Suspect Journalism, Video Game Style

We know that giving undue praise is a staple of journalistic politics.  An old and basic science, just lavish a project with praise and the chances of set visits, exclusives and swag will come eventually.  It happens in movie coverage a lot.

It also happens in other spheres as well.  A good example to remind us is in video gaming.  Recently Activision revealed the trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.  It has a staggering 400,000+ dislikes, which is a result of the game being generic futuristic garbage, despite fans demanding something more realistic like a return to WW2 in recent years.  The exact opposite of what they wanted.

Now in apparent damage control, Activision has invited select individuals to play the game.  And their praise is very high.  But there’s one problem, a trend among the publicity Tweets.  In fact, more than a trend, they all appear to say the exact same thing;

There are more of these, but you get the point.  Tacitly, this covers various industries from music to movies.  We’ll let you sample this stuff, as long as… y’know.  And when you get to say ‘I’ve seen X-BRAND first’, that means more coverage, more followers etc.  But rarely has it been this blatant.

Evidently an oversight on the PR team.