Did Blue Manchu participate in a shady revenue-sharing/paid promotion deal with the Yogscast?

Recently, the Yogscast issued an "open letter" about their plans to enact revenue-sharing deals with indie game developers. While at first glance this would appear to be the Yogscast being transparent about future plans, a recent extensive Eurogamer article claims otherwise. The Eurogamer article claims that

The Eurogamer article states that the Yogscast have been doing these paid promotions deals for a while now (not a surprise to anyone), with their idea of disclosure being to include a vague line of text somewhere in the video description along the following lines:

You can see variations of this in their Hearthstone and Heroes & Generals video descriptions.

A while back, the Yogscast did a series of videos about Card Hunter, and you'll notice that the description contains the following line:

Given the Yogscast's use of incredibly vague language to indicate sponsored content, I'm left wondering if money changed hands in order to get promotion of Card Hunter from the Yogscast.

I love Card Hunter, but I find unmarked paid promotional content on Youtube to be extremely unethical (Not to mention potentially illegal, as the FTC has required full disclosure for paid YouTube videos since 2009).

I hope Blue Manchu didn't participate in one of these deals, but I'd like to see a response from BM clarifying the matter.

 

Honestly even if some money did change hands I wouldn't see it as anything other than marketing/advertising, which nearly every company needs to do. Shady dealings implies something else entirely to me.

 

I'm not really sure what you're worried about. What do you mean by unmarked? Because it looks like that Yogscast mentions BM in helping make the videos. This could imply money, or information, or both. And how do you know both parties didn't enter a contract that is fully within the FTC guidelines?

 

I agree totally - why are you upset about the idea of BM promoting their game by whatever channels exist? What's the alternative - word of mouth only? Without publicity, they'll just get lost in the crowd. I don't see it as being anywhere near shady and you're wrong to suggest otherwise.

 

Don't feed the trolls. Especially when they wear tin foil hats.

 

Neofalcon isn't a troll. Hold the accusations

It seems like a pretty legitimate concern if Neofalcon is correct about the relevant policies.

I don't think anyone is upset about BM spending money to get publicity—there's just a question about whether or not BM did it in an above-board manner. I think it's a reasonable question, if maybe one that could have been asked in private.

 

If the FTC document Neofalcon posted is accurate/up to date, according to section 255.5 example 7 (an example about game reviewing), it sounds like, if there was payment or any other material benefit provided for the review, which there's no real evidence for, Yogscast should "clearly and conspicuously disclose" the material benefits, and Blue Manchu "should advise him at the time it provides (the benefit...) that this connection should be disclosed, and it should have procedures in place to try to monitor his postings for compliant".

Flak's right, though, a small company that treats its fans nicely has probably earned enough benefit of the doubt to start out with a private message and move to public if their answers are evasive. Blue Manchu probably doesn't need people like me yammering on about some document they just read because they were surfing the internet.

 

Huh, I would be curious either way. I think it is more on Yogscast's shoulders than Blue Manchu's though if something like this happened. The burden is on the reviewer to disclose said transactions.

 

Since when has the FCC had worldwide jurisdiction? It is a US agency, and has absolutely no authority to regulate Australian or European entities. Constitutionally speaking, it has no authority to regulate US citizens either, or even to exist in it's current form.
(Edit: Hi! I'm online for a while tonight, and this one hit a nerve.)

 

From what I could understand BM provided them an account with all sort of things to test it out like pizza or figures. Now I don't know if it is the whole truth. And I agree with the part that BM paying for a review is ok as they need the advertising and it's really bad for the yogcast guys as they are supposed to make impartial and independant reviews, not a tobacco study sponsored by Marlboro.

 

Yeah, it looked like the account had the Basic Edition already applied to it. Could also be why the intro with fighting the dragon was skipped.

 

BM should do everything to promote the game.
Even if they have sacrifice toddlers to the Great Old Ones.

Because if they don´t then this game will wither and die.

 

Yeah, this is how I feel too. Perhaps it wasn't clear in my initial post, but I have no problem with paying for coverage. My problem is with the potential lack of disclosure about it.

Granted, this isn't necessarily BM's fault - this is very much an industry-wide problem atm (spurred by a lack of clear, enforced laws regarding these sorts of deals), and is something I expect will have a spotlight shone on it quite a bit over the next few years.