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Ubisoft accused of using bots to promote Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Published by Ihor Panchenko

Gamers have exposed suspicious activity in the comments under the new trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, accusing Ubisoft of artificially inflating positive reviews. The video received approximately 18,000 likes and 80,000 dislikes from viewers.

Accounts with identical usernames aroused suspicion. They consisted of a first name, last name, and four digits. These comments received almost the same number of likes — from 3400 to 5100. Gamers also noticed that most of these accounts were created recently.

Another proof of the possible use of bots was that all suspicious comments appeared within four hours. At the same time, each comment had different content. This suggests that people wrote the texts, and bots then upvoted them.

Some user comments under the trailer:

  • «Ubisoft: How fake do you want the comments to be?
    Investor: Yes».
  • «I’m having more fun in this comment section than playing recent Ubisoft games».
  • «The only thing that surprises me is that they haven’t blocked the comments section yet».
  • «Bots do NOT buy games… No matter how many bots you use, no one will buy lousy games».
  • «Ubisoft: we fight against racism.
    Also Ubisoft: Japanese culture and Chinese culture — are the same thing».
  • «Have you noticed that the bots «of pretty girls» that defend Ubisoft are all created within one month of each other?»

The most significant argument in favor of the accusations was the sudden disappearance of these comments from under the trailer. They were removed either by YouTube or by Ubisoft itself. This raised new questions: did Ubisoft know about the situation and did it order this bot spamming?

Trailer

The situation has become publicized against the backdrop of existing controversies around the game. Earlier, gamers criticized Assassin’s Creed Shadows because of the high price, setting selection and imperfect animation. Positive reviews could have improved the game’s image before the release, so some players believe that Ubisoft could have taken this step.

Source: Tweaktown