on their payroll. Within months of the GW2 release, those "fans" have either deleted their forum account or no longer post. (we're talking dozens or more posts per day to zero). I suppose their promotion goal was complete and were either fired or moved on to the next project.

  • NaughtyPNaughtyP Member UncommonPosts: 793

    Of course they do. How many? No clue!

    Word of mouth (keyboard) is just as effective as a Superbowl ad, maybe even more so because you know that on a video game forum, your audience is already part of your target market and are coming right to you! They just don't know it!

    Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.

  • grimalgrimal Member UncommonPosts: 2,935
    Not sure but I am pretty damn sure other companies do.
  • aspekxaspekx Member UncommonPosts: 2,167
    why wouldn't they?

    "There are at least two kinds of games.
    One could be called finite, the other infinite.
    A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
    an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
    Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse

  • daltaniousdaltanious Member UncommonPosts: 2,381
    Originally posted by Thebigthrill

    Ive given my opinion on SWTOR , Ill leave it at that.

    What I do find amazing are some of these swtor posters that defend this mmo (i refuse to call it a mmorpg) to the very end acting like it perfect, finding any way to twist reality to defend the greed of EA / Bioware.

    Ive even seen people defend the fact they are charging for content after basically giving the swtor player base nothing for a year.

    I read someone defending the fact that ea /bioware charged subs for holiday items.

    How many people on these forums if any or on other website forums do you think Ea pays to post positive feedback on swtor?

     

    Hmm.... to be honest, crossed my mind many times if all those negative posters were hired by some company or somebody disturbed a lot by bioware?

    Problem is if i do not like some game I will not go chasing on all forums and post my negative emotions. Game is bad, I do not care anymore. I might ad it as example on some post (did this few times for Rappelz i.e.). I will NOT chase the game. What people do as you do with swtor. Or wow for that matter. Or any other game. Because this hate is not related only to swtor.

    Swtor is best game ever for me (and I'm not hired by anyone), have only hard time to decide if love more wow or swtor. At least they are at par. No bugs at release, all inclusive (for other games one needs a lot of addons), fun, great sw feeling, best ever voice acting, .... True, i do not care for pvp or endgame where it looks game was lacking.

    So question is for YOU, why do you follow and chase so much anything about swtor if you obviously do not play, do not care?? Are YOU hired or you just feel so much hathred toward bioware, swtor, ... that you have this urge to post your negativity toward? Why you think all should hate swtor if you do?

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    I doubt it. TOR actually still have fans (one of my buddies still say it is the greatest game ever made).

    While it is possible that people working on the game themselves post at forums at times most of the posts are surely made by real fans. And a game doesnt need that many players to have plenty of fan posts, Darkfall have had quite a few during the years and it had very few players.

    All you need are a few hardcore fans with some spare time on their hands.

  • TealaTeala Member RarePosts: 7,627
    Absolutely they do.    Just before the game SWTOR launched and just after we had a flood of people come to the forums and all they did was post to threads where someone posted critics of the game.    Those people are all gone now.   
  • ZyzraZyzra Member Posts: 354
    Originally posted by Teala
    Absolutely they do.    Just before the game SWTOR launched and just after we had a flood of people come to the forums and all they did was post to threads where someone posted critics of the game.    Those people are all gone now.   

    Seems to happen with a lot of games exactly how you described it.  I'm not sure EA hires people to defend Darkfall though.

  • daltaniousdaltanious Member UncommonPosts: 2,381
    Originally posted by Teala
    Absolutely they do.    Just before the game SWTOR launched and just after we had a flood of people come to the forums and all they did was post to threads where someone posted critics of the game.    Those people are all gone now.   

    Read my answer above.

  • LummLumm Member UncommonPosts: 134
    Yes. All major gaming companies do this to hype up their game on the inside. Depending on the sucess of the game they wll sick around longer than others. These people they hire are on the inside and already involved with the company though, you wont hear about a normal person outside being paid to post.
  • IchmenIchmen Member UncommonPosts: 1,228

    frankly maybe its just my personal upbringing and gaming choices but i dont care if X game/company spams forums with BS threads/posts about their/a game. as none of that would sway me to play it. 

    all it does it lets me know X game is on the market. at which point i go and research it and see if i want to touch it with a caber or not.  too many people become sheeps of positive posts that its retarded.  i guess thats where any sort of paid spam ad pays. as it makes the sheep jump up and down for it. 

    where as the smart people go OH ok ill go look at it. instead (id consider most positive posts on a game to be similar to FB game spam. game is crap until i deem its not.

