A marketing company has now approached the wrong person for advertising on behalf of the MMORPGs Neverwinter and Star Trek Online.
It is no secret that some YouTubers and gaming sites earn money by advertising a specific game. When everything is above board, they also say: This is an advertising format, it’s “Sponsored.”
The calculation of the advertisers: If a YouTuber, whom his fans trust, makes an advertisement for our game, it is worth a lot. Then we use his reach, his image, and his relationship with his fans for our purposes. Similar to well-known TV hosts passionately eating gummy bears.
Normally, however, one never learns under what conditions such advertising deals come about and what is in the fine print. This time it’s different.
PR agency makes immoral offer … but to the wrong person
Perfect World has hired an advertising agency that is supposed to ensure that good videos and press coverage for the two MMORPGs Star Trek Online and Neverwinter are obtained.
The problem: The advertising agency contacted not only YouTubers but also the US site Kotaku. They are known for leaking supposed internal information from the gaming industry. They seem unfazed by any conflicts with angry publishers.
Just recently, Kotaku expressed indignation in an article that they were allegedly on Ubisoft and Bethesda’s “black list” after they thwarted their plans and leaked details about their blockbuster games early in the past.
Kotaku feels a bit like an outlaw in this role. They are somewhat proud of it.
They are now receiving an offer from a PR firm to say nice things about Star Trek Online and Neverwinter for money. They were allegedly offered $120 and then additional money for each person who registers in the game due to the video.
$120 upfront and then more for everyone who signs up through you
Kotaku had no interest in such deals: The two MMORPGs do not play a role on their site. Additionally, they seem to find the $120 that would have come with the offer a bit insulting. “That’s enough for two whole video games. Woohoo!”, they wrote.
However, Kotaku pretended to be interested, reported interest so that the agency would release details about the deal, and now published a fresh article about how it would look if they had shot an advertising video for Neverwinter or Star Trek Online.
This is a real trailer, just to hear the advertising messages in the original:
Say in your own words how awesome we are
In the campaign recommendations, there was a series of messages that they would like to have included in the video, such as that Neverwinter is a “Large-Scale PvP game” or that in Star Trek Online you can become a warrior of the Klingons. In principle, the content of the advertising trailers of the two MMORPGs.
The advertising campaign also advised YouTubers to “find something in the game and make friendly fun of it, but absolutely do not curse or use bad words.”
For the end of the video, they recommended phrases like “You should definitely try out Neverwinter and play with me. It’s completely free and you can download it here under the link.”
One thing that Kotaku appreciates about the somewhat naive advertising agency is that they clearly demanded in the campaign that YouTubers make it clear: This is sponsored content.
Perfect World is certainly not an isolated case, companies usually are more skillful
Mein-MMO says: Fairly speaking, one has to say that Perfect World is certainly not an outlier here. Such tactics are likely employed by a number of companies when looking around on YouTube. Not just in the MMO sector. And at least, Perfect World insisted that everything be properly labeled as advertising.
By the way, such practices have long also arrived in this country: The German YouTuber Gronkh had to face criticism from Golem when he appeared in a commercial for “The Evil Within”. Gronkh’s fans found that not cool at all from Golem.
