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Sections: UnknownPlayer Reloaded!
Posted by Div Devlin 
“... And the pantheon of gaming gods looked down from the heavens, and spoketh thus "let one be delivered who shall speaketh to the gamers, so they can blindly follow his words, and bring them to their salvation!”
And so it was, the rebirth of Dr.TwisTer (we love to recycle icons) has been reborn in the form of UnKnownPlayer. Yes, the five-year gaming cycle is true! With a wildly entertaining tale of Ubi Soft Marketing to Crush, UnKnown Player has released yet another "Journalistic Masterpiece" riddled with holes and devoid of facts in which he let's you, "the faithful reader judge for yourself!" in another diatribe. Well, I'm never one to blindly follow what is being presented to me, so I decided to look into this little article presented to us, and did I find some stuff out. Let's look back at history for a moment. Reflection is good. Really! Trust me on this, as it allows you to learn from history, and not to repeat the mistakes from the past. UnKnown Player hosted a chat, in which Ubi Soft disclosed that they hoped to reward their writers who were part of a featured program, which, was still in testing, called the Heralds. As truth was learned, they cried foul when one of their writers who was involved directly in some of the upcoming events within a closed beta was excluded from this program. UnKnown Player also failed to mention that former UP staffer, Rasputin, was placed into the program by Vosx at UP's request when the Heralds started and was also promised to receive the same rewards as other heralds as was told to UP, except Rasputin quit the UP staff and moved on. Later a chat of the staff appeared on select Shadowbane fan-sites (they have been removed) documenting that they were now looking to unleash fury upon those who excluded them. Later they [UnknownPlayer] apologized for the actions and took responsibility for being on crack. Please send me some, k thanks. Cause, ya know, they are "Journalists." In today's breaking news article they write how Ubi Soft has a new aggressive marketing campaign in which they host a contest where fans could win prizes from Ubi Soft. All the fans need to do is go onto the forums of their competitors and post articles saying how "Superior" Shadowbane was to all else. To prove you did it, you would have to cut/paste the text of what you wrote and send it to Ubi Soft's marketing department to be entered to win. Supposedly it's next to the Shadowbane slogan that says "Mercilessly Multiplayer." Reading comprehension is hard, after all as "Journalist's" they would be able to see that the actual slogan is "Massively Merciless." Not that I'm petty or anything, but when right off the bat, you supposedly have a screen cap of pages that have been removed, you would quote it correct! So, this makes one wonder how much else could be wrong? I'm seeing a pattern here Dede! So, with that said, we go and take a gander at these actual contest rules and what you should do. Players of Shadowbane are encouraged to suggest sites that cover Online Gaming, look for specific threads that happen to mention Shadowbane. Direct from UnKnownPlayer: "Read some threads and find out if there are any discussions that you could enter to say something about Shadowbane."Being a spin-doctor makes you eligible I suppose to be a "Journalist" as UP writes. "Alongside the hip logo of "Mercilessly Multiplayer" was a description for a contest where fans could win prizes from Ubi Soft if they just went onto the forums of their competitors and posted articles saying how "Superior" Shadowbane was to all else."There is definitely a change in the verbiage from what was originally introduced for this contest, and the way it is presented to you, "the faithful reader" by UnKnownPlayer, as I fail to see anyplace where it specifically says, "Go thrash the competitors boards and their products." Nor does it say to hijack threads. What my interpretation of the above message is, breaking it down for the illiterates that failed third grade reading is, go see who is saying Shadowbane sucks, and have an intelligent debate promoting the game or, find a thread where someone is curious about Shadowbane and discuss it. To become eligible for a reward in the contest one must return to the M80 Marketing site, post a direct link, and a copy of the message posted. There is even a disclaimer, "Please do not be rude or insulting as this will reflect poorly on us. However try to be informative and point out areas where Shadowbane (the game) is superior. Good luck!"In 1876 there was an invention called the telephone that changed the world, with the birth of this invention it allows people to communicate with others over vast distances. Unknown Player states in his article that he attempted to contact representatives from Ubi Soft regarding this. What I find interesting is that I was able to contact several people and ask the following questions and get answers regarding this entire fiasco on the part of UP after several hours of phone tag. I