Unethical marketing from Bethesda?

Post by **King of Creation** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:25 pm

[ Company -> Images ] - More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Bethesda Softworks">Company: Bethesda Softworks</a> | More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout: New Vegas">Game: Fallout: New Vegas</a>

It appears that Bethesda has an advertisement out for Fallout: New Vegas that uses a quote about another game. As <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... rage/">the Redditor who spotted the ad said</a> "You're not allowed to use a quote from a RAGE review to promote Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda. It doesn't matter you're producing both games."
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/brs2V.png" alt="" width="811" height="629" />Spotted @ <a href="http://www.reddit.com">Reddit</a>

Username · Post by **Username** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:51 pm

I would sue as IGN but then their asslicking reputation would be damaged and corps. would go to an other asslicker.

I'm curious about if I could sue them as a consumer though.
Them tricking me into buying a game due to the recommendations of a very trusted and well renowned (...puking here...) reviewer by the name of IGN.

If this is one the swedish copy I might lodge a complaint and demand they withdraw their titles due to false marketing.
But that would probably mean that I have to buy it to have a credible case....

Post by **Retlaw83** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:04 pm

Of course, they never claimed IGN said this about New Vegas - they merely implied it.

Username · Post by **Username** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:07 pm

How isn't it a claim if you cite someone?

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:42 pm

The grand stroke job goes on!

Bethesda PR are some unscrupulous fuckers. You want to talk about disingenuous. Manipulating the pliable gaming media with promises of exclusive content and the like in exchange for digital fellatio.

You ever wonder why their devs are all muzzled behind the thin legal veil of a NDA?

Remember shit like this?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15427

Fuck Pete Hines. He's exactly what's wrong with the gaming industry. Disingenuous, low rent. King of false promises and undelivered hype.

You know what blows my mind, is that there's more effort put into marketing, interviews, press kits, and all the shallow, market driven, trend whore bullshittery than they actually put into the game.

Let's give Bethesda their due, great marketers, fucking embarrassingly inept RPG developers.

Think about it, the best story tellers at Bethesda work in PR, not the writing department.

Username · Post by **Username** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:29 pm

Well put. I was going to add sir but I didn't want to sound like some 4chan fuck trying to be funny.

You wrote something truly truthful and inspiring.
If only they put as much effort into perfecting their game than all this marketing.

How do you know that the devs are behind a NDA though or was that just to spice up the text?

Lol, here's what happend to the thread posted in RPG-codex when posted on Bethsoft - not only locked but deleted - :
http://forums.bethsoft.com/?showtopic=562917

Edit: it was actually first locked within 50 minutes and then deleted.

I have to add though: Yet already several forum-members have bough Vegas. Why not pirate it if you are disappointed at the developement, the relentless propaganda in terms of PR and the general buggy feel of the game?

Pirate it on principle. Yes, not because you're poor or because you're cheap. Not because you don't like the game at all. But because it's the right thing to do. Because denying a corporation its profits while still utilizing its products is the noblest of deeds if that corporation does not give a shit about you - their customer - and tells you lies or censores your opinions?

Anyhow, meh. If you really like the game you should always buy it. But then again does anyone REALLY like Fallout 3? or Fallout Vegas here or do they just appreciate the setting and game more or less while being displeased with the technical, presentational and marketing aspects of the same?

Post by **Retlaw83** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:45 pm

Username wrote:How isn't it a claim if you cite someone?

They didn't say "IGN says Fallout: New Vegas will blow you away!" they merely put IGN's quote on something branded NV.

Disingenuous, yes, but from a legal perspective they did nothing wrong.

Stalagmite · Post by **Stalagmite** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:53 pm

Of course any idiot who likes Fallout 3 and reads that on the box is gonna work themselves up to buy it almost instantaneously. Bethesda sure are experts at that kind of shit.

rad resistance · Post by **rad resistance** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:30 pm

IGN is full of quacks.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:48 pm

Username wrote: How do you know that the devs are behind a NDA though or was that just to spice up the text?

