Off-Topic: Ridiculous PR stunt from HypeCouncil

September 18, 2007, 06:51 PM

by brandon, via HypeCouncil -
[permalink]

I just got an email from PR company HypeCouncil, which ethically I shouldn't reprint here, but people should know this sort of thing goes on. The email begins like this:

"Dear Webmaster of Insert Credit:

We are offering you $50 for the placement of Hellgate: London PR content on your website. In order to qualify, send us an email confirming your participation no later than this Friday. 9-21-07. Please include when you anticipate placement and send us a link and screenshot of the content once the content has been placed. It must be kept up for a minimum of 2 weeks. You will find the following assets at the URL provided below as well as in the body of this email."

I don't think I need to tell you why this is irresponsible (though actionbutton.net just promised me they'd give the game 4 stars if they send 5 copies), or why I've declined many such offers (including two to buy the entire site) over the last year, when this sort of thing really started happening. PR is having a hard time controlling internet opinion, even for a game like Hellgate, which will actually probably be pretty good - just not for insert credit. They even sent me some examples of things I could post, linking to other positive coverage...it's basically advertorials. The big problem is that now I'll look at any positive coverage of Hellgate: London with a skeptical eye, even though I already thought the game was going to be decent - the state of game-related writings is such that I don't trust everyone to decline this offer, either. This is just going to start a very strange PR cycle for this game, and people should probably know about it. And just to note - I very much doubt the developers approved this. They'd probably know better.