Way, way too much!

I am excited for this game, but I am wary about looking at coverage for games I am excited for after the press decided to ruin every aspect of Uncharted 2.

The funniest thing about the coverage on Bitmob is that Shoe was just quoted in a story on Kotaku about games getting overexposed.

I hope the coverage of ME2 on this site is not a portent of the future course for Bitmob. It seems to go against what I thought this site was about.

What a shame.

*looks at the borders of this site*

Eh, I think I know that Mass Effect 2 exists by now. Let's talk about something else.

I mean there was no mention of Mass Effect 2 in the gaming press then all the sudden wham it is every where we look. I just think EA / Bioware should have flooded more out to the public before the release then hitting us all at once.

Who is Shoe?

I can see where your concern might stem from, but I think that the staff at Bitmob honestly like the games they display in the background of the site and I only saw one of the actual staff members posting about Mass Effect 2's character utility when I pulled up the Mass Effect 2 tag except for the intern posts.

I think it is in part the gaming industry's fandom of the series and maybe some smart marketing by EA that is to account for the seemingly sudden burst of press. The internet has a short attention span and if they hit us with it too far out, we will lose interest.

I just don't know if this storm of information is needed for as big a sequel as this.

I don't think Bitmob needs to go this direction when advertising a game. I kind of felt the same about thus coverage as I do when one of my magazines show up with a cover "advertisement."

It didn't feel 100% kosher.

BTW- I am not trying to accuse Bitmob of anything here, just saying that I hope we can find a way to earn ad money without getting into a gray area of ads and features.

I love this site and hope we can find a productive way to make sure the people who work so hard on it can actually earn money from it at some point.

I think there's been more coverage than necessary, but I'm hoping that it'll sell well, so I'm not too upset.

Honestly, I think getting into the "grey area of ads and features" is the best way to go. Ads are going to be there no matter what, I think we can agree on that. Furthermore, the gaming industry in particular relies on endemic advertising more than any other industry for many reasons that I need not detail.

If we have to live with endemic advertising, it's more of a question of how you want it than if you want it. First of all, I'm a hell of a lot more positive about endemic advertising on a site like Bitmob, specifically one that isn't subjected to the preview/review/advertising cycle.

Secondly, what exactly did Bitmob deliver in terms of advertisement or "sponsored content" of some kind? For the most part, useful information - the stuff about the Cerebrus Network was illuminating, and the detailing of save file transfer was a big question for a while. Besides that, there are the sidebar advertisements, which are practically standard practice for a game's site; sidebar ads fill a space that isn't used for any other type of content, so they're of little cost to the consumers.

In the end, I don't really have a problem with Bitmob's coverage of Mass Effect 2, in particular. Now, I do have a problem with Casey Hudson appearing on almost every major gaming podcast (4 Guys 1UP, Giant Bombcast, Game Scoop!, and several more), for instance. That sort of goes beyond reasonable into excessive, if you ask me.

@Frank Yeah, Shoe was actually worried about that same perception. Truth is no one was ever forced to write a Mass Effect 2 story. Those guys have just been better about giving us stuff to use for articles. It would be great if every game company would do the same.

I've had no problem with the amount of coverage, but that is most likely because I've avoided the brunt of it in recent days. I'm so busy with starting the school semester and acquainting myself with the subjects that I haven't bothered to surf around the internet all that much.

You know, no one is forcing you to eat the food that may choke your throat. There is always a "close browser" button if you'd rather not read or see or hear something on the internet.

Well outside of the ads on the site and a few articles dotting the site here and there,I haven't see much advertisement for Mass Effect 2 beyond what helps support the site and some stuff on a few of the other gaming sites I visit.I do agree,that cramming so much at once as far as content is abit overwhelming,but it's probably not nearly as bad as giving chunks of it all at once over a stretched period of time because folks would have had gotten tired of hearing about it by the time it hits.

