So either Square are being incredibly clever with their advertising OR they are just incredibly dumb.
I'm not sure which.
Firstly they have banned the use of all video and sound to be used if you alter them in any way or make money from them, this means no reviews will be posted on youtube (aside form very specific ones like possibly IGN), many big youtube creators are boycotting the game and even things like video guides of boss fights from normal users that make no money from them could lead to the youtube video creators getting in trouble or having their channels deleted. Almost all the big youtube channels that were goign to cover or review XIV now aren't and many of the XIV specific channels like mrhappy are reconsidering how much support they can now give the game.
They have also apparantely banned people from the forums for discussing things like gay marriage.
Now to me it seems they are desperately trying to cause controversy here, is this an attempt to get a ton of interest in the game that way or are they just being dumb? These kinds of controversial moves are deffinately going to get XIV a ton of negative coverage across the net and the only reason the company would do this to an already shakey title imo is for that coverage. Is there no such thing as bad press? It's quite interesting that this only covers XIV.
The youtube issues for instance could be changed at any time, once it gets them a ton of interest and discussion about this game they can remove it and they got a huge ton of free viral marketing.
So yeah do you think the are being smart and doing it for the marketting taht will follow the uproar or are they just really that dumb?
Edited, Aug 29th 2013 5:12am by preludes