DAILY MANIFESTO

Revolutionary Rant: G4TV, GamePro and VGChartz Caught Reddit Handed

Posted on Friday, April 1 @ 00:32:44 Eastern by Daniel Bischoff

We here at Game Revolution take our traffic really seriously. Well, we have to. If you judge how many people read our content by the number of comments we get in a day... well, then there's only like five of you. And you're all using multiple accounts to have conversations with yourselves.

We thank you for that, seriously. Still, it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside when the big boys get caught artificially bumping themselves up on one of the internet's biggest link lists.

Reddit user Deimorz recently uncovered long lists of accounts that were up-voting submissions by GamePro, VGCartz, and G4TV. Now that those guys have been caught, they're all fessing up with token apologies and half-hearted feigns of unintelligence. GamePro wrote:

It's definitely true that we've had some power users recently spamming content on our behalf. We have already stepped in and asked those people not to do this in the future.

OK GamePro, so you didn't do it yourselves. Some other selfless GamePro fanatics took it upon themselves to push your article to the top of the frothy internet mess. Sure, you're forgiven because you didn't even know it was going on and you certainly didn't ask for it.

VGChartz wrote:

A few months ago we started working with a social networking specialist who was well-versed in Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and of course, Reddit. He knew how to use them well and increase our visibility in these communities. We eventually brought him on as a freelance Social Networking expert.

What we didn't realize was the extent of his involvement with Reddit. We knew he had a few accounts to submit with, but had no idea it was 20 and he was using them all for upvotes and comments. I apologize on behalf of gamrFeed and the entire VGChartz Network.

Hey, these guys sound OK. They're up front about the fact that they paid someone, they're up front about the number of accounts, they APOLOGIZE. That's a sure fire way to getting on my good side. VGChartz, gamrFeed, whatever your name is, you're OK by me.

Finally, G4TV, television home for "geek" douches wrote:

A while back we discovered a poweruser on Digg submitting and digging our content, which we thought was great. So we started a relationship with him where he'd submit a story here and there and we'd send him random games. This relationship continued on Reddit as it grew in popularity. This was good for us, as we all liked Reddit, but didn't feel like our content had much exposure on the site. After some time we began to him a small amount of money instead of games.

TL;DR - We're owning up, we were wrong to do this, and we hope you forgive us.

And so we've come to G4. I'm glad they admit to paying this individual, but they never said the words "I'm sorry." Nice owning up and all, but it's not nearly as caring or as open as the VGChartz guys... and come on, they have a "Z" in their name.

I had a rant all geared up and ready to go about Metacritic rating developers as human beings, but since that story has since resolved itself, it seems like this whole debacle will receive my ire instead. Full disclosure: Game Revolution uses social networking sites to get the word out to potential readers as well. We don't pay anyone to do it. We do it ourselves. We like spreading the word to as many people as possible and honestly, not a lot of people type in gamerevolution.com randomly. We also don't spam sites. If someone else already posted the story, we don't post it again. If we've got a new review, a new opinion piece, or something original to Game Revolution, we'll put it out there, but no one is getting paid for it.

Here's the problem: everyone involved is an asshole.

First, whoever this "poweruser" is, he sounds like a jackass. Who creates 20 different accounts to upvote themselves on any given social aggregator site? Really? Who the fuck does that? It's like creating fake Facebook pages and adding them all as your friends and then conversing with yourself. What are you? I'll tell you what you are: a nutjob. Internet fame doesn't exist. If there was such a thing as 15 minutes of fame, it's been shortened to 15 seconds since the internet's birth. Seriously, go ride a bike. Get the fuck out the house and do something with your life because no one thinks anyone else is cool on the internet. Everyone hates everyone on the internet. Look at what this scheme did to you. Now everyone hates you double.

Second, Reddit. You guys are assholes too. I swear to God, no other website does as much naval-gazing as you all do. Any clout or integrity or intelligence you may have had is completely undone when someone posts a fucking picture of a cat with a snappy caption and then you all proceed to eat it up. Seriously. You're just some bull shit website that lazy people look at so they don't have to go spending any real effort to find interesting things to look at while they're bored and on the internet. Whatever you contribute is immediately undone by the fact that you have Mr. Poweruser on your site. You're all after the same internet fame as that guy and it stinks so you can all see above.

Third, G4TV, GamePro, and VGChartz. Remember VGChartz, you're OK, so don't take this too hard. Seriously, if you need to PAY someone to promote your shit on sites like Reddit, then you're just not doing it right. Really page views, real traffic comes from QUALITY CONTENT. G4, your TV channel is a joke and this whole debacle doesn't make your website look any better. GamePro, seriously, you've been around for so long. I thought there was this big redirection and now you were supposed to be really cool and hardcore journalist-y or something. I guess not. VGChartz, remember you're cool, just you know, don't let it happen again.

Finally, me, just shut the fuck up. Nothing matters that much on the internet anyway, so give it up, you're a part of it now.

Also, whichever one of you reddit posters put up the picture of the cat, You're welcome for what we like to call, the Game Revolution bumb.

The Revolutionary Rant turns a cynical eye to the gaming industry. Every Thursday (the angriest day of the week) you can find Game Revolution's take on any particularly outrageous event, news item, or person in the gaming industry. Got a bone to pick with gaming? Leave a comment or send an e-mail suggesting a rant-worthy topic to daniel@gamerevolution.com.

Tags: revolutionary rant

Comments

Nurgey
Joined: Mar 2006

Posted: Apr 2nd, 2011 at 10:10 am
Social media is a sacred trust. Whenever you see companies pulling **** like this it casts a pall over the entire platform and companies that do make a genuine effort to engage with their customers through social platforms are forced to defend their behaviour, even if they've done nothing wrong. G4TV are perhaps the worst, if you're caught then you need to do more than simply admit wrongdoing, your audience expects you to grovel because you've taken that bond of trust and abused it. I'm probably just being sensitive to all this because I'll soon be starting an internship in Digital Media with a focus on Social Networks but it does get my hackles up. GR could probably engage more with people on Twitter, you guys don't do a great job of replying to any @'s you get and you could probably make more of an effort to follow actual members of your community. On the whole though, as you've said, it is for your community by you and not written by some social networking shill.

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danielrbischoff
Joined: Nov 2009

Posted: Apr 4th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Thanks for the reply Nurgey. We'll take your advice on the Twitter front.

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