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THQNordic - An Object Example In How Not To Do PR
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
There are some times when a business makes a decision so baffling, so obviously wrong and damaging, that the only response is to look on in horror and bemusement as the train wreck unfolds.
Such is the case here, with publisher THQNordic making the decision to hold an Ask Me Anything session...on 8chan.
Yes, that 8chan:
Needless to say, the company is now engaged in the sort of damage control CEOs have nightmares over:
All joking aside, this decision leaves some uncomfortable questions for gaming at large. For one, the idea that in this day and age that a game industry PR rep would not know what 8chan is just doesn't pass the smell test, which then begs the question - Why would THQNordic willingly consort with 8chan for this, rather than running away as fast as possible? Are the executives sympathetic to the groups that make their home there, to the point that they want to actively court them? We've had reports of white supremacist groups looking to make inroads into the tech community - is this another example of that?
Such is the case here, with publisher THQNordic making the decision to hold an Ask Me Anything session...on 8chan.
Yes, that 8chan:
Edgy marketing decisions have a way of blowing up in companies’ faces, but rarely do they so immediately and spectacularly detonate like this: THQ Nordic, publisher of games like Darksiders III, decided to host an AMA on 8chan, an image board notorious for everything from Gamergate ties to stalking and harassment to child porn. Bafflingly, THQ Nordic thought it would go just fine. Predictably, it did not.
The company announced its plan earlier today in a tweet, saying that “the opportunity was here and we took it,” and that “we got approached in a very friendly and polite manner and were assured, said person (shoutout to Mark) will take care of the nasty stuff.”
Needless to say, the company is now engaged in the sort of damage control CEOs have nightmares over:
Within three hours of the AMA's launch, THQ Nordic's Twitter account had changed its tune and directly called out 8chan's reputation for illegal and despicable content. As written by PR and Marketing Director Philipp Brock:I personally agreed to this AMA without doing my proper due diligence to understand the history and the controversy of the site. I do not condone child pornography, white supremacy, or racism in any shape or form. I am terribly sorry for the short-sightedness of my (!) decision and promise to be far more vigorous in my assessment of these activities in the future. This was not about being edgy, this blew up and I very much regret to have done it in the first place.
All joking aside, this decision leaves some uncomfortable questions for gaming at large. For one, the idea that in this day and age that a game industry PR rep would not know what 8chan is just doesn't pass the smell test, which then begs the question - Why would THQNordic willingly consort with 8chan for this, rather than running away as fast as possible? Are the executives sympathetic to the groups that make their home there, to the point that they want to actively court them? We've had reports of white supremacist groups looking to make inroads into the tech community - is this another example of that?
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THQ Nordic can really get fucked. They've been making acquisitions of MRA favored games / companies lately, so the pattern tells me they knew exactly what they were doing with this and don't have any real apologies to offer. This was calculated and they'll do it again.
It really is amazing how bafflingly stupid this whole thing was.
But hey, all publicity is good publicity amirite?
Also, it's kind of unfortunate how there's THQ Nordic and THQ Nordic, with THQ Nordic owning THQ Nordic. Stuff gets confusing sometimes trying to keep straight which THQ Nordic owns what and which THQ Nordic did what and can THQ Nordic intervene with THQ Nordic?
Which just goes to show, you can think hard about a plan and still have a stupid fucking plan.
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Developer Coffee Stain has a diagram:
Nordic AB (a.k.a. Daddy Nordic) is the holding company, which owns Nordic GmbH (a.k.a. The House Of Goose.)
Yeah the crappy apology they have up there is not nearly enough. They need to fire the people who were in the AMA and the PR people who approve this. My understanding is one of the people answering questions was pretty high ranking (Reinhard Pollice) though so I don't actually expect that.
I.e. They're full of shit.
Additionally, if they were truly ignorant, they would have quickly discovered what a shithole 8chan was and quickly bailed. Instead they continued to stay and even response to some of the shittier posts - such as a post asking them to not censor their games to appease SJW's, to which they replied in the affirmative, or a playful response to someone posting a picture of a large man groping the breast of two woman half his size asking "where my loli's at?"
The "best" was someone posting an image of a crusader type character captioned with a disparaging homophobic slur, and the respone was "That could be from one of our games!"
Also "liking" a tweet telling them to ignore the "sensitive simons"
Edited. I'm only going to strike out the offending words to remind me to stop being so hyperbolic and insensitive. Thanks to @SyphonBlue for calling me out and reminding me that this is not appropriate. This was completely uncool and I do apologize.
Warhorse, the developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Who made a game set in medieval times that people complained lacked diversity, to which the developers tried to hide behind "it's historically accurate!" defense, which
1. No it's not; there were definitely people of color running around Europe back then.
2. This is a game with stuff like health potions.
Motherfucker, reality has a progressive bias.
What the godamn shit, my dude
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Keep in mind that Reinhard Pollice, who was at the AMA holds significant shares in the daddy corporation.
http://www.thqnordic-investors.com/en/board-and-management/
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And that would explain why there have been no richly deserved firings. The calls are coming from inside the boardroom, folks.
