Can we have a mature discussion about the very serious issue of the blatant and shameless shilling that is currently...

Can we have a mature discussion about the very serious issue of the blatant and shameless shilling that is currently going on in the Video Game community?

It's getting out of control, the worst kind are the Astroturfers who come to places like Sup Forums and act (very poorly mind you) like they're "one of us" "in with the crowd" and "Hip to our annoyances" and proceed to state opinions that are completely anti-consumer, pro-corporation nonsense, while having the AUDACITY to act like everyone agrees with them before anything is even posted.

How the hell do you people stand this blatant invasion of your culture? I'm not stupid enough to say that my entire identity is being a "gamer", but for fucks sake, this is one of my favorite hobbies and it sickens me to look around the forums and communities I use to discuss it and see these fucking hollow puppet people.

>Post something positive about a game
>"Durr hurr shilling"
>Post something negative about a game
>"what's up with all the shill threads? hurr"

It's blown way out of proportion.

i wish Sup Forums were to shut down for 6 months and then come back

Worst company doing this right now is Konami. they are running mad damage control right now, with their bullshit "win you back campaign"

Meanwhile their shills are sitting around here shilling it up with their copy-and-paste threads that say "Now that moron kojima is gone, MGS will be good again!", yeah, no. Konami has been shit for a long time and any silent hill fans know it (maybe that's why OP used silent hills pic)

If you see someone suck konami's dick, they are either a shill or some uninformed that they shouldn't be speaking up (in which case they are just as bad)

I would appreciate that starting on Persona 5's release date, definitely.

The sooner you realize that there aren't actually any shills here, the better off you're going to be.

Trolls are always looking for whatever you idiots decide is the next fictitious boogeyman, and they exploit it for as long as you fall for it. The notion of "shills" is just another one of the things on the list that they know works really well.

There aren't any shills here. Reddit is just another website that almost every single faggot here visits on a semi-regular basis. There aren't any actual SJWs or "tumblrettes" here. No one actually cares about what games, publishers, and/or platforms you like. There isn't some "anti-weeb normalfag" element that's invaded this site.

All of that shit (and much more) is just trolls being trolls, and you're going to have a much better time here when you finally figure this out.

What IS actually true is that, for better or worse, the Sup Forums board has been the landing point for newfags to this site for a great many years now. As such, "Sup Forums troll culture" is what they learn, and when they finally end up on other boards they take this nonsense with them -- absolutely convinced that acting like a complete meme-spouting retard is somehow "oldfag futaba board culture."

If you think people care about shilling on Sup Forums, you're mistaken.
Just a bunch of paranoia so you don't feel so irrelevant.

Discussing shills is meaningless because you can't fight them.

for every legitimate and proven example of astroturfing there are 1000 examples of baseless accusations of shilling with zero proof other than "he said something nice about a game". I routinely see people being accused of shilling games that have been out for several years, and games that won't even release for several years.

It's a fucking meme response at this point.

ths shill boogeyman doesn't really exist.

It's just retards shitposting.

I don't know what is wrong with you. Konami is making all the right moves as of late.

>trying to normalize ledditors
>trying to normalize shilling
>trying to normalize tumblrfags
>trying to normalize normies
Holy shit, all kinds of cancer in ONE post!

>reddit

Opinion discarded.

>say something positive about a game
>get called a shill
>criticize a game
>get called a shitposter or falseflagger
>use more than 1000 characters to describe a game
>get called a shill
>make a thread for an indie game that's been out for years
>get called a shill

Go fuck yourself. Even when there is blatant and literal advertising, which has happened in a few cases, it just ends up getting drowned out by ironic marketing threads that devolve into a spiral of memetic shitposting. Sup Forums will literally do a marketer's job for them.

If you're talking about the NMS thread the main "shill" in there just an user trying to force another Tortanic.

You are genuinely retarded if you think that shilling is anything more than a problem relating to a very small subset of games. Also I'll bet you're one of those faggots who screams shill anytime a thread about an upcoming game is made, and if this is the case I urge you to murder the fuck out of yourself

And here's one now. These are the exact people I'm talking about in my post.

You see this shit right here, OP? This is just a troll. It's not a shill, it's not an "oldfag", it's not a Redditor or tumblrette. It's just a shitposter.

It's more a problem of people not being able to realise what is and isn't a shill. You have threads where no one is clearly shilling yet there's always some retard who has to claim there are.

In some cases it's gotten to a point where shitposters are actually shilling shit for free and don't realise it, which is why the two often get confused with each other.

Looks like OP really hit a nerve and the shills are out in force to defend themselves.

This
Calling out shills inevitably decreases the quality of the board. It's a shitpost in the sense that it doesn't contribute anything to any discussion, most of the time it's directed at regular people talking about vidya, and even if you happened to find that one shill in a sea of random guys, he's not going to magically tell his company to stop doing that just because some user called him a fucking faggot shill

...