The NDA is the umbrella excuse for all their strokery.
That's been standard operating procedure since Oblivion. Bethesda's approach to PR is no less formulaic and cookie-cutter than their tired, overused, dumbed-down McRPG formula.
NDA means no fan/dev interaction outside of "whuts yer favoriet dounuts flayvers?"
They dole out little scraps of info to the press. But it's all the same shit and follows the same tired script. Soil Erosion! Immersion! Innovation! Visceral! We're big fans! Trust us!
They hit their talking points and hammer them home like a well trained politicians running for office.

The media says what they are told to say, almost as if they are reading from a script. Press junkets with free schwag, they're easy to buy off, a fucking t-shirt for their souls.

Speak No Evil or Be Banned
http://www.cvgames.com/?p=2722

Here's the thing.
They burned off the old Arena fans with MW.
They burned off the old MW fans with OB.
They burned off the old FO fans with FO3.

They are marketing these games to people who don't know the series.
By the time people find out that all Bethesda games are just shallow, vapid, sold-out, dumbed-down, whored-out cash grabs. It's too late!

They are like pedophiles, once these kids hit puberty, Bethesda is done with them and moves onto the next generation of naive little fuckwits ditracted by shiny graphics and market driven gameplay.

Pirate it on principle.

You know the expression "I wouldn't fuck her with your dick"?

Stalagmite · Post by **Stalagmite** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:06 pm

Cimmerian Nights wrote: They burned off the old Arena fans with MW.

I think you mean Daggerfall, nice post though.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:15 pm

Username wrote:Well put. I was going to add sir but I didn't want to sound like some 4chan fuck trying to be funny.

You wrote something truly truthful and inspiring.
If only they put as much effort into perfecting their game than all this marketing.

How do you know that the devs are behind a NDA though or was that just to spice up the text?

Lol, here's what happend to the thread posted in RPG-codex when posted on Bethsoft - not only locked but deleted - :
http://forums.bethsoft.com/?showtopic=562917

Edit: it was actually first locked within 50 minutes and then deleted.

I have to add though: Yet already several forum-members have bough Vegas. Why not pirate it if you are disappointed at the developement, the relentless propaganda in terms of PR and the general buggy feel of the game?

Pirate it on principle. Yes, not because you're poor or because you're cheap. Not because you don't like the game at all. But because it's the right thing to do. Because denying a corporation its profits while still utilizing its products is the noblest of deeds if that corporation does not give a shit about you - their customer - and tells you lies or censores your opinions?

Anyhow, meh. If you really like the game you should always buy it. But then again does anyone REALLY like Fallout 3? or Fallout Vegas here or do they just appreciate the setting and game more or less while being displeased with the technical, presentational and marketing aspects of the same?

No, I'm not going to pirate it to try to tell them my opinion that is stupid and sends the wrong message. Probably the best way to voice your opinion about something is to say it, even just not buying something doesn't tell the whole story unless marketing is trying to find out and even if they do they might find different reasons.

About the picture posted that was pretty good own on bethesda. Either way they do that shit all the time especially for movie previews, they could say stuff like "...one of the best movies since godfather..." but then you could look at the whole quote and it will be like "trying to be one of the best movies since godfather but sucks shit."

I also like when it's January and a movie comes out and they say "One of the best movies of the year!"

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 8:31 pm

Pooper is right. While slimy and disingenuous, it' kind of par for the course for games, movie, book ads to go that route.
Not to say that it's not part of a larger, slimy, disingenuous trend of Bethesda's.

I'm reading one of those crappy Dune spinoffs and they have a quote from Arthur C. Clarke or some sci-fi giant claiming "Dune is monumental blah blah superlative sycophantery blah blah" which is weird considering he died before this book was written. Obviously they are taking an endorsement about the series as it was 20 years ago and "riding the coattails" to sell more books.

But who buys shit because of the effusive quotes on the cover anyway?

If you walk around a book store, you can see there's some kind of unwritten collusion going on.
Pick up any Stephen King book and you will probably see endorsements from ... Clive Barker and whoever else the mainstream horror authors are. Then pick up a Clive Barker book and see a Stephen King endorsement along with all the previous horror writers.
Quid Pro Quo.
I hype up your book, and you give me some print space on the cover of your new book "blah blah blah" Stephen King, author of NYT #1 Bestseller "I Ran Out of Good Ideas for My Next Horror Book and Thought This Shit up on the Can

Next...
Maybe we can stagger release of our books so as not to saturate the market and compete against each other for the same dollars...
You see where I'm going.

