Some are even asking for ludicrous sums in order to provide positive reviews

Jul 17, 2014 11:19 GMT  ·  By

A new report has emerged on the Internet, claiming that prominent YouTubers are being asked to cover games and are being offered money in order not to talk about them negatively.

The report comes from Eurogamer, who reveals that famous Internet personality John "TotalBiscuit" Bain admits that he has been offered money by publishers in order to cover their games, with the sole condition that the agreement is not disclosed.

"They agreed to pay for the coverage so long as I agreed to not say anything negative about the game," Bain says, pointing out that he refused the offer.

"I don't know how I'd live with myself. It's taking your passion and selling it out for a small pay-cheque. It morally bankrupts you," he continues.

TotalBiscuit promised to offer full disclosure going forward from now, but the problem seems to be far from an isolated incident.

Some accusations were aimed at EA, who allegedly offered £10 / $17 / €12 for every 1k views of a video created for its EA Ronku program, with the sole condition that the commentary did not draw reference to any bugs. The company declined to respond to the accusations.

Another big publisher said to have paid off YouTubers is Ubisoft, who paid Channel Flip's YouTube stars £8k / $13.7k / €10k in order for them to attend Gamescom and create video game content, a fact that the videos did not disclose.

"YouTubers like other forms of media cover Ubisoft products as part of their own content programs and without incentives. As commercial content producer we have on occasion also asked YouTubers to develop paid-for bespoke content - but have not contracted a specific opinion or sought to influence reviews," the publisher responded in a statement.

"We have not directly requested that any YouTuber hide the fact that he or she has been paid for content or that some component – e.g. travel – has been provided by us," Ubisoft pointed out.

"We were once approached by a prominent YouTuber outside the world of gaming who suggested we pay them £10,000 [$17k / €12.6k] to 'like' a video. We rejected it, but the feeling in the agency was that if they are asking for this kind of fee, then people are paying," an anonymous PR agency representative discloses.

Some sources claim that as many as 21 percent of famous YouTube personalities have been paid in order to deliver coverage, a fact which might arguably carry some serious consequences, taking into account the prevalence of ad-blocking software and the need for content providers to seek out alternative means of monetizing their work.