We have to do something about this "shills" problem

That's... racist?

I agree with the OP.

Personally, I think the backlash against the Xbox ONE is perfectly valid, and in fact fully justified-- and I hope to see it continue to grow until the console's release, so as to dissuade people from buying a more restrictive product and validating that kind of corporate behavior.

But insulting people personally is probably not helpful-- because as we all know, the first reaction to any insult is to put up your fuckin' dukes and redouble your commitment to never changing anything you believe, ever, lest this asshole who is insulting you be proven right.

So hey! Don't hate the player, hate the game. And maybe hate the console.

But, you know-- nicely.

Drop some racist slurs in your posts here and see how quickly you're moderated, and/or banned from the site.

You want to get rid of physical property rights, get rid of physical property. I would be fine with that. If Microsoft doesn't have the balls to ship their console without a disc drive, then they shouldn't fuck me over when it comes to what I can do with my discs.

Note: I vehemently disagree with you, but I'm not about to suggest that you work for Microsoft.

Giant Bomb didn't exist at the start of the last console generation, and I don't remember anywhere near this many people being accused of being game company employees on this site. Also "we had to put up with this at the start of the last console generation, so now it's your turn" is poor justification for childish behavior.

hey guys- videogames.

What if all of the shills are actually Sony employees badly and obviously supporting the Xbone so people think they are in fact Microsoft shills.

What if these same shills are actually working for Nintendo to get us to hate both consoles and buy the WiiU.

WHAT THEN?

There sure a lot of people who are better than everyone else on this site.

You're right.

People should stop attacking people who are upset enough by people attacking the Xbox One that they then take time to defend the Xbox One.

Wait.., did I get that right?

What are you? Some kind of M$ employee or something? Thanks but no thanks, "duder". You and your shill friends can get the hell off this forum.

Btw, what would the internet be without this kind of paranoia/overreacting?

I wonder when "sticks and stones" stopped being effective. It certainly applies in this situation.

Or, more specifically, in a magic trick, a con, or a scam, a "shill" is a person who pretends to be unaffiliated with the person perpetrating the scam, but is really in on it.

For example, a magician might pull a random person out of the crowd and pretend to divine a number of things about their personal life from reading their eyes. In reality, that person was a plant, otherwise known as a shill, who was working with the magician before the trick ever started.

In the case of Microsoft, people are suggesting that MS is sending employees onto message boards to advocate the console while pretending to just be regular people.

HAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. It was cute at first, now we are openly laughing at you.

@spaceinsomniac: I think you're asking for a level of decorum that's probably unrealistic given the age of many of the posters here. While GiantBomb hasn't had this as much in the past, it's also never been operating through a Console Launch when Console Warz frenzy tend to be at their peak.

I agree with you it would be nice if people didn't do that, it's much easier to have a more productive dialogue if insults and character assassinations aren't part of it.

Unfortunately there's somewhat good reason for posters to quick to jump to the conclusion of pro-platform people of being shills. Astroturfing is a very prevalent practice on message boards especially around launches, and it can make it hard to tell innocent hardcore fan from paid shill.

I look at that as a moral victory. Corruption is actually reprehensible. We've grown up internet! Hoorah!

FINALLY someone recognizes. Thank you.

Well, I mean, clearly you're being ridiculous.

MS is building a console. You can buy It if you want, or not. It's that simple. It will play games and it will likely play them well. It will have services and it will likely be good. It will have first party titles that nobody else will have and they will probably be good. For what you get in the box, the tech is appropriately priced.

What you feel about their policies is another thing, but it's not insane for someone to be okay with them. Especially when there are other services like Steam or The Apple Store that essentially do the very same thing.

I always thought we were just joking around what the hell happen?

@spaceinsomniac: lol this is just like it was with the 360 vs PS3 console war, when someone disagrees with someone else they're immediately a fanboy, just ignore everything.

I bet the games will be the decisive factor in selling consoles and microsoft has to be feeling the pressure and I'll bet they will change their policy at least by extending the amount of time the xbox one can be offline, that's the main thing I find annoying the rest of the stuff wouldn't bother me but I do think it's fucking over other people, also I'm a PC guy so I won't buy any consoles even though some of those games look dope.

