EA blacklist GGGmanlives. reupload review again after being deleted

Thats even low. even for EA standard. deleting reviews that are negative.

gggmanlives is one of the best reviewer today. and thats what make youtube reviews better than professional critics reviews. as former cannot loose their jobs but later can.

He made a preview and it was pretty positive and so his fanbase hated it.

Now he made a review and it's pretty negative, and EA hates it.

It's their right to do, but it merely makes a infamously hated company look worse.

He was part of EA Game Changers program, that's how EA was able to blacklist him. Just meant he had to remove a disclaimer at the beginning of his video and reupload, because he's not longer sponsored by EA.

Still, not great optics.

To be fair to him, that's a pattern I've seen pretty much everywhere. Demos came along; "Hey, it's pretty good - when it works." Full game comes out on early access; "Oh man, this is so bad."

Yeah, I must agree with you there. "professional" critics are irrelevant at this day an age

EA can't legally remove reviews. Can they? Oh a special program. Got it. Oh well. I think this is good, though. Getting kicked out of programs like that is a good sign for your honesty.

Here's an idea EA, stop making shitty games and they won't get shitty reviews.

EA should take the criticism and do something constructive. They have a pretty solid base-game, but it was rushed out. The day one patch finally allowed me to lock my fps to my TV's refresh, instead of just ranging from 60-100+. The loading is definitely a little better, but not drastically so... Having to load freaking everywhere is annoying.

I don't think EA is interested in making good games anymore. they are only interested in making profitable games, and its easier to chase trends and use exploitative tactics to make a profit than it is to make a actually good game that sells well.

Wow that looks bad for EA. What a disgrace. How dare you EA leave reviews alone.

Have any of you looked into the facts behind this? Like really?

So apparently it’s business as usual and some don’t understand how business works.

Oh no! How am I going to sleep at night?

Spoiler: Just fine. ?

EA's disapproval rating is almost as bad as Trump's.

People lack the ability to understand how context factors into things.

Demos from major studios are often pre-release, dressed up to look good, containing the best-functioning parts of the game.

When the game comes out, there's no hiding the flaws.

EA is the American version of Konami.

I mean, that really SHOULD be the same thing. Make a quality game, innovate, people will come.

Of course it doesn't always work that way (not in games, not in music, not in movies). Sometimes trash gains inexplicable popularity. Other times great games go under the radar. But still, you have to at least aim for quality or you don't even have a chance. Just chasing a trend is what we used to call "shovelware". Over the long term I don't think that's a winning strategy.

I see it a bit differently.

I love GGGman's videos, but why would you accept a sponsorship from a company whose products you review?

Kind of puts you in a bad spot, no?

If I paid a guy to promote my product and he dumped on it................I'd pull my sponsorship too.

Sure, I can make a better product...............but that is entirely separate from our arrangement.

EA had him remove the "sponsored by EA" parts

https://www.vg247.com/2019/02/22/paid-review-anthem-youtuber/

Who is this guy for EA to go all the way to blacklist him? Must be pretty popular with EA crowd.

I haven't had the issues that this guy has. I can see it running like shit in the video and those pop-in issues... WTF!?. Game runs great for me, but I have a beast system. Loading times are not that long and I have seen worse in Destiny 2. Some of the design choices and mission structures I agree could use some work, but overall I have been having fun. I think his enjoyment is seriously hampered by his less than adequate rig.

Nope. Is there anything of interest there?

Why would a "reviewer" take a sponsorship? Y'all are looking at this wrong.

TC got played here. His favorite YouTube “reviewer” was on EAs books and TC didn’t know it. And now TC doesn’t understand what actually happened with the video being taken down, etc. It’s pretty obvious how Russian bots have been able to take over social media...

Um, the dude was being paid by EA to cover their products. How does that make him "better" than objective reviewers that work for independent publications? It sounds like this guy didn't understand the terms of his sponsorship.

Yes. Well, to put it more clearly, Konami is the Japanese EA since EA was doing its thing long before Konami followed.

Right, let's have some more facts here.

First off, according to Gggmanlives himself, being "sponsored" by EA Game Changers just means you get review code for free, and you have to disclose this sponsorship with a watermark on your video. Otherwise, you are free to say whatever you want:

This is, in fact, in line with publicly available stated policy of the Game Changers program itself, as according to the FAQ on its official website:

Q: What if I post negative feedback on the game, or EA?

A: If a Game Changer posts a negative review or content about the company or one of our games that is honest and constructive – they will have our thanks and full support. We demand that our Game Changers act with honesty with us, with our dev teams, and with the community. Sometimes this can make things uncomfortable! EA is committed to being player first and earning the trust of our community. We make mistakes and get things wrong all the time. For our teams to improve and get better, we need our Game Changers to keep it real.

Finally, EA have released a statement to VG247 denying that they've "blacklisted" Gggmanlives, and that they asked the video to taken down because, quote; "the conditions for disclosure for this specific video were not met." It is unclear what those conditions were.

Indeed, to reiterate, the video was promptly re-uploaded intact, save for cut watermark and disclosure.

All in all, the situation seems to be more about technicality that it initially sounds, and in the end, no permanent harm was done. Still, again, this is simply bad optics during a sensitive time for EA which I can't quite understand why they wouldn't be prepared for.

It's EA, they will steal you're kidney and try to give a nice smiley PR explanation.

I'm sure whatever reason they come up with, the motive itself will that.

That was a great review. He's actually talking about things a consumer might want to know. Might check out his other stuff now..

@KungfuKitten: madrocketeer did the leg work. Always two sides to a story but everyone wants to crucify EA.

Update: Well, turns out I was right. According SkillUp, EA told him that here was the entirety of what caused this whole mess:

GGGmanlives used "Presented by EA Game Changers" watermark in his review instead of "Sponsored by EA."

That's it.

Sounds trivial, but the issue seemed to be FTC/Fair Trade disclosure legal stuff not entirely in EA's control. It also appears GGGmanlives was in fact directly paid by EA to make the review, and was also a bit evasive to SkillUp about his exact correspondence with EA. Take that as you will.

Actually watched the video myself. He prefaced it with some claim that he was forced to take down the video because it was too negative. Cringed immediately. This is not what you implied in public, mate.

Best case scenario: he misinterpreted the correspondence and everyone's overreacting. Worst case scenario: he decided to exploit the situation and played up the drama for clicks. Could even be something in between.

Either way, move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

This just feelsl ike childish drama rather than ayone trying to achieve anything substantive.

@Ibacai: everyone wants to jump to conclusions these days sadly. Many hold up youtubers in high regard but they can easily have ulterior motives same as any reviewer or game website. It’s not until you hear both sides then that we should make any definitive judgments and even then we still need to be strong enough to admit when we make mistakes in our judgments.

Seems to me the problems today of reviews being flagged isn't just by EA, and at the root of it is YouTube who let's them. Though the review content is protected under fair use laws, I think YouTube is worried about its liability and to play it safe will strike down content at first mention of publisher making a claim against it.

@Yams1980: Good lord, read five posts up. Way to jump on the bandwagon.

Would you like it in video form?

Full disclosure: I'm a subscriber. When I saw this thumbnail on my phone, I consciously decided not to watch it and keep digging, made my previous reply, and then see if Sid came to the same conclusion.

Spoiler: yup.