@ildon said:

That doesn't matter. Invented controversy will always be a constant and ubiquitous part of video game journalism because there is so little else to write about, which is why I avoid and ignore it.

I'm amazed anyone didn't imagine from the start that this was true. I also don't think that anyone should worry about consumers taking serious purchasing advice from that show segment.

It was always my impression that much like when a "movie star" goes on Conan it is to PROMOTE their next project, the games being shown were there to be promoted. Just as the stars go on Conan to be ribbed about their latest scandal while they talk about their next movie, the game are there to be made fun of by Conan. Being ridiculed by Conan is USEFUL publicity

I mean we can all see that Conan "making fun" of your game on a Friday night is WORTH a lot more than $40K, right? As the people on the show have explained most of the games they show are shown after being vetted for entertainment value. I fail to see how any thinking person could be unclear about what things, products, and people show up on Conan O'Brian. You have stars with projects coming out, you have stars too long outside of the spotlight who need a bump, and you have seat fillers who are willing to fill-in when Mila Kunis has jock-itch.

To be honest I think this is a story used as cover to Microsoft's equally stupid "paying for mentions on Machinima" scandal which nobody was surprised about either. Not to wear the tin-foil hat too tight, but floated this story to Re/code.com?

I think these videos are great. Much like a lot of the Giant Bomb content, I enjoy them because they are funny and entertaining. I look forward to seeing more of them. The mechanics behind them seem like something that only a very tightly wound person could get upset about.

Then why are publishers paying money to have their games appear on the show?

Free, big-time coverage. It's just a glorified commercial.

It's not.

I would like an article examining the people that somehow thought product placement in a TV show isn't paid for.

I haven't actually watched Conan for years, but I've seen every clueless gamer spot and they're all hilarious. Anyone thinking that there's something insidious going on when he clearly says, "I don't know anything about video games, I don't particularly even like them, but we're going to play one" and then proceeds to mock them and give a nonsense score, needs to find another conspiracy to occupy their time.

@expensiveham: take out free from his statement and it's still true.

It happens everywhere. Our Chicago Bulls basketball coach has been dealing with this the past couple weeks.

“I’m not going to comment on rumors you guys [the media] start, and then you wait for me to respond. Now the rumor about my date with Kate Upton, a rumor started by me, I’m not commenting on that either."

That was obvious this show is basically infotainment.. And it is totally not the same what Machima and Microsoft did.

Because they're idiots who don't mind throwing money away at chasing the mass market casual gamer. If a company wants to pay Conan to make fun of their game, and Clueless Gamer is pretty funny, then I'm very okay with that.

Conan straight up says, everytime, he knows nothing about games whatsoever. Who'll take advice on buying games from that feature??

Yeah but Conan doesn't use the XB1M13 tag which means THIS IS 100% WORSE!!!!!

I was spellbound. Fucking bam-boozled that anyone thought Conan O'Brien was doing this of his own accord. How exactly does one even come to that conclusion? In the scope of discussions about things happening in the video games industry, this whole thing ranks lower than frame-rate discrepancies.

Usually his segments don't make the games look particularly good anyway. They're just amusing skits. I'm certain it translates to sales, awareness and all that, though it's questionable if it's "worth it" for the companies.

Also, yeah, I'm surprised this is treated as a shocker. I feel like he's even mentioned it in passing during the installments, at least that the company provided the game. Or maybe I just surmised that from the obvious 'demo state' nature of what they're showing.

It's advertising, this is no different from a commercial or billboard. To be successful you need to have the game title in the publics mind and the demographic of Conan viewers (both on TV and online) fit perfectly with the group they are trying to target.

I don't really get why this came as such a big shock to people. By the third of fourth episode when they started to "review" games that wasn't even released yet it was clear that there were getting paid. Also it doesn't really bother me to be honest. Clueless Gamer is a skit and Conan doesn't seem to have changed the way he "reviews" games since the first episode and I just find them funny.

Doesn't change my opinion on Clueless Gamer.

I don't much care for the show itself but I've watched all the clueless gamer episodes because of how entertaining they are. It doesn't matter that the company pays money for it and I'm not the least bit surprised. They want exposure to the audience that might otherwise never see any of it. How useful that exposure actually is and how many copies those bits really sell is a different question but since it's obviously not a review and the only value of clueless gamer is entertainment, there is no conflict of interest.

Controversy just for the sake of it.

@jay_ray said:

No, they are reviews and if you think something needs a score to be a review you should pick up a dictionary. Anyone that thinks having Conan (someone that people trust and look up to) play a game and give his opinion on the show is the same thing as an ad or a trailer on the internet is wrong.

