A sleuthy user annoyed at the amount of sub-par gaming-related links popping up on link clearinghouse reddit uncovered what appears to be a systematic attempt on the part of several semi-prominent gaming sites to artificially boost their traffic.
Per redditor Deimorz:
A user claiming to be a G4TV rep states that the spammer was initially paid with games, then with cash, while someone nominally from GamePro says, "We promise we'll stop, at least until the next time you catch us." Meanwhile, VGChartz's gamrFeed (which I haven't heard of, so, go them!) appears to claim responsibility for their contract laborer, but suspiciously omits key phrases like "never again" and "we totally fired that guy."
Redditors' collective reactions have been predictably vitriolic, with comments on related reddit threads numbering somewhere in the umpteen gajillion range.
Either someone's trying to pull off an epic meta-trolling against a few sites on their hitlist (which wouldn't surprise me, because hey, welcome to the internet), or some "gaming journalists" have been very naughty.
Per redditor Deimorz:
"After calling (several dozen accounts) out for spamming and having several fake accounts rally together against me (including a brand new one created just to help out!), I decided to start unraveling this and see just how major of an astroturfing operation they had going here....Having some loser put together a few dozen fake accounts and use them to give your lackluster content the appearance of popularity is hardly atypical if it's true, sure, but the fun really starts when the alleged incident spurs responses from purported members of the offending sites.
"....The spam for each domain started at a different time, but it was always initiated by (ringleader name here). GamePro was started first, about 11 months ago. G4TV came next, about 9 months ago. And GamrFeed most recently, about 4 months ago."
A user claiming to be a G4TV rep states that the spammer was initially paid with games, then with cash, while someone nominally from GamePro says, "We promise we'll stop, at least until the next time you catch us." Meanwhile, VGChartz's gamrFeed (which I haven't heard of, so, go them!) appears to claim responsibility for their contract laborer, but suspiciously omits key phrases like "never again" and "we totally fired that guy."
Redditors' collective reactions have been predictably vitriolic, with comments on related reddit threads numbering somewhere in the umpteen gajillion range.
Either someone's trying to pull off an epic meta-trolling against a few sites on their hitlist (which wouldn't surprise me, because hey, welcome to the internet), or some "gaming journalists" have been very naughty.
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