@Mike. I actually kind of think I might have felt a bit better about the coverage of ME2 if Bitmob had put out a call for pieces on it. Having that many features be part of the ad campaign on the site would have felt more natural to me, especially since I am not used to seeing preview-type coverage on the site.

I actually felt kind of bad not clicking on the ME2 stories because I want to support the site, but if I was asked to write a story about Mass Effect for Bitmob then I could have helped support the site and not felt bad for not clicking on the ads.

Either way I have been really happy to see EA advertise Dragon Age and ME2 here, and hope we can find a way for ads and features to mix on this site without bringing up any nagging concerns.

Thanks for this post, Toby. I know I took the discussion a different direction than you were looking for, but I personally feel a lot better about the ME2 coverage than I did before.

@Spencer. No one can force you to click on a link, but many of the ME2 stories have had info I didn't want to learn even in the title of the piece. It is like the press is desperate to spoil the game, and the too in depth material Bioware is handing out is a large part of the issue.

I think they went too far from the beggining with the "Shephard is dead" ad campaign.

Hey guys, just to clarify....

Any advertising here is done completely independently of any content we do. Demian and I have been doing this business long enough (14 years each and counting) to know better.

Guys like Aaron and Brett who've been putting out a ton of the ME2 stories...no one at any point forced them to do so because we had to appease anyone (whether that's advertisors or EA PR). They did it on their own.

And that's pretty much how we operate here: We let everyone (staff and community alike) decide what they want to cover.

We do happen to have a LOT of ME2 coverage here, yes...and this feedback is good. It helps us know what you guys are willing to tolerate, what you're not.

One of the factors is, this is one of those few AAA games that we had a lot of access to. We don't get that with every game. EA PR in particular was good about giving us access that we were able to turn into (hopefully) interesting stories that readers care about.

And make no mistake, we want to take advantage of that when we can. But we'll need to temper that better, perhaps, as some of you are telling us.

At the same time, please see it from our perspective: Almost all ME2 stories do really well from a traffic point of view. If thousands and thousands more people are clicking on ME2 stories, then guess what? YOU guys are telling us that's what you want to read. You guys are always giving us feedback via hits, so even though we have a couple of complaints here, overwhelmingly, the numbers are telling us readers can't get enough.

But still, we will always take your feedback to heart. You guys make Bitmob what it is, so we want to do right by you.

Two more things:

1. Any sponsored content will be clearly labeled as such. We will never ever hide anything from you.

2. Even though EA PR has been really good about getting us ME2 access (as they have been for all press outlets), know we deal with that completely independently of the advertising stuff. The two don't overlap -- they're even completely different people and companies (an outside ad agency set up this current site-skin ad buy, and they don't coordinate anything with EA PR as they talk to us).

Sorry for any misspellings, btw...just woke up and I'm in a hurry to head to a press event!

-Shoe

Ah ok so Hsu is Shoe, I figured as much but I did not want to assume so and look like an idiot. (like more of an idiot?)

I know I have seen Mass Effect 2 advertised heavily on Revision 3's shows and sites, and personally I do not have a problem with this advertising because it means that the sites and shows I love are being taken seriously and given some money they really deserve.

Kudos to EA for recognizing the sites and content we care about, and kudos to BitMob for ensuring that the impact of the EA partnership is only skin deep.

I have already stated previously that I personally don't like the ads that take up the entire borders of the site.

As for the coverage, I think I trust Bitmob enough to not worry about any percieved overlap between advertisement and content just yet. I find it hard to believe that the good people responsible for this site would choose right now to all of a sudden put money before integrity. If they were to do it at all I think they would have done it earlier and more blatantly then covering a game that is coming out at the same time their advertisers give them an ad for it, which last i checked happens pretty much everywhere since when a game is being advertised is usually when the most information about it is available.

I will agree, however, that EA really needs to pace itself better with it's PR for games. This ad blitz combined with the weird DLC practices is making them look a little too hungry for money and that can put people off.

All ad money in the game press comes from publishers, without it, we would have to pay for content or sites will have to close.