Microsoft Is Offering YouTube Personalities Good Money To Promote Xbox One

Xbox One YouTube

UPDATE: Microsoft has provided us two statements implying that Machinima was responsible for supplementing their original agreement with additional clauses. The added verbiage forced content creators to only speak positive about Machinima and Microsoft products and to hide the fact that they’d been paid to do so.

ORIGINAL STORY: Reports surfaced earlier this evening that Microsoft was paying YouTube influencers a fistful of dollars to promote Xbox One have now been confirmed. For the sake of confirmation, we’ll use Machinima. This email (above) has been sent to some of the popular channel’s top personalities.

The amount offered is a great incentive for YouTuber’s to promote Xbox One content. Honestly, it’s hard to tell what effect this will have on the viewing community. Some may view this as everyday business, which it is, but some may lose faith in personalities that feature Xbox One content from here on out.

In all reality, this rate is a relatively low-cost solution for Microsoft to promote Xbox One. The amount being paid for 1.25M views would be $3,750, which pales in comparison to many other options.

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Dylan Zellmer

Dylan splits time between games journalism, designing video games, and playing them. Outside of his deep involvement in the games industry, he enjoys It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Shameless, A Song of Ice and Fire, fitness, and family.
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  • djkillia

    Desperate way of Advertisement with that money should of put into more games XD

  • Dennis Crosby

    Ok Microsoft and machiniam have a partnership so it make sense but why no one brought up the fact that Sony was paying Chris Smoove to promote the PS4. Why wouldn’t these companies use the biggest youtubers to promote what there selling. Millions of people view there content why not pay them for something there most likely going to mention anyway

  • dfd

    Cashwhores !!!!

    • aawells07

      Lmao what stupid comment. Are you saying you’re not?

  • bakasora

    eeewwwwwwhh

  • Darklurkr23

    a BIG OL 3 DOLLARS EH?

    • Per thousand views. Not a bad proposition considering some CPM services pay as little as $.20-.50 per thousand views.

  • peterpansyndrome94

    Microlowblow

    Desperation at its lowest!

    • Hates bad writers.

      It’s advertisment, Sony’s 3 PS4 ads during a single commercial break on TSN over Christmas should be considered desperate by your standards, too, or is it cool because it’s Sony? Half wit.

      • Neco The Sergal

        Just because PS4 was heavily marketed to be advertised on TV, on COMMERCIALS. Doesn’t make it desperate, it makes it that Sony is finally actually spreading awareness and has a budget in advertisement unlike PS3’s era.

        That’s not desperate, it’s business.

        THIS on the other hand is Microsoft trying to corporate under-the-table-like payments to promote viral marketing with zombie stats and a false sense of Popularity. Trying to create a ‘tipping point’ of consumer interest THAT DOES NOT EXIST. By people speaking of X1 like OH DAMN ITS X1 ITS SO COOL LOOK AT THIS GAMEPLAY. It’s like if you get people like Pewdiepie to play a game in Alpha or Beta and they’re playing it for 10-30 minutes and are having fun. Do you know how many of their fans rush out to buy the game to try it out?! TONS. They’re just trying to Milk that because they themselves, as a company who’s a complete laughing stock at the moment cannot advertise strongly enough.

        it is sneaky, and it is desperate. It’s low attempts at trying to garner a false sense of interest when again, most people prefer PS4 and understand what it offers, the demand is huge and it is not a lie. Only the supply and demand cannot be met.

        • Hates bad writers.

          I never said it was, you’re a fucking moron for thinking so. I was telling him that it was desperate BY HIS STANDARDS (please learn how the fuck to read, the paragraph just shows me how stupid you N4G trolls are).

          It wasn’t desperate at all, but it was sure as fuck annoying when I had to listen to the same song 4 times every 10 minutes.

          • Neco The Sergal

            Your response shows a clear indication that you need anger management.

          • Hates bad writers.

            Doesn’t make you any less wrong. Sorry, I just don’t like stupid people, they’re a disease.