@nivash: Not trying to be a nitpicky dick or anything, but the "UFO believer" part cracked me up. Unknown Flying Objects do exist you know, they just probably aren't extraterrestrials most of the time.

100%

xbox 360? Do a 360 and walk away!

I suppose I'm ok with trading in my physical protpery rights. I already have, like I said, on my PC with Steam. I don't see why having a disc drive means you should be able to do what ever you want with what comes on that disc. The disc is just a delivery mechanism. The system works the way the system works regardless of how you buy the game. If you want to install the game from a disc instead of downloading it, you have that option. This is basically how PC games work. Once you register your serial, you can't resell it.

Now, sounds terrible when you only mention the downside. The upside, is that now publishers will likely have a chance to be much more flexible with their prices. Not only do you elimiate the costs that selling physical copies has inherently, but having a digital market means being able to do something like a flash sale. In brick and mortar, the store has to worry about margins, and the publishers have to worry about shelf space. Now, you can put your game on sale for a day, generate, some buzz, and now you can move back to your original price.

Is it an arbitrary limitation? Yes. But it's one you have to make if you want game makers to actually make money, and ultimately, more games. I imagine most publishers would rather you buy their game at 50% of the price, rather than pirate it, or just not buy it. Being able to easily buy and download games at cheap prices directly from the publisher, in my opinion, is a more than fair trade off for killing the used games industry.

You just need to get over discs. Even on the PS4, you're going to install the game, and put the disc on a shelf some where. You're not going to need it. If you want to play an Xbox One game on your friend's machine, then you just log in and if he has it, play, and if not, install it, because you're logged in.

What do you need discs so badly for?

I'd love to know where that dumb line got started. It's just so...dumb.

I kinda like it because it's so fuckin dumb.

EULAs don't mean anything. Courts can strike them down while others support them. In Europe a "license" is no different from a physical product so I wonder how Microsoft's policies will change there because people are legally able to sell their software license to someone else.

As long as they have more than 5 posts.

Hey man, if I can't accuse a random stranger of being something based off of completely nothing, what are we even doing?

So do I. That's why I wanna know the origin.

Apparently from checking online I got "Chris-chan (The Sonichu guy) was the one who invented the statement.

He was being unironic."

I think you're wrong, and I bet you work for Microsoft!

SPAI!!! Oh sorry I thought I was still in the EVE forum...

My understanding is a significant portion of the Giant Bomb community (including myself) since the 2008 exodus from GameSpot, was part of the System Wars forum on said GameSpot. Which I would affectionately liken to Mos Eisley. :)

Of course, we were all younger and less jaded back then.

I find the trolls to be easily ignored and when I do notice them it's usually because they are exceptionally dumb and laughable.

There are so many places on the internet where the ratio between civilized rational discussion and idiotic name-calling is much higher in favor of the latter. We are pretty troll-free compared to many other sites but this is a sizable community on the internet and people on the internet are assholes and there really is nothing to be done about.

That said, I agree with OP so shut the fuck up you Sonysoft shills.

Be careful; the Chris-chan rabbit hole goes deep.

And by 'deep', I mean encyclopaedic.

CONSOLE WARS

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

The problem is that no one using the word shill knows what the fuck it means. A shill is someone who pretends to be a bystander but is secretly in support of something. Snake oil salesmen would use shills in a crowd of people to get the momentum started on buying a product or have them come up and say it cured their back ache or whatever.

The Microsoft guy and Stepto are obviously Msoft leaning. That is a known from the get-go. They aren't pretending to be anything else.

Now, these people we've seen showing up on the forums with new accounts and starting topics saying, "hey the Xbone isn't that bad," these people look like shills. Like the rumors we've heard of Msoft paying people to go into forums and say things like this. Or like one guy that spent all of E3 attacking people in chat and in the E3 threads that were supporting Sony.

All that being said, that Microsoft segment sucked ass. Those guys still felt like stiff, humorless, corporate goons. Loved the moment when the guy asked them what they thought about "drivatars" and Jeff said, "that's stupid word." Loved the look on the guy's face. Like I said, completely humorless. Contrast that with guys like Adam Boyes and Jonathan Blow and it's a no-contest. Sony has better people behind their system and better people out talking about it. It's all about image and Msoft has dug themselves into a deep, deep hole.

