Well played, Jeff. Well played.

Wow. How sad. Great article, Jeff. At iPhoneGamesNetwork we've gotten the same kinds of offers, and have politely declined. It's pretty lame when game companies do this kind of thing.

Jeff, I commend and congratulate you on this article, to the point that you deserve a fucking Pulitzer!!!  That is NOT sarcasm.

While I ran BonusStage.com, we dealt with this kind of shit all the time, and since we were a very small site (something to the tune of 300,000 unique readers from what Alexa said), we were FORCED to take opportunities like this in order to work our way into the door for review copies and such.  Granted, you guys have a lot of respect and contacts in this industry from years of hard work, but there are some places that just don't.  In turn, people are going to have to say good stuff about what could possibly be a shit game in order to get review copies to keep coming in.

It is very much about that allure of "well, do we want to get the shit for free and not waste our money doing something that we'd like to make something of a career at...and in turn sacrifice some of our integrity...or do we say fuck them and end up giving them our money in the long run, as well as another unit sold on their press release for how much they shipped in their first week?".

So I appreciate you writing this up, especially since I've also been PM'd quite a few times about "getting review copies" and "how to start a gaming site".

Lmfao. I love what Jeff just did. Jeff, you should be the president of the mall.

Poor marketing people. :(
Oh well, I guess they deserve it.

Poor THQ. :(

heh...well there's something you don't see...most days.

"all you have to do is write up a post and feature the teaser spot below on your site and send me the link"

Heh

This is why you're the f'n man, Jeff!

Hummm... I call Aprils fool on this... yeah, I do!

This isn't a joke or satire sadly. The email is real and from an actual PR company that handles this kind of thing.

This is why Giantbomb is amazing... i really hope Jeff still gets in mostly for the lulz and the coming shit storm

interesting

That trailer isn't an official one is it? Oh my god.

So you guys are getting into the beta now right? ;)

Damn that trailer was beyond bad.
Then again, what I've seen of the game it might not be so much better.

I remember when the first one game out with all this hype and ended up being a generic shooter, made me go "meh".

GOD HELP US ALL!

Looks like their April 1st joke got leaked early.... wait, that trailer wasn't a (intended) joke?

Speechless.  Was that a game trailer or a recruitment video for Al-Qaeda?

Jeff GerstmOWND

Please tell me thats not the real trailer.

I think that every site has to auto-censor itself, or it doesn't get invited to the preview opportunities. It's a cat and mouse game where the deal is "say sweet things about our game in your previews (reviews ?) or you'll be cut off from any special events or info sessions about our games", so imo it happens all the time even if it's not written or said...

You can bet that if the video was good and the game was an anticipated title (I dunno, something like KOTOR MMO?)  they'd have been all over it >_>

And no folks, that's not a trailer, why would anyone call that shit a trailer? It's a pathetic viral marketing attempt. Where do you see a game, lol? <_<

The best part of this story is being able to get an Audio Preview of *YIP* on Youtube

-Gary-

Not good, not good at all. This marketing company need to brush up on their gaming industry knowledge. Clearly if they knew who Jeff really was they would know that he would never compromise his journalistic integrity purely for self gain.

This marketing campagn = fail

"Jeff GerstmOWND"

Wow hilarious. I'm pretty sure they'll still let you in because they won't even read the article/

Thats why the Giantbomb crew are respected as much as they are, they dont compromise their views for an easy win.  Maybe other sites would think that sort of thing is okay but its very telling when it happens.

Jeff Gertsmann .. THIS is why we love and admire you people at Giantbomb. Respect !!

If the image would actually catch up to the sound it would have been an OK teaser, but the game was announced months ago, if not years. This is not the way to promote it.

that game looks sick.

congrats Jeff, enjoy the close beta : )

im pretty sure its a scam and the guy doesnt actually work for THQ but just stole their video, and wants to promote his youtube crap

ps. "This means that the first time you give a game a negative review, the company will threaten to cut you off from the games, and you'll probably cave and retract the review." *cough gamespot cough*

Filthy.  Good job calling them out Jeff.  Of course, I would expect no less from you.

