Are Content Creators Getting Paid To Make Negative Comments About Competitors?

An independent video game developer set off an intense debate across social media when he alleged content creators are being paid by competing developers to talk negatively about games.

Connor Drake, who develops a first-person shooter game called Operation: Harsh Doorstep, made a post on X alleging that content creators are being "paid off to do hit pieces on games that don't fork over cash for you." While Drake didn't necessarily directly allege this was happening to his game, he threatened "legal action" in a hypothetical scenario where it did.

He then made a subsequent series of posts and videos clarifying his point.

The allegations sparked up a heated conversation among gamers and gaming influencers about the nature of accepting cash in exchange for coverage. 

A Typical Content Creator / Company Relationship

Content creators getting paid to make content about products is fairly commonplace. In fact, we recently published an entire article about some of the different ways creators and brands work together. Even if you're a smaller creator with a few hundred followers on your YouTube channel, you might've been approached by companies that want to give you their product in exchange for a video talking about it. 

Typically, companies will either choose to work with a content creator on a project-by-project basis or establish a more longterm relationship through things like annual contracts and "partnership" programs. But the dynamics remain the same. The companies incentivize content creators to talk about their products. 

Some companies take a very hands-off approach to the content. In fact, many won't ask much of the creator except to use the correct names and brand assets. Other companies take a much stricter approach, requiring certain elements in the video and even requiring their own approval before a creator posts it. Most relationships between a creator and a brand fall somewhere in between. 

And that's because, if it really is a good relationship, the creator genuinely enjoys and evangelizes the brand and the brand trusts the creator to understand the best way to make content for their audience. 

So Do Companies Pay Content Creators To Talk Badly About Their Competitors?

This was the key allegation from Drake's original post that sparked a lot of ire. It's pretty bold to claim that another company is spending marketing budget not to promote their own product, but to talk trash about somebody else's. As many content creators pointed out, this just isn't a reality. 

Heck, even the most famous rap feud in recent memory between Kendrick Lamar and Drake was mostly about promoting their own music that took shots at the other person, not creating marketing assets that attacked the other party or paying people to post bad things about them.

That's not to say it couldn't happen, but the reality is it just doesn't, at least not on a widespread, verifiable scale. Connor Drake also ultimately walked this particular sentence back. He first clarified by saying that creators weren't being paid directly to talk badly about the game, but that creators who accepted money from other game studios were also being critical of his and other games.

He then ultimately said, "I'm not against people taking sponsorships from other studios. That's not what I'm talking about. I've said repeatedly that I'm okay with that, people need to eat. What I'm not okay with is these 'partner programs' where you are basically a paid employee, but then you don't tell your followers that when you make reviews blasting games...and then in the same video...tell everyone to go play the game that pays you, without telling anyone that you're paid. "

Where The Allegations Sit Now

In other words, Drake landed on a fairly defensible position: that people should disclose their financial relationships with companies if they could potentially be seen as a conflict of interest. And many do. But Drake also honed in on one specific instance in which YouTuber The Act Man posted a positive review of Delta Force without disclosing it was paid.

It's worth noting, The Act Man (who has nearly 2 million subscribers) also published a video apologizing for not disclosing the financial relationship, saying the review is a genuinely reflection of his feelings about the game, and saying he's donating the $48,000 he was paid. It's also worth noting this entire ordeal, including his apology video, happened a month before Drake made his post.  

But Drake's point still conflates a few things. First, it's a massive reach to call somebody a paid employee of a company simply because they accept money to promote their product. Nobody walks around alleging the celebrities who appear in Super Bowl commercials are employees. Nor do they preclude somebody who appears in a Dr. Pepper commercial from drinking a Diet Coke or speaking ill of Mr. Pibb. 

Drake himself has a YouTube channel with more than one million subscribers. He even posted a video critical of Delta Force a few months ago (though not specifically for gameplay reasons). His most recent video is also a sponsored video for a game similar to his, so it's safe to say Drake knows the difference between being a sponsor and being an employee. (Drake mentions in a comment that the money he's receiving from the sponsored video goes towards the development of Operation: Harsh Doorstep). 

Second, most people who get to the point of becoming longterm partners for a game or company get there because they have domain expertise and a following that trusts and respects them. The Act Man's video called out one franchise (Battlefield) for disappointing him and saying another (Delta Force) created a better game. This is an opinion he as a content creator is free to share with his audience whether Delta Force wants to pay him for saying it or not. And he very likely decided the most organic and genuine way to make this review was to compare a new game to a game he used to like (and has talked about in the past). 

The Fallout

Where the allegations started — that content creators are being paid to talk badly about rival games — and where they've landed — that content creators should disclose when their content is being sponsored — are wildly different. It's possible Drake's initial posts came on the heels of some general frustration and stress as his studio readies a major February update for the game. He essentially walked back any sort of claim insinuating creators are taking money to bad mouth products.

Regardless, the ordeal will certainly test the theory that "there's no such thing as bad press."

For its part, Operation: Harsh Doorstep was already a successful independent game. Available on Steam, the game has over 17,000 reviews aggregating into a "mostly positive" score. However, the game's more recent reviews return a "mixed reviews" score from more than 500 users, including at least two in the past week who directly reference this "paid content" ordeal in their negative reviews. 

In a move that perhaps also worsened the optics for Drake, his original post offered free upgrade keys for anybody who retweeted his post. Between that and threatening legal action against individual content creators, well, there's certainly plenty of ammunition for Drake's detractors who claim this is a promo move. 

Still, major gaming outlet PC Gamer picked up the story and Drake gained hundreds of new Twitter followers in the days following his initial post. With a paid beta currently available and a major update just days away, the game is getting a lot of attention it may not otherwise have. 

Most of all, though, it's interesting to see the number of non-creators who have an opinion or take on the sponsored content world. We have certainly entered a new era of influence.