Good bizzzness decisions.

This is the Betehsda way. I offer you "Eklusive Kontent" i.e. screenshots and game details in exchange for good, obedient feedback from you. How about you throw me in a nice cover story too?
Gaming media is all too acquiescent and implicit in this stroke job.

Stalagmite wrote:
Cimmerian Nights wrote: They burned off the old Arena fans with MW.
I think you mean Daggerfall, nice post though.

thx, I'm not much for proofreading

Post by **King of Creation** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:03 pm

Cimmerian Nights wrote:
I'm reading one of those crappy Dune spinoffs and they have a quote from Arthur C. Clarke or some sci-fi giant claiming "Dune is monumental blah blah superlative sycophantery blah blah" which is weird considering he died before this book was written. Obviously they are taking an endorsement about the series as it was 20 years ago and "riding the coattails" to sell more books.

I can stomach that use of Clarke's quote much more than Bethesda's in this case. At least they were pretty explicit in saying that it was Dune that Clarke was talking about rather than the newer one. With Bethesda, they blatantly tried to pass this off as a quote about New Vegas.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:22 pm

Yeah, there's certainly a "Marketing dance" going on in these industries where they spin, manipulate and obfuscate the truth in order to present their product in the most favorable possible light without outright prevarications.

You get so desensitized to it. And to that end, these marketers are fighting a self defeating battle.

The shriller they yell, and the more ebullient their superlatives are, the more most people just tune out.

Anyway point stands.
Allocate some more time and resources into developing a halfway decent RPG, instead of focusing on the marketing blitz and "we has VO from Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson OMFG Star TREKWAR!"
Where's the money in that though?

Mehar · Post by **Mehar** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:44 am

Retlaw83 wrote:
Username wrote:How isn't it a claim if you cite someone?
They didn't say "IGN says Fallout: New Vegas will blow you away!" they merely put IGN's quote on something branded NV.

Disingenuous, yes, but from a legal perspective they did nothing wrong.

I believe the company that is being quoted needs to sign off on it, more specifically, the Editor in Chief or someone else in such a position. In theory this would avoid people from doing this,

Joe's Gaming Blog: "Not a contender for best game ever!"

Box Quote: "...best game ever!" - Joe's Gaming Blog

IGN mentioned the box quote process on their Nintendo podcast a few months back.

I think this was likely just a goof up on someones end, either IGN for signing off on the wrong quote or someone in PR for for using a quote about the wrong game.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:49 am

Username wrote:I would sue as IGN but then their asslicking reputation would be damaged and corps. would go to an other asslicker.

I'm curious about if I could sue them as a consumer though.
Them tricking me into buying a game due to the recommendations of a very trusted and well renowned (...puking here...) reviewer by the name of IGN.

If this is one the swedish copy I might lodge a complaint and demand they withdraw their titles due to false marketing.
But that would probably mean that I have to buy it to have a credible case....

You wouldn't stand a chance and would end up wasting a whole lot of money.

Username · Post by **Username** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:27 am

Well I can handle disingenous quotes like taking shit out of their context. But this is applying something to something else and "implying" it's for that game.

I think Retlaw was right on this one. Though implying wrongly can be just as bad from a legal - consumer rights - point of view.

You guys know what would be funny?
If IGN was told by Bethesda to put up a certain quote and THEY Messed up and put it for Rage.

lol....

Anyway, from the looks of it it seems that the game is alot better than Fallout 3. Granted they had a finished ENGINED, finished 3D objects, finished parameters so you'd expect it to improve at least slightly.

But it seems to have improved a bit more than slightly.

I assume this game wil get 9.8 instead of 9.7 on IGN now or something. That's how you judge their reviews by the way. You look at the second number

Post by **King of Creation** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:50 am

I emailed IGN and asked them for comments on this, so we'll see if they respond.

Username · Post by **Username** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:20 am

Wow if anything my (joke) theory might even be true here.
Considering how Bethesda seems to directly and bloody blatantly be influencing reviews. It might ACTUALLY be so that some poor sob on IGN was ordered to put something in and did it on the wrong review.

Nothing would surprise me anymore.