The Energon Pub

mooncake623 wrote:

Q: What is your real job?
A: This is my real job. My hobby has become my career.

Q: How do I become a YouTube Partner?
A: Check out YouTube's Partner Page at https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/creator-benefits.html

But mooncake, you forgot this gem:

Q: Do you get free toys/samples from your sponsors?
A: Sometimes, but most of the time I pay for the toys and samples I get. Sometimes I receive discounts.

So, I guess we now know how BBTS compensates reviewers. Doesn't seem like enough to make reviewing your full time job...

Oh wait! YouTube ads.

megatronus wrote:

mooncake623 wrote:

Q: What is your real job?
A: This is my real job. My hobby has become my career.

Q: How do I become a YouTube Partner?
A: Check out YouTube's Partner Page at https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/creator-benefits.html

But mooncake, you forgot this gem:

Q: Do you get free toys/samples from your sponsors?
A: Sometimes, but most of the time I pay for the toys and samples I get. Sometimes I receive discounts.

So, I guess we now know how BBTS compensates reviewers. Doesn't seem like enough to make reviewing your full time job...

Oh wait! YouTube ads.

I felt like I was talking to an 80 year old about the internet. It's **** incredible

Delta Magnus wrote:I think X is just sad because he didn't get a Citizen Stack as a review sample. He's actually a real tsundere for the guy, which is why he won't stop talking about how much he dislikes it and how rubbish it is- he's in denial and he actually wants to marry it.

"Hmph....s-s-stupid Citizen Stack...It's not like I'm posting about you because I like you or anything! B-Baka..."

I lost interest in collecting MP scale almost 2 years ago. My beef with KFC is their QC issues.

mooncake623 wrote:

megatronus wrote:

mooncake623 wrote:

Q: What is your real job?
A: This is my real job. My hobby has become my career.

Q: How do I become a YouTube Partner?
A: Check out YouTube's Partner Page at https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/creator-benefits.html

But mooncake, you forgot this gem:

Q: Do you get free toys/samples from your sponsors?
A: Sometimes, but most of the time I pay for the toys and samples I get. Sometimes I receive discounts.

So, I guess we now know how BBTS compensates reviewers. Doesn't seem like enough to make reviewing your full time job...

Oh wait! YouTube ads.

I felt like I was talking to an 80 year old about the internet. It's **** incredible

Ill check out this interview when I get home from work. But keep in mind that what Optibotomus does doesnt mean they all do it. It's nice to see we finally get an official confirmation from one guy that he "sometimes" gets free toys. It's also nice to know that at least some sponsored reviewers get an income through Youtube.

But all this has nothing to do with the main topic of this thread:

Are sponsored reviewers dishonest to help boost sales ?

Unless someone here has invented a mind reading machine, nobody knows for sure. I would love to make them all take a polygraph test.

Rated X wrote:But all this has nothing to do with the main topic of this thread:

Are sponsored reviewers dishonest to help boost sales ?

Interesting. I thought the main topic of this thread was "Toystore/Company sponsored reviewers, are they good for us fans?"

megatronus wrote:

mooncake623 wrote:

Q: What is your real job?
A: This is my real job. My hobby has become my career.

Q: How do I become a YouTube Partner?
A: Check out YouTube's Partner Page at https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/creator-benefits.html

But mooncake, you forgot this gem:

Q: Do you get free toys/samples from your sponsors?
A: Sometimes, but most of the time I pay for the toys and samples I get. Sometimes I receive discounts.

So, I guess we now know how BBTS compensates reviewers. Doesn't seem like enough to make reviewing your full time job...

Oh wait! YouTube ads.

I'm also fairly certain sponsors pay their people to provide a link in their description and run a short blurb in the video. I don't have an interview handy with that spelled out, but I was paid for a similar ad myself once. I don't see why they'd employ a strange bartering system in place of that.

Good on Optibotomus for making a career out of toy reviews. That's pretty sweet.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I'm also fairly certain sponsors pay their people to provide a link in their description and run a short blurb in the video. I don't have an interview handy with that spelled out, but I was paid for a similar ad myself once. I don't see why they'd employ a strange bartering system in place of that.

Good on Optibotomus for making a career out of toy reviews. That's pretty sweet.

Yea, as mentioned a few pages back, I would suspect some of these guys get compensated in proportion to the volume of traffic sent to the sponsor site by those links. But we don't quite know for sure.

Here is Peaugh's video review on Continuum Hexatron.

In this video review, Benscollectables, who is a sponsored guy. Says he got this toy from RobotKingdom. It's unclear if he bought it or got it for free.

Anyways, Benscollectables a sponsored guy, does his best to give a honest review. Even bashing the toy a bit with some negative comments. Like he was disappointed that the toy was MP but had no waist articulation. Ben seems to also be disappointed that the walking hips have limited range of walking movement and the robot can't sit. Ben hates the butt flap on the back of the robot mode. Ben doesn't like daniels big hips and was happy the leg fell apart, so he could show watchers how bad the QC was on daniel. Ben was upset that the white waist belt thing on robot mode appeared to be placed upside down on the robot toy. other complaints was He wanted the toy to be in 1985 toy colors and not 1986 cartoon colors. Over all ben still liked the toy.

Why is this video here? Because Benscollectables compares MP-22 next to KFC Citizen stacks. Ben says Citizen Stacks has galaxies more articulation than MP-22. Ben also shows a height comparisons between MP-22 and KFC Citizen and MP-22 is barely a inch or Two shorter.

This video is proof that TF fans that are sponsored can give honest and negative bashing video reviews.

Duplicate post.