also in fact asked them "at your convienvence please respond time permitting." Perhaps it's all in presentation? Our first call went to an official company spokesperson in the marketing department for ubi.com. One would think that if a contest promoting Shadowbane with an outside marketing company were in fact in progress they would be involved. What is the relationship between Ubi Soft and M80? Will they be working to promote the Shadowbane game upon release? Which we learned that currently M80 is 'developing' several strategies for Shadowbane both prior to, and after, the release of the game. Quickly searching for press releases that have officially announced marketing campaigns or relationships with Ubi Soft for Shadowbane we cannot find anything regarding M80 and Shadowbane. Why is that? Because nothing has been officially released. That means there are no contests running. No campaigns aggressively marketing Ubi Soft products. UnKnown Player reportedly contacted one person, Mike Steele who is the Director of MMO Operations for ubi.com regarding this and was told the same thing we learned, "that this site was only marketed to beta testers." Beta testers, that would mean an NDA no? Beta testers, that would mean still in testing, no? So many questions! Not enough answers. But, contradictions nonetheless as UP [UnKnownPlayer] already stated he was unable to reach or contact all involved parties for comment. We also discovered and later confirmed with Ubi Soft, that this site was in testing itself, and all contests and content were being debated by those sifting through it with a fine tooth comb. The posting contest was simply an idea, it had not been released, and was already slated to be removed because of how it would be perceived, strangely enough - UnKnown Player decided to release this lynching after the decision to test a new idea was implemented, and the page took down. Interesting timing and a stroke of genius for Yellow Journalism at its Jerry Springer worst! Why no press releases? Nothing has been decided and released yet! Let's take a quick stroll over to M80 fast shall we. Client listings, none for Ubi Soft. Contact's page, has a phone number. Not to hard to call and ask if they are currently running any media/marketing campaigns for the Ubi Soft product Shadowbane. Even has the person to call, Jeff. Of course the answer is no, as nothing is running. So why bother with this whole article? Because you are all a bunch of idiots! Why remove a contest that has not been released? As Eldin would have said, "Because it's a grand conspiracy!" Wouldn't have anything to do with getting feed back from the testers in beta who were under an NDA to take a look at how they would participate in such an event. Learning after invaluable feed back that it perhaps as originally introduced needed to be developed more. Nah. As a "Journalist" would it be considered unethical to ask a competitor's views on a story prior to speaking to "all involved parties" and then quoting the competitor? I guess it would be no different then providing private emails or private chat logs for that matter depending on the site. If you check some of the sites listed from this contest that is not a contest, you will see not pro-Shadowbane posts, but a vast majority of posts by players in those games, complaining about that specific game. If anything, Shadowbane fans rip on Shadowbane fan-sites more about Shadowbane! Fact-finding and follow-up reporting is hard for "Journalists." So, in the end we see a bitter group of people who were told that they were not allowed to play, unless they played by the rules continuing a bitter abusive denunciation towards a company that if anything did more for them, then any other company has done for a media site in the past several years. The only thing that is missing for the rebirth of Dr.TwisTer is for UnKnownPlayer to approach a gaming company with a business proposal for an exclusive contract promoting community and guild services for players in that specific game charging the players $3.00 to be a part of a program for that game, and hosted on their journalism site. But in true Black Snow irony (another UnKnown Exclusive) a cool story about a specific gaming site who themselves adopt the tactics of the group they exposed by carrying out negative attack stories in retribution for failing to pay money for “community services bundles contracts” to be hosted by yours truly. Sounds like it's a bad idea to say no to UP's business proposal's, because your gaming company will pay the price later, should you refuse to pay earlier. Sounds like Black mail to me! But then again leave it to UP staffer Sarcerok to tell the world the truth “This smells of blackmail, unless we want ubi to blow us more.” Oh! Wait, I heard they already did that and were declined! I guess they should have a grudge towards Ubi Soft after all. Rejection is hard. Not giving in to blackmail is even harder too, or so I have heard. Discuss: Cry me a river here. Not responsible for slander or libel!
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