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Life & Arts

Consumers need to weed out planted reviews

Leet Speak

Derek Lanphier

Ever heard of a "plant?" It’s when a company inserts one of its own employees into a setting with consumers. This planted person turns out to be the most enthusiastic person in the group about the product in question, and gets everyone else pumped about the product. They think, Hey, that guy seems to really like this thing. It must be awesome. I’ll take six.

Today’s example comes from the EA Games Web site. Under the coming Xbox game, Black, there are several consumer-written reviews, most of them explaining how they are pumped about the game. However, to the keen eye, one sticks out. It reads: "An EA Games masterpiece! Black is probably the most stunning EA game ever. The visuals are so stunning for the Xbox. Although I love playing online, Black should definitely be focused on an intense, single-player experience. Black is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Black is the No. 1 shooter of the year for Xbox."

This, my friends, is most blatantly a plant. Other costumers can tell, too, because they were sure to post their own reviews in mockery of the EA plant.

Obviously, a person who writes these modest customer reviews is just trying to express that he likes the game. Why would someone use words like "stunning?" I just don’t see that happening normally, especially not in a form you never see online from anyone except those who are getting paid to write reviews. Most of the time you see stuff like, "Man, this game rocks. I really like it." And you’re lucky to have even a minimal amount of punctuation in there.

My next question is, how would this person know how good the single-player or multiplayer is when the game doesn’t even come out until the end of February? 

No one has played this game outside of the people at EA, so how would an average Joe know, "Black should definitely be focused on an intense, single-player experience"?

This sheds new light on the extent of EA’s greed. Who actually reads those customer reviews on a supplier’s Web site? People rely on magazines and major gaming Web sites they trust to review games fairly, although I could write another article about how those can be crooked, too ­ (cough, Gamespot.com, cough). If you buy a game online because Tommy from Alabama said it was good, you deserve to get a crappy product.

Three cheers for subtlety, EA.
 

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