There is literally no reason you would be so quick to jump to the defense of faggots invading our board, or trying so hard to pretend something doesn't exist (in order to make it appear normal), if you were not a shill yourself. Looks like you get real mad when you see anyone disagree with your narrative.

There isn't any narrative to disagree with, that's my point. There isn't some board invasion going on. (At least not one that hasn't been steadily going for years now.) There's no shilling, there's no Reddit, there's none of this dumb shit actually happening.

Look at this fucking shill shilling the presence of shills

>posts describing the reality of trolls
>proceeds to feed the trolls

Raising awareness is fighting them, once you start seeing their shit it becomes extremely easy to just ignore it and let it fade, instead of feeding into it by arguing with them.

It's easier in general for me to believe that perceived shilling, like the constant battleborn threads and the current no man's sky threads are made by a shitposter rather than a shill.

Some people just are completely retarded.

Shills only come up every major release.

Implying he's trolling and not just a kid who drank the "muh sekrit klubhaus" Kool-Aid.

I suppose he could be a troll, though.

>"there's no reddit" he says immediately before saying "everyone browses reddit"
Hmm, could this be a shill desperate to convince people that any problems they might perceive don't actually exist so that they can keep invading the board, or a perfectly normal user just like me?

You should probably ask this over on Reddit.

>Says there are no shills
>companies are very open about hiring shills and you can find tons of examples of game companies doing so.

You're stupid.

To be honest, no problem here. I actually find the Xbox shills the best, they're like "You are hyped about the new Xbone r-right?" and get assblasted in every single thread.

You're pretty riled about something that has no significance whatsoever. Maybe you should grow up, go outside, do some exercise, get some sun and not be a whining little prick?

And how much did they pay you to say that?

>the shills have invaded our secret club
>everyone who has anything at all to say about a video game is a shill, and should be treated as such
>any and all on-topic discussion here is shilling, without exception

Yeah, okay.

How about you shut the fuck up? What I'm saying is correct. Deal with the facts. THERE. IS. NO. SHILLING.

Remember when we called them "viral marketers?"

>$0.01 has been deposited into your Bank of India account

I'm not OP but is it really so laughable to be upset about this? People like us come to places like this to exchange ideas and opinions, and that entire undertaking is compromised once you start introducing fake opinions and ideas. It makes the free exchange of information basically worthless.

>replies to his own post pretending to be the person he initially replied to just to set up his next shitpost

And they say Sup Forums doesn't spill over to other boards.

Cool, doesn't matter. Say it with me: There is no shilling.

Wow, your post really fired up the old noggin for a moment there.

I guess I am #MentallyShill now

It's hard to tell whether someone is that retarded or pretending to be.

THESE ARE CAPITALS LETTERS DENOTING THE FINAL POINT IN THE MATTER.

I remember when "viral" was an autoban.
Lets bring back those times and autoban "shill".

the fuck are you talking about? There you go again trying to act like "the relatable channer" with your epic "samefag detection skills".

By the way, cancerous Twitch maymays go on Twitch and Reddit, not on Sup Forums.

Keep repeating it! That'll make it the truth! Works for the mainstream media I guess.

Bethesda are the worst. Todd even avatar-fags.

I'm the poster you were pretending to be, genius.

I'm gonna keep saying it until you accept it. There is no shilling.

Agreed. Why the fuck did moot remove that last year?

Fuck your echo chamber. You want to blame any differing views on some made up bogeyman. That way only your opinion is allowed. Well go suck shit. That has never been how things work.

By the way, nice "I'm a 15 year old anarchist" load of horseshit there. Gamers have been pro-corporate for decades. You aren't some sage above it all. And culture? Our culture is bitching at each other over inane things. Yet coming back for more anyway.

It sounds like you're the motherfucker that doesn't get it.

"Hey I think anyone who talks about shilling should be banned! I'm not a shill though!"

How stupid do you fucks think we are?

There might be paid shills, but they're on sites full of normies that actually buy games, not clammy neet pirate cesspools like Sup Forums.

The only exception are third world indie devs who are courting the Sup Forums audience, for example yandere dev and the south americans who made valhalla.

Moot also removed the cuck filter after a short while
He just wanted to watch everything burn
I think he hates us

What people don't understand is that being paid isn't what makes you a shill, it's your inability to use logic or reason and blindly defend your point of "company xyz can do no wrong" that makes you a shill.

Some shills are paid, some shills are stupid, and some shills are trolls. At the end of the day, shills are shills and shills are fucking annoying.

Posters like this one have an ulterior motive: the total destruction of the last shreds of remaining videogame discussions on Sup Forums to pave the way for more reheated Sup Forumsr9k/s4s/tv/pol/reddit memes

>fake opinions and ideas
Yeah, because ironic and blatant shitposting hasn't driven this board's quality into the fucking ground. No, it's marketers that are a problem.

>thinks Sup Forums isn't mainstream.

You know how many hits a day this place gets fucker? Sup Forums may have used to be some kinda "off the beaten path" sancum of free speech, but you fuckers are basically reddit with less rules at this point. Deal with it.

prove it or leave

*puts finger on your lips* Shhhhh, don't be so angry, there's no such thing as a reddit invasion. *jabs that finger into your nose* Now shut the fuck up and stop shitposting.