GB > all

I don't think this is a legit person working for THQ.  Another posted that http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/jjor64/ is possibly the user who made that video.  Looks like Jeff G may have been duped into getting this video out there.  He's even posting in this topic

"

isnt red faction guerilla a third person game?????????        anyway that was the worst promotion trailer ever

"I know, right? On top of that it's got a description of "red faction guerilla ps3 rocks just like fallout mi rite or mi rite" on YouTube. Quality material, all you people at the promotion company! Corner offices for all."

"I don't think this is a legit person working for THQ.  Another posted that http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/jjor64/ is possibly the user who made that video.  Looks like Jeff G may have been duped into getting this video out there.  He's even posting in this topic

"

JJOR64
on March 30, 2009

Lmfao, the video only has 1 star."well, JJOR64, what do you have to say for yourself?"

I doubt that is a real trailer, unless THQ has suddenly become a team of shitless monkeys. Maybe, actually. Still, I really like the message Jeff portrays in his article. At least he is one of the few honest video game journalists out there.

If the only reason you want to become a "games journalist" is to "get free stuff" and play a game early, you should totally be looking for a different job. Maybe head over the local Pizza place. You can swipe ingredients and maybe get a discount.

But getting back to the Red Faction trailer... yeah... not much of a trailer to begin with. But believe me, I wish I could be excited for another Red Faction game. The first one was okay, and GEOMOD DUDE!!! But since it was nothing to write home about, the deformable terrain didn't quite work and there wasn't enough other stuff there to make me say "wow," and because the second game received such emphatic "meh"s, so I never played it, I can hardly feel excitement for yet another forray into what should have been a one-off game.

That trailer is horrendous. Personally I love the trailers for Red Faction 2 that went up on PSN a week or two ago. Those were infinitely better than that pile of crap. Plus the idea that promotional companies are releasing those videos in the guise of a teenager posting on youtube (inference based on the description of the video) makes you realize how shady they can be.

Makes me think of the AOLer translator:

http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html

dubbed as the english to 12 year old translator, write something and it'll bastardize it with lots of stupid abbreviations and other crap. Perfect for those marketing machines.

I also forgot to mention something: GiantBomb is light years ahead of Gamestop, IGN, Gamespy and all the other gaming sites I have visited. GiantBomb may not be as popular as those sites yet, but they have been in operation for years now. GiantBomb is doing so many things right - especially in regards to video content and community features - that there is no way I can see it not succeeding. Traffic will come in time, just as you said.

I guess what I'm saying is "be patient"; you guys are doing such incredible work, and the site is only going from strength-to-strength from a technical point of view (I liked the iTunes-inspired cover-flow on the main page). All I can advise you guys, from a user standpoint, is to not compromise.

At first I thought this was for the general public which would have been a pretty cool marketing move that would benefit almost anyone. Something along the lines of "if you play Red Faction: Gurella and post about it on your Myspace/facebook/Giant Bomb blog, you will get the chance to play Red Faction Early"

At las, though it was just a marketing ploy to dupe the press with illcenscerd logic. Nice of you to post this Jeff, and DON'T SACRIFICE YOUR CREDITABILITY FO SHO!

Giant bomb is better than every other gaming site out there. The only way it could possibly get any better is if Greg Kasavin worked here!

Haha that trailer was hilariously bad I loved it.

What are y talking about that was great...okay I'm terrible at lying.

But this post constitutes exactly what the e-mail asks for: It tells me who's publishing it and when it's released and there's an embed of the trailer under the text as requested.

In what way was it a good idea to write this? To show how fucking real you are? To promote your own values at the expense of a bunch of incompetent marketing jerks? If this is how low you'll stoop for my affection maybe you'd be ok with visiting me in my house to lick the furry clag out of my asscrack.

The proper course of action is to torch your shitty e-mails not blog about them. This trailer is so bad it could even be an early April Fools.

One thing is for sure, though: I will now be looking out for RED FACTION: GUERILLA on JUNE 9TH to see if it really is as bad as it looks here. Maybe those marketing jerks aren't so incompetent after all.

Edit: love the site, podcast, vids, all that, it's just that this "story" doesn't smell right.