Microsoft pays positive feedback on its Xbox One console

The software giant from Redmond, it seems, is ready to do anything for the promotion of its new game console Xbox One. As part of its advertising campaign, codenamed "XB1M13," Microsoft has begun paying out popular video bloggers for $ 3 for every 1,000 video views praising their game console.

To secure the support of the maximum number of gaming bloggers, Microsoft entered into a contract with the company Machinima.com. This company owns the video portal of the same name and YouTube channel, with the help of which gamers from all over the world publish their reviews, lectures, interviews with game developers, video news, as well as various creative projects. The site has existed since 2000, and user videos were initially hosted on YouTube servers, and since 2012, part of the video has been transferred to Gaikai’s servers, which, by the way, Sony recently acquired.

In order to earn extra money on watching their videos, bloggers need only praise the Microsoft console, as well as the games and services associated with it, for at least 30 seconds. Of course, there is a high threshold of views over which money will not be paid. To date, Microsoft has already paid Machinima users about $ 5,000 for more than 1.2 million views of positive videos in relation to the Xbox One.

Machinima and Microsoft contract immediately leaked to the Internet and became public. Some of his moments surprised the audience a lot and raised a number of questions regarding the honesty of such an advertising campaign. For example, Microsoft requires that the published videos contain extremely positive reviews and in any case not carry the criticism or even the slightest comment to the Xbox One. Also, owners of video blogs are not recommended to indicate that their video is sponsored by Microsoft, so it will be very difficult to separate the truth from "paid flattery." Of course, no one has the right to disclose the terms of the deal with Microsoft either, so as not to spoil the company's reputation.

The fact that Microsoft does not recommend advertising the fact of payment for positive feedback, goes against US trade laws. Such a violation could have led to legal disputes for the corporation, so at the moment the advertising campaign was briefly suspended in order to make the necessary edits to the contract with its participants. All video-bloggers whose works are paid for, will henceforth be required to add to their videos a remark that this video is part of the Microsoft advertising campaign. Such a correction of the contract should bring some clarity to the situation.

It is rather strange to see such steps on the part of Microsoft marketers in the light of the fact that they constantly share with the journalists new and new information about the success of the Xbox One. According to representatives of the company, the new console scatters from store shelves like hotcakes, and in December went ahead in sales of its rival Playstation 4 in the United States. As it turned out a little later, Xbox One overtook PS4 in sales only because the Japanese console was completely sold out in almost all retailers, and in the second half of December it was simply nowhere to buy. But the Xbox One, on the contrary, you can buy in almost any store.

Anyway, this step of Microsoft has already attracted the attention of the public and caused a lot of debate on the Web. EA, which releases the Battlefield, Sims and Need for Speed ​​series of games, decided to follow in the footsteps of its Redmond counterparts and stated that it was ready to pay $ 10 for each 1000 video views advertising their games. And how do you, dear readers, feel about such advertising tricks by large companies?

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/business-analitics/microsoft-oplachivaet-polozhitelnye-otzyvy-o-svoej-konsoli-xbox-one.html.