It's even worse when the games that we know have been payed for have received positive reviews. If his opinions or the editing are being skewed based on whether or not they have received money to feature the product then that is very serious.

Exactly. In the first Clueless Gamer sketch ever (which might have gone up online exclusively), Conan used a Nokia Lumia Windows Phoneto control a 360, using Smartglass or whatever. And who the fuck cares? It's Late Night television, not a video-game publication. Why are some people even surprised? What matters is that he definitely doesn't seem to give a fuck about what he says of the games - and will you look at that publishers keep sending them.

Like, I don't think Rockstar sent them GTA V, as they probably played that game because of its relevance, popularity with a mainstream audience, and the cult status of the GTA franchise. Same applies to when he played Atari 2600 games, or PC indie horror games. But Hitman: Resolution? Come on.

I'm pretty sure he has even said during segments that publishers had sent the game he was playing. But yeah, either that or, you know, coincidentally they consistently chose to play Eidos games.

It's a great, hilarious segment. It's the only segment I know of that I don't care it uses the word "gamer" in the title.

Why is no one mad about all the shady deals that goes on all the time in the game press?

@rollingzeppelin: Do you even know what a commercial is? Conan is using a product and giving his opinion on it, that is a review. He might not be very serious or thorough about it but it is still a review and thousands of watchers will base their purchasing decisions based on what he says on air.

These are no reviews. They make basically fun of reviews. You can get nothing out of his score. He does not rate it at all.

@darji said:

Whether or not something has a score does not decide if it is a review or not.

A review will tell you if you should buy it or not. Clueless gamer does nothing. They make fun of a game and then give it some score that makes no sense. If someone tells you that 10 is a good game and 1 is a bad one and then gives it a blue than it says nothing about the quality at all. It is not a evaluation which makes a review a review.

@expensiveham: Again it makes fun of normal reviews.....Yes it is called review, but you get no evaluation out of it. It tells you nothing about the product. So no it is not a real review.

@expensiveham: What?! It says review right in the title!!!! COLLUSION!!!!!!!!!

If I uploaded some footage of me farting on YouTube, showed af ew screenshots, and titled it, Josh's Bravely Default review, does that instantly give my review any credence? Would all of the Quick Looks here be "reviews" if they were titled that way?

Dude, if you've ever actually watched one of these, you wouldn't be making the argument. When the conclusion to his "review" is that he gives Halo 4 or whatever a funny sound out of other funny sounds, he's making no recommendation or actual judgement about the game.

It's a skit to watch a dude who can't really play games and doesn't care about them, try to play them, and the results are usually hilarious. It's also obviously paid for to get exposure to the game. Marketing, sure, but a review, it is clearly not.

The reason it doesn't matter is we don't go to Conan for video game advice. It's just a good laugh and if they get some product placement cash on the side it's all good. He's not a journalist or realistically reviewing the game. They only call it a review as a joke, because it's not and he always freely admits he doesnt really know anything about video games which is part of the joke.

There's really no issue here. It's standard practice on TV shows to have paid product placement which is all this really is.

They are not "reviews" since they do not give a formal assessment of the title. It is Conan, for the most part, observing someone play these games and telling jokes and then him trying to play them and failing in a funny manner. This is no different then Naughty Dog paying Harrison Ford to play Uncharted 2 and making a 2 minute video, which may actually be worse as that was not done for a pure comedy sense.

Is this really any different then having celebrities on to promote movies that he disliked?

Anyone up in arms about this will probably be shocked to know that Fallon gets paid for those demo spots of new consoles/new game technology and what not that he does, too.

I guess you go to Fallon for smart purchasing decisions in games.

haha

I'm sorry, I cant type that with a straight face.

I don't see how this is a controversy. TV shows and Talk shows have always done this. It's how TV works.

I feel that recode was just hoping to get more traffic to their site and that they would get some spill over from the Microsoft/EA paying youtubers for mentions. Because that story was such a big deal, maybe they thought this one was too. But they're making a story out of something everyone already assumed.

So much text for such a simple problem. The first thing Conan says is he doesn't like, care about, or play games. At the end he gives a meaningless "score". Clueless gamer isn't a review show. Its a commercial at best. Companies pay tv shows to run commercials.

Some moronic game journalist actually tried to drum up a controversy around this? That's really sad. Any idiot can tell that Clueless Gamer is not meant to be taken seriously at all.

Without these games being on his show 'thousands of watchers' wouldn't even have heard of hardly any of these games so their purchasing decision would've been non-existent, they weren't going to buy it anyway. This is meant to be 'comedy', anyone taking buying advice from these are morons. They might actually see something and be like 'Hey that looks cool' and thats what these developers are hoping for.

I don't think it matters because it's Conan. It's all a joke anyway. It's not like he's a journalist.