NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdrakeh" data-source="post: 4569142" data-attributes="member: 13892">I completely respect what you're getting at here, but you're talking about an incestual and untrustworthy culture of marketing. As long as this arrangement produces results and game designers place more value on profit than honesty — it ain't gonna change. This isn't an isolated thing, it's a movement. Now, just so we're clear, I hate this thing. I hate this thing with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. I've hated this type of marketing ever since certain online co-ops started endorsing it years ago. I've hated it when coordinated posting efforts have turned every thread on the front page of RPGNet into a promotion for Hot New Game. I've hated it every time that I bought a game only to find out that it was sub-par crap being misrepresented by the author's online buddies.*I've hated it every time that a publisher flipped out when I gave them an honest review as opposed to a Glowing Ad Copy review — because that's what they had gotten accustomed to receiving from their friends. There are now entire forums dedicated to friends reviewing the games of friends or fellow business partners in a positive, glowing, light <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />So, yeah, I feel you — but I also know that it's out of my hands. Calling out those who engage in this kind of crap by name won't make it go away (as much as I wish that it would). <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/cry.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":.-(" title="Cry    :.-(" data-shortname=":.-(" />*Just to be clear, not all shilled games that I've purchased are crap (sadly, though, many of them were).</blockquote>

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