FTC: Not All Reviews of ‘Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’ Were Legit

Warner Bros., the FTC alleges, paid popular YouTubers tens of thousands of dollars to promote the game via a campaign managed by advertising company Plaid Social Labs.

Under a proposed FTC order announced today, Warner Bros.is barred from failing to make such disclosures in the future and can not misrepresent that sponsored content, including gameplay videos, are the objective, independent opinions of video game enthusiasts or influencers.

“Consumers have the right to know if reviewers are providing their own opinions or paid sales pitches”, said Director of Bureau of Consumer Protection Jessica Rich in a statement. “Companies like Warner Brothers need to be straight with consumers in their online ad campaigns”. As punishments go, that’s a pretty good one from the perspective of the transgressor, although now that the FTC has made it official, Warner could be hit with civil penalties if it does it again. PewDiePie’s sponsored video alone was viewed more than 3.7 million times.

Warner Bros. gave influencers an advanced copy of the game, released in 2014, and told them how they should promote it, the commission says. The contract laid out specific terms for how influencers would tout Shadow of Mordor – including a requirement the video feature game play, issue a strong call to action that would send viewers to the game’s website and omit any criticism or references to bugs or glitches.

The almost seven-minute gameplay video doesn’t disclose Warner Bros. paid for its creation in the video itself. The FTC also alleges that Warner Bros. did not instruct the influencers to include sponsorship disclosures clearly and conspicuously in the video itself where consumers were likely to see or hear them. However, this ran afoul of FTC rules because viewers had to click the “Show More” box to even see the disclosure. These disclosures would often end up being completely hidden when embedded onto Facebook or Twitter posts, as that button generally doesn’t appear when YouTube videos are placed onto those platforms. In those cases, the video makers only disclosed that they had received early access to Shadow of Mordor. The complain alleges that “on at least one occasion”, Warner Bros. reviewed and approved a video that did not contain the proper sponsorship disclosure.

Following the settlement, Warner Bros. will be required to make it clear on any Shadow of Mordor promotional videos that the company hired the YouTuber to create the content on its behalf. But Lord & Taylor allegedly failed to require the bloggers to disclose on Instagram that the post was part of an ad campaign.

Under the settlement agreement, Warner Bros. will be barred from carrying out that sort of campaign in the future without more prominent disclosures.