>What people don't understand is that being paid isn't what makes you a shill
You might want to look up the definition of shill

>viral
>cancer
>cuck
>shill

Filtered. Problem solved.

>Our culture is bitching at each other over inane things.
No, that's what you think chan culture is, not gamer culture.

>doesn't know how to use the reply feature
>everyone else is an outsider and a shill, though
Seems legit.

You first.

I don't know what you're talking about, I'm the guy that posted these:

>moot

I always find it funny when people try to start serious topics on here.

These people aren't fucking capable of it man. Look at these replies. There's nary a mature thought in them. Just a bunch of shit posters half-explaining opinions that make no sense.

This sub was better when people here weren't so damn paranoid.

Trolling aside, you're right.

But what if I genuinely like that thing you don't like, OP?
What if I like that thing so much that I talk about it and why I like it?

We had a good run but astroturfing is here to stay. You can't assume anything said on the internet is impartial. Enthusiast forums have been dead for years.

It's only going to get worse. In 10 years or less the entirety of social media will be shillbots arguing amongst themselves.

That's the difference, you can form a well thought out opinion about why you like and it and discuss it. Shills don't do that. They don't know enough about what they're shilling to talk about it for more than 5 minutes.

"Oh man the apple watch is so cool I can send texts on it!"

Yeah, but what don't you like about it? What annoys you about it?

"..."

Maybe that's because OP instantly assumed that an invasion of shills is actually a thing, instead of starting the thread with a more neutral, discussion-provoking question
If the premise of the thread is retarded then the posters are going to treat it as such

Don't be le mad, brah. It's just a le prank. But thanks for the gold, stranger.

There's a shit ton of shills right fucking now.

Blizzard
CDPR
Nintendo
Bethesda

And don't spew out shit like
>say something positive about a game
>get called a shill
I've been here since fucking 2006 and I've never been directly called a shill even though I love a shit ton of games and post positive stuff about them.

If your posts looks like a fucking ad then no wonder someone calls you a shill.

>Second DLC for x, y will be released on 1st of z!
>Over 25 hours of content
>4 new armor sets!
>Long, interesting questlines!
>Stunning visuals!
>Completely new, handcrafted map!
>Beautiful soundtrack made by somerandomguy!
>And much more!

Some people just want a safe space.
The problem is that they want Sup Forums to be THEIR safe space.

It really became obvious back when DmC and Bioshock Infinite were upcoming. All the buzz surrounding those two games was so blatantly artificial you'd have to be a fool to not notice.

That's a completely fair assumption to make though.

>I've been here since fucking 2006 and I've never been directly called a shill

>works on my machine

>advertise on Sup Forums
>everyone calls you a faggot and tells you to go fuck yourself
>thread gets instantly buried by other threads and is gone in a few hours

>advertise on reddit
>make an AMA
>get pinned and highly visible for weeks
>might even make frontpage
>reddit has many times the unique pageviews that Sup Forums does

Then you're a shill doing it for free haha :)

There's plenty of examples of shilling being a very real thing, there's no question that there's shills eveywhere.

The thing is, I don't think it's as big a problem as OP does. But make no mistake, there are of course shills, however, they don't post in threads like this.

See shills have a very basic job, they post about what they're paid too, and they ignore everything else. When they "argue" they don't actually argue, they say the same thing over and over again until you give up.

Shills are real, but you can normally tell when you see them.

>Let's have a mature discussion about shills!
>And by the way, anyone disagreeing with me is a shill.

>cuck
filter this for a randomly chosen period of 24 hours with week long autobans just to fuck with fags

Can't wait until the word shills is banned permanently from Sup Forums.

You wouldn't be called a shill if you weren't a shill, shill

This fucker gets it.

Thanks for being an adult with a functioning brain.

...

goddamn... Star Citizen is looking hella epic bro

It's hilarious that you people actually think there's some planned effort to bring down this board.

take off your tin foil hats.

Show me exactly where and how I can become a paid shill. I need them neetbux.

when is this word being wordfiltered? Wasn't the viral/viral marketing phase Sup Forums went through wordfiltered for a period too?

california and poo in loo ips should be banned

Nice try, shill.

Sure, but then don't complain when people express their disagreement. There's nothing much to argue here- OP claims that he constantly sees shills, others tell him that he's being paranoid, now what? Throw insults at each other?

Nice try shill, any and all counterpoints to OP have been
>"Shilling doesn't exist! Now shut up and stop talking about it!"
>"Shilling should be filtered so no one talks about it ever again!"
>"I'm just a completely normal and ordinary Sup Forums poster, can't you see my reaction image I picked from google images? I'm totally not a shill!"

Remember when Sup Forums had a report option for "advertising" next to rule violation and illegal content? It's gone now.

At least the shills actually fucking talk about video games.

I see your double agent shilling for what it is, you double shill.

(yo