     

    long story short, reviews/critics and peoples posts about a game mean little to me. until i personally have checked it out i deem most posts about it to be bias to some extent, so paid thread/posts are kinda pointless to me personally. 

  • SwaneaSwanea Member UncommonPosts: 2,401

    Who on this site at least, posts that TOR is the greatest game ever? I mean....really?  I don't frequent many other forums anymore, but people are doing that elsewhere?

    I see people say the story is great and the game is fun, but not the greatest thing ever.

    I have seen plenty of people claim that about GW2, why not ask about that company?  Blizzard doesn't need to with their game, it makes so much money that a couple ten thousand people don't matter that hate it.

    omg, steam sale! Go!

  • DraronDraron Member Posts: 993
    Originally posted by GwapoJosh
    Sevenstar61 you really need to apply for a job with them..  You are without a doubt their number 1 fanboi.  I really think you could make some cash doing what you do on these forums.  You never know ;)

    I wouldn't call Sevenstar a fanboi. In all truth, they like the game (I do too) and there's nothing wrong with that.

    On topic, I'm pretty sure they do but nowhere near the numbers most think.

  • MaelwyddMaelwydd Member Posts: 1,123
    Originally posted by Ichmen

    frankly maybe its just my personal upbringing and gaming choices but i dont care if X game/company spams forums with BS threads/posts about their/a game. as none of that would sway me to play it. 

    all it does it lets me know X game is on the market. at which point i go and research it and see if i want to touch it with a caber or not.  too many people become sheeps of positive posts that its retarded.  i guess thats where any sort of paid spam ad pays. as it makes the sheep jump up and down for it. 

    where as the smart people go OH ok ill go look at it. instead (id consider most positive posts on a game to be similar to FB game spam. game is crap until i deem its not.

     

    long story short, reviews/critics and peoples posts about a game mean little to me. until i personally have checked it out i deem most posts about it to be bias to some extent, so paid thread/posts are kinda pointless to me personally. 

    The problem is that there are a lot of sheep and where normally they would pick up a game and just play it, now these sheep pick up a game, play it and have fun, read on the forums how bad the game is, start to hate it and leave. That means the game that was fun to play losing population and money, development slows, it is harder to play due to lack of numbers and eventually crumbles.

    While you may not be one of these people that do get easily swayed by these posts there are far too many that are. That is the main reason this gets done. If everyone had a mind of their own and didn't buy the advetising and marketing used to sell stuff then we wouldn't have games with multi million pound advertising and marketing campaigns.

    Most online sites for buying products now have a new release section. Most games now have online forums. Sites like this one have information about what is out there. You have facebook, twitter and all social sites to get the word out there. So the publishers flood these channels of information using alternate ways to get their product purchased.

    They buy good opinions, buy good reviews, buy trends, buy hot topics, buy awards, buy google search positions, buy forum posts...The problem isn't that they spend all this money on trying to get you to buy their product, that happens with all products, the problem is those that will have their view changed from positive to negative (or visa vesa) simply because of it rather then their own critical thought.

    And the publishers know this is how it works because they don' mind realeasing unfinished buggy products because they can still sell it because the ground work has alerady been done. As long as the publishers realise they can sell a sub par product for the same price as a fully finished product they will do so. They will cut short development times because they know that they can sell paid beta access and people will still love it. They know they can sell an unfinished product because people still say "That game company makes crap games...but if they make a game about 'insert IP' I will buy it in a sec".

  • PurutzilPurutzil Member UncommonPosts: 3,048
    Yes, but every game has it. Still there are people who enjoy the game not attached to the company. Personally I'd even side with SWTOR over GW2 as a personal preference, doesn't mean its a better game or anything, heck I'd be so bold as to say SWTOR is worst off then GW2 in terms of how is done, but for me I have a lot more fun with SWTOR (thoguh both are meh games).
  • AdamantineAdamantine Member RarePosts: 5,085

    I dont think so. Some people happen to like a certain game.

    Personally I'm massively disappointed by SWTOR. I excpected it to fail with graphics and rulesystem, and it did, and thats okay. I did however NOT expect it to fail with interface and story content as well.