          • Neco The Sergal

            My 4 Agrees compared to your 4 Disagrees tell me otherwise. Social constructivism is on my side as well as my grasp on logic

            You shouldn’t think yourself capable of judging the intelligence of those around you when you fail to grasp the flaws of your own intelligence or the lack there-of.

            Take care :3

          • Hates bad writers.

            “My 4 Agrees compared to your 4 Disagrees tell me “.

            Fallacy, grasping at straws, and group herding. Congratulations, you forfeited any argument you thought existed. “likes” mean nothing, and never will.

            Christains don’t like you, and disagree when you say God doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t. Prime example, enjoy.

            “:3”
            Sign of a child. Scientifically proven to be a core writing component for those who are socially immature.

          • Neco The Sergal

            “:3”

            [/Sign of a child. Scientifically proven]

            Scientifically proven

            Scientifically.

            LOL. Over a simple catface. ‘Grasping at straws’ just to justify your petty anger. Sorry little Timmy :3 If a single Catface can upset you this much I’ll repeat myself. :3 Seek Anger Management; a :3 shouldn’t upset you so much. :3 Among everything else that seems to rustle your jimmies so it seems. You’ll never be able to properly justify and persuade anyone that you’re infact Not an idiot or an argumentative dunce, you will infact remain this way until you Mature and do something called Growing up :3 Stop being a pseudo-intellectual too, that’ll help a bunch.

            Scientifically proven by the way.

            Much love <3 My last response, Neco.

          • Hates bad writers.

            Not was was I upset, I merely pointed it out. You confuse literally everything, don’t you? May the world have mercy on you.

          • Dane Bowman

            :3

          • the atheist

            loved that example as an atheist

          • Dane Bowman

            Me neither, kill yourself.

          • Hates bad writers.

            After you, I insist.

  • Hates bad writers.

    A company is advertising their product, those despicable bastards.

    • Daniel Dorestant

      You don’t see anything wrong with this?

      • 2twefgsdav

        Grab the pitchforks, commercials are next.

        • Daniel Dorestant

          A commercial doesnt have to be unbiased… Obviously not the same thing

      • Hates bad writers.

        No, since when has a YouTube personality had any integrity anyways? Angry Joe gives shit games good reviews, all the Battlefield guys happily role over and take EA’s dick, Machinima, and IGN are glorified advertisements anyways, and the same goes for pretty much anyone else. The only YouTube personality worth listening to is the one that doesn’t have advertisements playing.

        Sony is probably doing the same thing, granted not in the same way, but they have ads on videos without a doubt, invasive ones at that. For fuck sakes I couldn’t watch sports over the holidays without a PS4 ad coming on THREE FUCKING TIMES in a single commercial break. Both of these companies suck when it comes to advertising, it’s forced, and awkward. Nintendo gets a semi free pass because they rely on brand recognition, and word of mouth, of all things. Then again that’s probably because they’re cheap.

        • ray

          There is a HUGE difference in advertising, and paying people to give false reviews.

          • Hates bad writers.

            Nobody is reviewing anything. Especially since you’ll see that the order meant that they were to talk about it, play on it, show two minutes of footage, and mention the game they’re playing, something along those lines. No review in there.

            Not to mention this was Machinima doing this, Microsoft has denied it completely, and I know they didn’t do it because a multi billion dollar company isn’t near stupid enough to trust such an illegal NDA agreement with some retards on YouTube. Again on the legality because YouTube is a new form of advertisement it’s not actually clear in the law if it’s illegal or not, oddly enough.

            Machinima is stupid for writing up such things, but then again it’s advertisement, nobody is gong to care in a week, let’s all move along.

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  • Nokterian

    Desperation my god this is utterly disgusting..shame on you microsoft shame on you.

  • Amused

    They’re paying out a total of $3750, not $30k.

  • Danwain

    Just normal business as far as I can tell. Microsoft aren’t asking them to rave and rate the xbox one in high esteem, they’re just asking them to mention that the game is being played on their particular console. A load of moaning about nothing that goes on every day in every business.