This video is about review scores, but I really think it can be applied to all walks of life, including the dumbass console wars stuff we seem to have going on right now. ALL Y'ALL GONNA GET BLAT BLAT BLAT.

I'm a shill

will shill for food

What a bunch of damn narky shills in here...

I agree, also remember just because people work some place doesn't necessarily mean that they will defend it. Or have a great oppion of it, that is the other end of the anonymous internet. People who work at Microsoft and made the Xbox and piss all over it and say they are getting a PS4, because they actually believe the Xbox is a bad product. But if they said this stuff on their facebook, or twitter they might have a pr problem.

Pretty much. Usually, I hear hilariously over-the-top hyperbolie or a lot of trust given to MS and I immediately think "someone's Astroturfing here," especially as so few of MS' policies are even clear, and there seems to be very, very little that the consumer gets in exchange for having things taken from them.

And honestly, if MS is willing to invade Nintendo displays at Best Buy, they're willing to send shills to forums.

You're a non Microsoft employee writing positive things in a forum about the xbox one?

LOLS

Hah you're pretty cool.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shill_gambit

There is further justification for some paranoia over internet-based shills as there are many online astroturf campaigns. However, such shills tend to spend their time flooding sites like Amazon.com with glowing reviews of their company's product using armies of sock puppets. When shills actually do go on message boards, they will almost never engage in debate - instead, they make one or two quick posts or perform a brief back-and-forth with a sock puppet and then leave permanently.

Why am I suddenly imagining an MS employee having a conversation on this board with Lambchop?

@spaceinsomniac: The start of a new set of consoles is going to make this community a little worst for about a year. People are going to pick sides and have to justify there decision.

people are just super afraid that depsite all odds , xbros are going to decide the console war, so of course they are trying to shtu down any positive word of mouth for the console whatsoever ..

im just sad for all the misinformation , ppl clamoring about exclusives that actually arent exclusive etc..

the thing i find annoying about the ps4 , is that the australian price is only a $50 difference from the xbox , not $100 , and that noooobody is calling sony out on the bait and switch they did with ps plus being required for online multiplayer.. sure its $5 a month but one of the main arguments against 360 was the xbox live requirement to play online .. and that you werent being ofrced to pay for functionality you already had .. well i guess everyoen is ok with that now since not a peep ha sbeen made about that switcheroo

but ultimately i found the shill shit hillarious , i mean iwth everyone else it feels out of place , but stepto and e seem to have some kind of bad karma , some bad steam-monster juju or something.

It was just the dumb shit you saw on the internet back in 2005-2006. It feels like we're right back to that dumb-assery these days.

Peep. Two things, here:

1) I support paying for PS+ to play multiplayer, just like I supported paying for Xbox Live Gold to play multiplayer. If you care, my reasoning can be found in that thread.

2) As confused as some people seem to be about the definition of a shill, seeing as I work in retail, it bothers me SO much more when people don't understand the term bait and switch.

Bait and switch is a dishonest business practice where stores advertise one product that doesn't exist, and then attempt to sell customers another--usually more expensive--product once they arrive.

Bait and switch isn't a customer showing up on the 2nd day of a week-long sale, only to be told that the store is out of what they want.

Bait and switch wouldn't even be advertising the PS4 as having free multiplayer, or advertising the Xbox One as offering unlimited offline play, and then customers learning the truth only once they arrived to purchase the product. That would simply fall under the category of false advertising. Absolutely NOTHING that MS or Sony has done deserves to be referred to as "bait and switch."

@spaceinsomniac: i should have said switcheroo twice im sorry

also .. some hashtags dont equal a peep , while im all for getting free muliplayer , it looks like its a commonly overlooked factor in the praise for the sony press conference

IN MY OPINION

I post something that imho was good about the Xbox, appearently i'm now a MS employee XD.

The page (giant bomb) didn't allowed me to continue posting, cause i'm a newbie.

By the way, i signed up here to post on some game review, TLOU i think.

Anyway, this is the internet i guess.