A while back, a prominent MMO studio replied to one of our tweets about its game with a tweet that referred to the game very complimentarily in the third person as if it were coming from a fan – in other words, a studio staffer was attempting to praise its own game with a sockpuppet account, but the staffer had forgotten to swap from its official studio account to said sockpuppet account before doing so. It was quickly deleted, and I’m not sure anyone but me and the MOP team noticed. The technical term for this is astroturfing, and it’s shady as heck.
I’m not going to call out the studio and post receipts because frankly I doubt it would hurt the studio with its fans anyway, and more than that I’m not interested in getting some poor social media grunt fired. In fact, I’m glad it happened because it reminded me to put myself back on alert for stuff like this, and it’s definitely made me more suspicious about other comms coming from that studio and others like it. Sure, we’ve seen it before, and from even bigger companies, but it’s a reminder that shadiness exists at all levels of this industry, that going “viral” isn’t necessarily a grassroots event, and that not all “influencers” are who they say they are.
The sad thing is, this wasn’t even the shadiest thing I’ve ever seen an MMO studio do. It’s maybe top five just for 2021 so far. But I’m curious about your headcount. What’s the shadiest thing you’ve seen an MMO do lately? Who’s up to some shady shit?
(I have deliberately picked a “dead” game for the header pic today so you know it’s not that one.)
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
