In the past few years i have seen many video games and media companies using unethical business practices to curate reviews to prop up their products and make is seem like they are better than they are in order to trick people into buying them. Movie reviewers and game reviewers are getting paid or given incentives by the companies that they are reviewing for to give them inflated scores in order to fool consumers and propogate social and ideological positions. This practice not only attempts to promote propaganda, but it also robs share holders of money by damaging the value and image of the companies they are invested in.
Example 1
Disney - star wars the acolyte
This show cost disney $200 million to make and recently disney has lost $4 billion in streaming revenue. When this show first came out all critics were rating it around 93% positive, but users were around 37%.
Example 2
Ubisoft / ea games - dragon age the veilguard
This game was set to be a blockbuster hit, but due to the pushing of many social agendas it has been soundly rejected by gamers. The average review for this game was 9/10 by sites like kotaku, ign, and game rant just to name a few. Ubisoft actively denied any potential for review by anyone who had a soft first impression of the game even after they flew many of them out to their studio to let them play it in person. This game will be lucky if it sells 1 million copies, which for a game that cost around $300 million, is a massive loss for the company.
Example 3
Sony - concord
Ign, gamerant, and others rate this game around a 7/10 giving a fales ompression of its quality, this game ended up being so bad thay sony had to backtrack and refund all copies of the game netting an estimated $400 million loss, the game and studio have since been shut down.
Example 4
Ubisoft / ea games / disney - star wars outlaws
This game had another curated group of reviewers available, who were also incentivied by and all access pass to disney land while they were reviewing it. Its initial reviews were around 8/10 or higher. This game has only sold around 1 million copies, and represents a loss of around $200 million.
I could go on with examples, but there is a common thread here.
Each of these peices of media were pushing a social policy.
Each of the reviewers were currated by the company and given incentives for good reviews and barred from reviewing if they gave bad reviews.
Each of them is a publicly traded company.
All of them have generated losses for the companies in the $100’s of millions.
The critic reviews had a large disparity with user reviews
This is a method of ideological capture using unethical and illegal business practices, attempting to not only misinform the consumer, but also push a social agenda. Most of these companies consult with DEI consultants like Sweet Baby Inc in order to make them more progressive. This content represents massive losses in both image and revenue for the companies that have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.
If you or anyone else has examples of other times this has happened now or in the past please post them here. The media companies and the reviewers need to be held accountable for misleading the public.