Leave it to the GiantBomb community to one day say "I'm glad GiantBomb doesn't stoop so low to have in your face advertisements" then the next day they jump on people and yell at them for saying it felt weird that during the BombCast Ryan started a sales pitch about it being the last day to pre-order a game for special bonuses.
"That's not an ad. EA asked us if we wanted to have some copies of DA2 to give away. We said sure." Did EA also ask you to give a poorly edited-in weird sale pitch for the game?"
No, Brad and Ryan just forgot to bring it up during the show, so Ryan had to go back in and record something. Clearly the end of the world is nigh.
"That's not an ad. EA asked us if we wanted to have some copies of DA2 to give away. We said sure." Did EA also ask you to give a poorly edited-in weird sale pitch for the game?"
No, Brad and Ryan just forgot to bring it up during the show, so Ryan had to go back in and record something. Clearly the end of the world is nigh.
No seriously, read Jeff's formspring. EA asked them if GiantBomb wanted copies to give away, and they said sure. If it were a bought ad of any sort, they'd at least cite some marketting bullet points or some shit for the game. Ease the fuck up guys.
" MAN THE GUYS ARE SUCH SELL OUTS! No seriously, read Jeff's formspring. EA asked them if GiantBomb wanted copies to give away, and they said sure. If it were a bought ad of any sort, they'd at least cite some marketting bullet points or some shit for the game. Ease the fuck up guys. "
Not that I personally think that this is an ad, but if mentioning what you get when you preorder ISN'T considered a marketing bullet point then what is?
Hey. We're still not in the business of sneaking ads into what we do. If we put ads into stuff like that, it'll be clearly marked as such. Ain't nothin' changed.
As for the whole "free ad for giveaway" thing, I've nixed several giveaways for products that we aren't really down with. This isn't some sort of situation where any stupid little mousepad or "gaming food" company gets free access to you guys through us. We curate these pretty carefully and wouldn't do one that came with a list of bullet points that had to be read or anything dumb like that. If you didn't like what Ryan had to say about the game, that's on Ryan, not EA or whoever.
Hey. We're still not in the business of sneaking ads into what we do. If we put ads into stuff like that, it'll be clearly marked as such. Ain't nothin' changed.
As for the whole "free ad for giveaway" thing, I've nixed several giveaways for products that we aren't really down with. This isn't some sort of situation where any stupid little mousepad or "gaming food" company gets free access to you guys through us. We curate these pretty carefully and wouldn't do one that came with a list of bullet points that had to be read or anything dumb like that. If you didn't like what Ryan had to say about the game, that's on Ryan, not EA or whoever.
And this is why Giantbomb is the best gaming site ever.
I also felt the DA2 "contest" felt like some shameless shilling, but the GB crew has lots of friends at EA, and they've been giving away games on GBTNT for a while now, but this is the first time I can recall that they've done it via podcast.
I'll probably get hated on for this, but really, I don't give a fuck.. I love all of the staff from giantbomb except for Ryan, he's an asshole in an annoying way.. not a funny way.
I listened to it last night, and not only did it not sound like an ad in any sense of the word, but I was blown away that some of you people would suggest that it was.
It was somewhat strange place to put a giveaway, then again giveaways on giantbomb have always been somewhat awkard with trying to get winners off the chat on many TNTs before realizing that the comments/forum would be better way to track winners. I think that what they should have done to give everyone enough time would be to say in the bombcast that a giveaway will go up tomorrow in the forums or on a news post (where it'll be further detailed there). I know that I often get to the bombcast a couple hours after it goes up (then another hour or so listening to it) so a giveaway tied to the bombcast comments is pretty much going to be impossible to get to at least for me.
YO I HATE FREE SHIT TOO! In all honesty, I thought it seemed weird only because it was disjointed from teh rest of the podcast, but I didn't think it was sleazy advertising or anything. It's not like they were saying "THIS GAME IS THE SHIT IF YOU DONT WIN YOU SHOULD BUY IT" or anything, and i think it's cool that the site gives its listeners the opportunity to win free games. Whether or not EA had motives for giving the game away (and they did, giveaways=promotion), it doesn't mean that GB had those intentions or that they were paid to give the game away.
After listening to that part in the Bombcast... I get the impression that this whole ordeal is a prime example of the internet making a massive issue over literally nothing. They were giving away a few copies of Dragon Age 2 - that's kind of awesome. And really, if they hadn't mentioned what was in the box, I thought it would have been a little awkward. I honestly don't see the issue here.
I think since it was at the very end, and plus it was the guys at Bioware, it isn't so bad. I mean, if next week, before the intro music we hear an add for your chance to win a copy of Secrets of the Magic Crystals, then it could be a problem.
@Tennmuerti: Considering they were giving away copies, copies that you potentiallty could have won...I didn't find it weird. If they did it without the contest, then it would have been weird.
Also, I think its dumb saying in the podcast descrip that theres a contest because then douchers click through the cast to find it without listening to it and then posting.
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