Games Thirst – Amazing Life
Yesterday’s controversy that saw Microsoft and Machinima being exposed for trying to force YouTubers, by offering the personalities $3 extra per CPM for promoting Xbox One and showing gameplay footage of said console, while not being able to say anything negative about the console and at the same time not being able to let their followers know that the video was indeed paid for by Microsoft, has led to the two companies releasing a joint statement to try and distance themselves from the scandal.
But how can you distance yourself from a scandal that you created? You really can’t — it’s either both fall together or one company takes the hit. And one company did take the fall, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it wasn’t Microsoft. Ostensibly, Machinima took the fall, but it said the NDA it gave its YouTube partners for this particular promotion, which had to be tagged XB1M13, was standard business, save one claw: not being able to disclose that it was a paid promotion from Microsoft… And that somehow, without knowing, they’d simply looked over that one particular and rather important claw.
Yeah, whatever.
For reference, here’s yesterday’s article. And find below the joint response from Microsoft and Machinima.
Microsoft was not aware of individual contracts Machinima had with their content providers as part of this promotion and we didn’t provide feedback on any of the videos,” a Microsoft representative told us via email. “We have asked Machinima to not post any additional Xbox One content as part of this media buy and we have asked them to add disclaimers to the videos that were part of this program indicating they were part of paid advertising.
