Okay s fair warning, things might get a little talky and quasi-political. A leaked Machinima that was brought to light by Ars Technica, reveals that Microsoft offered to pay the multi-channel network's youtubers and extra $3 CPM if they were to verbally mention Xbox One as the console being played and too feature at least 30 seconds of gameplay footage within the first 2 mins of the video.
Now perhaps I should explain what CPM means. CPM in basic terms means Cost Per Thousand, it's advertsing lingo. I won't bore you too much with details, but basically youtubers are paid a certain flat rate per 1,000 viewers. Obviously the larger your channel's reach the more they are willing to pay.
So for the sake of clarity here is an example: so lets say there's a youtuber who's videos gain on average 500,000 viewers on one video, so a company decided to pay 5$ per 1,000 of that 500,000(This may be a little high or low, not 100% sure on the rates, it's different with each company ), so we can calculate how much money a youtuber would make from one video by taking 5 and multiplying it 500, that would mean the company would pay, 2,500 for that one video. Of course YouTube takes the lion share of that revenue, I do not personally know the split but we can assume it's between 65-75%. but that is basically how the system works, based on the very scarce knowledge we have.
Okay so lets move on. I'm sure your asking yourself exactly why this is such a big deal. That's a fair question, I mean endorsements happen all the time. But it's whats in the terms and conditions of the contract that makes things very interesting. First things first, part of the agreement was to actually keep things under wraps. None of the youtubers were not allowed to mention that they were being paid to endorse the new console.
They were also not allowed to say anything negative, or disparaging in regards to Xbox One or any of it's games. Hmm...very sketchy indeed. Ars Technica believes that this agreement may violate the FTC's (Federal Trade Commission) guidelines for endorsements in advertising, which requires any such deals be transparent " when there is a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement"-Ars Technica
Another stipulation was that Youtubers must tag their video "XB1M13" between January 13 and February 10th to be eligible for payment. The deal however was to end after these video reached 1.25 million views, which means that actual cost put into this was minimal, and it appears they've reached their goal by January 16th.
So lets be real for a minute. One, I do not know how real this news story is. It could very well be yellow journalism at it's finest, but given how things work now with advertisements and how much power wealthy corporations have these days, I wouldn't put it past Microsoft. Second, this sort of thing happens a lot with in games journalism. If they can manipulate the ones who send the messaging, then they can in-turn manipulate the consumers.
majority of the mainstream gaming new sites, and game "journalists" are guilty of this. There's plenty of evidence out there that. I don't see it as something that will change, so we must adapt. It's all about following a person you trust to give you truthful and honest reports and reviews. For me I follow Adam Sessler and TotalBiscuit wherever they go. I trust their opinions and their skills. I think the thing we can take away from this is that there is most likely a lot more under-the-table dealings out there across all forms of media, and sadly there is no way for us to know. We just have to wait for one of them to slip up.
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