THQ Nordic is an Austrian company. I believe Austrians are not allowed to just fire people on the spot. There are procedures to go through first. So it's OK if the firings haven't happened right now, so long as they still happen soon. Although I unfortunately must admit to being sceptical that they'll happen at all.
Anyway, until then, I guess I'm not buying anything with the THQ Nordic label.
I'm hoping this is enough for Nickelodeon to pull their license and go elsewhere, because the last place a kid-friendly company like Nick should have making its games is a place that thinks it A-OK to host an AMA on a site rife with racism, kiddie porn, Geebergoobers, and who knows what else.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
He specifically mentions it during the credits at 25:04:
I think it is more likely that the staff and executives at THQNordic are culturally unable to understand just what place the alt-right holds in the global entertainment industry. They aren't an exciting political voice that you can latch onto for cred like some 1960s Ford executive commissioning ads filled with hippies road-tripping across America, and the market will not reward corporations for edgy engagement with this "social movement."
If that was the goal, they failed miserably. Despite the canard, there is, in fact, such a thing as bad publicity, and they are currently in the middle of it. As someone pointed out, they have a number of deals for tie-in games to kid-targeted franchises, deals that are now very likely in jeopardy.
I mean, there's trying to work up some outrage, and then there's posting on 8chan. They could have gone with 'Make [Insert Game] Great Again' or really play up the crusader imagery in some medieval fantasy game. They didn't have to go all the way to anime Stormfront.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I mean, they bought the Kingdom Come: Deliverance guys. Which I guess should have been something of a red flag.
a game whose only representation of the Jewish people in 15th century Bohemia is a stodgily-written codex entry
edit: also a game that somehow manages to portray the Hussites as some weird kind of nonreligious proto-czech nationalist movement
Can we really say they failed until the next quarterly report comes out though? After all Nike supposedly made 6 billion dollars off of the Kaepernick commercial. (Or was that Keurig? I forget.)
That was good publicity tho
When your damage control involves the statement "We do not support or condone pedophilia", you done failed. Nike's strategy works because while the rationale may be cynical, the message being sold is popular, and whatever opposition there may be to it pales to the support for it. (See also: the conservative sports apparel store owner who wound up closing after losing business due to his refusal to carry Nike products.) In comparison, whatever upside this move may have had in courting the alt-right has been dwarfed by the damage done to the brand image, not to mention the business relationships harmed by this.
One thing about the right wing, now and historically, is that their shit does not sell on an artistic and commercial level. Art is not what they do. Their cultural place is to be a vocal and violent minority willing to suppress others for their political masters, and that's not a particularly appealing fantasy even for people who support them. Even the Nazis, at the height of power, couldn't sell Nazi-themed movies to the German audience.
We can have a discussion about how successful art requires an ability to speak to personal experiences and opinions that resonate with the consumer of said art, and how those perspectives are completely antithetical to fascism, theocracy, and general authoritatianism.
But that would be off topic
Which? The commercial or the outrage machine? HBomberguy suggests that the boost in revenue was due to the outrage machine not the actual content of the commerical itself. (I don't know if that's true or not, but it seems that the outrage is what Nike and Gillette are trying to cultivate, not the message of commercial.) So even if THQNordic is doing damage control now and acting like they really didn't mean to do it, it still seems to be part of their plan, especially since they actually completed the AMA instead of pulling the plug within the first 10 minutes.
I mean, maybe the plan will backfire, but the evidence that they're doing damage control isn't a sign that it's backfired yet. The damage control is just all part of their overall marketing strategy.
And this was despite having one of the most talented film directors of the age in Leni Riefenstahl
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It's v important who is outraged by it.
If it's a fringe group everyone else hates that's only a positive.
if, on the other hand, the outrage is from the majority and your message is directed at the fringe group everyone hates...
Dan Olsen talks about how Triumph of the Will being amazing propaganda is itself propaganda
I mean kind of yeah. Her name was still a big draw before the Nazis came to power tho
Cynical or not, having a major brand like Nike or Gillette get out there with a positive message and basically telling toxic masculinity and racists to fuck off is a big part of how you push society to a better place.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The Triumph of the Will has some genuinely innovative film techniques that directors are still quietly copying. It is much like Battleship Potemkin - once you have seen it, you will recognize the visual quotes in all kinds of films.
Yeah, he talks about that. But then he talks about the vast majority of the movie.
The way that works is that the counter-response further sells the message. When right wing individuals destroy their Nike products because the company is giving Kaepernick's protest against police brutality, it reinforces the message that Nike supports social justice issues - which is a selling point for a lot of people!
Conversely, the opposition to the AMA on 8chan is centered on "this is a place that openly supports not only bigotry and white supremacy, but pedophilia as well." The message being sold is that, at the very least, THQNordic doesn't have a problem with those things.
This is not a message that has many buyers.