  • verbal

    note to the author (and someone already commented saying this but your math is way off I’m afraid. They’re not paying $30K they’re paying $3,750 (and from the email you took a screenshot of that’s across many partners if they’re mass emailing their influencers with this offer). So not exactly ‘great’ money…

    • My mistake. Some YouTube videos have hundred of thousands of views, so a LP that receives 100K views is actually a pretty decent chunk of change.

      • ObrackBarama

        Wow… 300 bucks. Oooh.

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  • HeczTehFinezt

    I can already see CoD commentators signing up for this. Anyone else that has gameplay from separate platforms probably wont take advantage of this. Also, just because Sony puts up ads or commercials, doesnt mean desperation, its buisness. What Microsoft is doing now, thats desperation, not buisness.

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  • Los Illuminados

    How pathetic. Micro$oft is getting desperate. lol

  • Frohawk17

    This is a all time low for Microsoft , that’s the only tactics they have I’ll pay you to say good things . and not mentioning all the country’s they have bribed before this , sorry to say that’s only the 1st of many bribes to go around but now they crossed a line evolving actual people to sell there product for $$$$

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  • Dennis Crosby

    This has been going on for years and the only reason someone is saying something now is because Microsoft is involved in it now. It the document had Sony name on it would be a totally different story you see comments like “Sony the best they should pay youtubers who already promote the ps4″”ps4 ftw””I’m signing up tomorrow” yes Microsoft is doing something ton of company do on a daily bases

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  • B T

    This simply is NOT just Microsoft, folks. They were just stupid enough to get caught.

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  • ObrackBarama

    Wait, 3750$, but they say “good money”. Maybe if you live in Bangladesh.

    • BalramRules

      Pretty sure he was joking lol.

    • BalramRules

      And what the hell is up with that username?

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  • ObrackBarama

    Microsoft? Why does it say “Machinima would like to offer you 3$ blah blah blah”? Could it be Microsoft spend some ad dollars with machinima and *THEYRE* the ones playing the payola horsecrap?

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  • Mellow Jessica

    I’m sorry but isn’t this illegal both in USA and UK (per FTC and ASA, respectively), if the video-bloggers/personalities don’t disclose that they’ve been paid to promote the Microsoft product?

    (yes, it is illegal)

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  • o0RaWKeR0o

    XBox One is really flashy, but what is it, really? As it SHOULD be
    intended, a gaming console, its a bit piss poor. Its more of a way of
    marketing more Microsoft related products, and marketing any companies
    that have deals with Microsoft. The NFL, for example. This, obviously,
    is one more market strategy used to push sales of what is, in all
    actuality, a weaker console. Facts don’t lie, it is. It’s dodgy, illegal stealth marketing. It isn’t a new thing, only the foolish would believe that, but it
    isn’t something that should exist in the first place. If you are
    compelled or expected to be secretive about ANY kind of deal, the deal
    is most likely not worth doing. Microsoft’s
    hands are stained with so much BS, I’m really glad I didn’t buy into
    this console generation as of yet. I’m not convinced its worth the
    hassle, as I have a perfectly good working computer that outdoes the
    other choices. But, if I were to give any money to anything, it would be
    Sony, on the fact that even though they can be equally full of it and
    shady, like their brick bugs for example, which I personally find odd,
    they are, at the very least, a better console, and a less unbearable
    company. The gaming industry, and YouTube, are getting quite scary,
    indeed. I’m really concerned for the future of both at this rate,
    because people will eventually lose faith and trust in them, and begin
    to question everything. A damn shame.

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  • thisisthelist

    People who have a PS4 and/or like Sony think this is an underhanded travesty. People who have an Xbox and/or like Microsoft think this isn’t much of a story. Yawwwwwwwwwnn. Next.

    • john smith

      How could somelike sony or Microsoft there both evil corporation’s

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  • dsimms

    I wanna be a cashwhore, can I?