  • RedJorgeRedJorge Member Posts: 106

    All companies nowadays hire people to swarm the social sites, public themed sites and their own forums with positive feedback. There are even independent professionals advertizing their services in the internet to write positive reviews of any product with a price tag per word.

    During the last year this has become completely ridiculous. The amount of paid people providing positive feedback or replying to negative posts in forums has reached new levels.

    ArenaNet, for example, has at least 20 to 30 people roaming their forums day and night counteracting all the player comments about broken aspects of Guild Wars 2 (besides their forum moderators that delete and merge posts at will, sinking the best threads about negative aspects of their game in the middle of hundreds of other posts destroying all the context and post feedback sequence). Each of their paid "mercenaries" has at least 4 or 5 forum accounts so in reality it seems that all the praising for their broken game comes from the real player base.

    The end result is worth for them: for every 10 negative posts, if they have 1 post ridiculing or displaying the opposite opinion they create doubt in the potential new costumers and when in doubt people tend to give the company the benefit of the doubt, spending real money in their game or their gem store.

    Also, If you are not aware, all the big game companies (EA, Activision, etc) sponsor or have shares in most of the gaming magazines and sites. If you read with attention you are able to realize which company sponsors which sites/magazines.

    I know, for sure because I know the magazine editor in real life, one example of a big international gaming company owning the most sold magazine in an european country through another front company. The result is that their games are always highly praised in that magazine while their competition games are very skillfully smeared so 99% of the people reading the magazine can never realize what is behind the scenes.

    Dont you find interesting some sites advertizing the prizes for Game of The Year (GOTY) while all the other game runner up´s are completely inadequate?

    Or reading highly praising reviews of a game and then playing it and realize that the game is not what have been advertized?

    There is an information war out there and hundreds of millions of dollars to be made from gulible costumers. Most of the big game companies, like all other companies in the world, use all the dirty tricks on their bags to show how "good" are their products even if they are not good at all.

    Most of the forums or reviews mercenaries earn not that much per day/per article/per review/per post (though I read an article about a review mercenary - he writes positively about a lot of products, mainly electronics and books - that states he is making more than 200.000 dollars per year). He even sub-contracted other people to work with him because the companies demand was huge. If you browse Amazon, for example, you will see what I am talking about.

    Even political and other professional/social organizations have contracted staff to fight this information war over in the internet. This is not new, it happens since a long time ago with paid journalists in most of the newspapers around the world. The only difference is that nowadays, with the massification of the internet, everyone can be a paid mercenary to write positively about a product or organization. With so many willing mercenaries the price per word dropped to very low values so it is very tempting and cheap to have them in the companies pay-roll.

    Sorry for this long post. To sum up, read the forums and the game reviews with an analytical eye and try to find the truth. It is not easy but the truth is out there..:)

     

    Best regards,

     

    RJ

    Leonard: Penny, you are on fire.
    Penny: Yes, so is Sheldon.
    [laughs]
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    [walks away]
    Penny: Wait, wait. Sheldon. Come back, you forgot something.
    Sheldon: What?
    Penny: This plasma grenade.
    [explosion]
    Penny: [laughs] Look! It's raining you.
    Sheldon: You laugh now. You just wait until you need tech support. (Big Bang Theory)

  • daltaniousdaltanious Member UncommonPosts: 2,381
    Originally posted by Adamantine

    I dont think so. Some people happen to like a certain game.

    Personally I'm massively disappointed by SWTOR. I excpected it to fail with graphics and rulesystem, and it did, and thats okay. I did however NOT expect it to fail with interface and story content as well.

    Funny, exactly reasons (among other) why I love so much this game. There were some choices in game that really got me. Like where you must decide or to sacrifice innocent colonists or to let die your contact (woman) from Coruscant. And alike. Also incredible twists, like when you discover that great jedi master is actually "son" of emperor. So really wondering what is for you fail on story. As for interface, have everything one may need. Not sure if you ever played. If have listed few points why i love, hope you can list few why not.

    And hype did not bothered me at all ... I did not care not even minimally up to about 1 month before release. I did not have anything better at that time to play ... so decided i will try. Purchased in other country as in mine was scheduled months later ... and, wow, that was one of best investments in games in my life.

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