We are told from a young age that honesty is the best policy, so we take those words of wisdom through us in life – applying them to the best of our ability. That’s what Australian YouTuber Gggmanlives was probably thinking when he was asked by EA to review their newest title, Anthem.
Like a lot of other reviews out there, Gggmanlives highlighted faults with the title – pointing out things that include technical issues, sound problems, characters just appearing seemingly out of nowhere and so on, but the only difference is that this specific YouTube reviewer was sponsored by EA and was also paid as part of the Game Changers initiative, which sheds a strange light on this situation due to reports by Gggmanlives that he was blacklisted by EA after his review had been taken down and also asked to remove the EA watermarks.
I finally managed to get my #AnthemGame video done and sadly I don’t have many positive things to say about it. I hope they can fix game this over time by listening to player feedback, but right now it’s a hard sell. And it’s a damn shame. https://t.co/GDGWKTIpZY
— Gggmanlives (@Ggdograa) February 21, 2019
I’m blacklisted by EA now and had to delete it.
— Gggmanlives (@Ggdograa) February 22, 2019
Had to be taken down because it was a sponsored video and I was too honest.
— Gggmanlives (@Ggdograa) February 22, 2019
The confusing part of this entire fiasco is that Gggmanlives was sponsored by EA’s community partnership program called Game Changers where they pride themselves on honesty being one of the most important parts of the program. Lee Williams who is Game Changers community manager has responded to the messy issue insisting that Gggmanlives hasn’t been blacklisted, that the video was taken down due to “conditions on disclosure on sponsored weren’t met”.
@Ggdograa Hey both, just want to clear something up. Nobody has been blacklisted by us, our team in Australia asked the video be taken down because some of our conditions on disclosure on sponsored weren’t met. Nothing to do with the content of the video.
— Lee Williams (@justbiglee) February 22, 2019
In a conversation in private via Twitter, Deputy Editor at VG247 Kirk McKeand reached out personally to Gggmanlives for some further information, to which he got a reply stating:
“I basically wasn’t allowed to say anything negative about the game if I also had the watermark in because the watermark means EA endorses it and shares it through the Game Changers network or something. I really don’t know what it all means. I was just told it was to be pulled down and was basically a breach of contract or something along those lines.”
Thankfully, the Anthem review has since been reinstated and it’s now available to watch – but this time without the EA watermarks.
This doesn’t seem to be a good look from EA’s point of view, but without the complete story it’s hard to comment further on – from the surface of it only and in my opinion, it pushes a lot of questions around the whole “paying” a reviewer to play and give feedback on a specific game in the first place, even if it is through a “sponsored program”.
Anthem is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One
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