Ugh. Double Post.

Tsutsukakushi wrote:This video is proof that TF fans that are sponsored can give honest and negative bashing video reviews.

I responded similarly in the Stacks thread, but this is not a 'bashing' review. He points out flaws and a handful of disappointments, but those are far, far outweighed by his love of the figure. He endorses this guy hardcore.

Well that review made me really want an MP Magnus, so....mission successful?

megatronus wrote:

Tsutsukakushi wrote:This video is proof that TF fans that are sponsored can give honest and negative bashing video reviews.

I responded similarly in the Stacks thread, but this is not a 'bashing' review. He points out flaws and a handful of disappointments, but those are far, far outweighed by his love of the figure. He endorses this guy hardcore.

yeah... pointing out a couple of negatives isnt bashing. in the end he gave it a raving review (i thought anyways).

There are times I honestly feel that certain sponsored reviewers are stretching far and wide in order to find something DECENT to say about a certain toy. As of late, a handful of them are giving "awesome" reviews to products that ABSOLUTELY SUCK! Lots of misrepresentation. I'm looking at you, KCF Mugen Scope and your unnecessary plethora of unholy variants! Kill them all with fire...

In short, I've stopped relying on sponsored reviewers, and instead try to gauge collective feedback on various forums before making the dive on certain 3rd party transformers.

roBROmanceFTW wrote:There are times I honestly feel that certain sponsored reviewers are stretching far and wide in order to find something DECENT to say about a certain toy. As of late, a handful of them are giving "awesome" reviews to products that ABSOLUTELY SUCK! Lots of misrepresentation. I'm looking at you, KCF Mugen Scope and your unnecessary plethora of unholy variants! Kill them all with fire...

In short, I've stopped relying on sponsored reviewers, and instead try to gauge collective feedback on various forums before making the dive on certain 3rd party transformers.

Here's someone that hates something that was given to him for free and is sponsored.

Also they are really trying to pimp the sh*t out of these stupid wings huh? felt like everyone got a pair. hahahaha Noones going to f*cking buy it!!! $40... what a joke

Vangelus is my personal favourite reviewer (well, second to Thew, AKA comedic god who does toy reviews), mainly because he is very, very upfront and honest about stuff (he has the guts to do the Tetra Jet Test after all) and he's also fun to watch (and his videos are well put together). Watching Vangelus's review, he clearly did not endorse or recommend the wings, and seemed pretty annoyed with them to be honest- not what you would get out of a supposed "company shill". Peaugh was much the same actually- very negative and actually sounding depressingly disppointed. I honestly cannot see how either of those reviews could be construed as anything other than negative/"don't buy this".

mooncake623 wrote:Here's someone that hates something that was given to him for free and is sponsored.

Also they are really trying to pimp the sh*t out of these stupid wings huh? felt like everyone got a pair. hahahaha Noones going to f*cking buy it!!! $40... what a joke

ROFL! Thanks for the laugh, mooncake! It looks like Vangelus was stretching far and wide to find something NEGATIVE to say. I especially liked the flight test part. Man, Crazy Devy has a history of CRAZY prices for their parts...and still playing the same game.

Uch those wings are so pointless...

Nothing screams “I get my s**t for free” louder than a Vangelus durability test where toys get thrown into the wall. He is pretty bold to go that far. He did the same thing with the IT Tetra jets. I wonder if he would keep the footage if a figure breaks on camera or edit it out ? I do admit that was a negative review. But negative in a geeky, non-chalant, type of sarcasm. If I did the review, I would just say the product sucks and don’t waste your money. But if I did that, I wouldn’t get anymore free toys, would I ?

Rated X wrote:Nothing screams “I get my s**t for free” louder than a Vangelus durability test where toys get thrown into the wall. He is pretty bold to go that far. He did the same thing with the IT Tetra jets. I wonder if he would keep the footage if a figure breaks on camera or edit it out ? I do admit that was a negative review. But negative in a geeky, non-chalant, type of sarcasm. If I did the review, I would just say the product sucks and don’t waste your money. But if I did that, I wouldn’t get anymore free toys, would I ?

Peaugh basically says "don't waste your money," in other words.

Vangelus does the durability test on pretty much everything, even stuff he pays for, so I don't think that's a valid criticism.

Yeah, the "Tetrajet test" is a traditional part of Vangelus reviews (mianly to give a proper demonstration of how durable or otherwise a figure is).

Oh and X, stop moving the goalposts. You've said "Reviewers aren't trustworthy, they never give negative reviews!" and have been proven utterly wrong- saying "Ah, but, uh, they aren't the right kind of negative reviews, so they're still shills!!!" is just trying to redefine the original point you made to weasel your way out of the fact that you are WRONG.

You've lost. Give up. You are defeated. You get nothing. You LOSE. Good day sir.

Delta Magnus wrote:Yeah, the "Tetrajet test" is a traditional part of Vangelus reviews (mianly to give a proper demonstration of how durable or otherwise a figure is).

Oh and X, stop moving the goalposts. You've said "Reviewers aren't trustworthy, they never give negative reviews!" and have been proven utterly wrong- saying "Ah, but, uh, they aren't the right kind of negative reviews, so they're still shills!!!" is just trying to redefine the original point you made to weasel your way out of the fact that you are WRONG.

You've lost. Give up. You are defeated. You get nothing. You LOSE. Good day sir.

I saw him throw the tetra jets and now ive seen him throw the set of wings. Ive failed to see vangelus throw any more expensive items against his wall. If you can show me a video of him throwing FP Cubrar or PE Warden against the wall, then maybe his durability tests will be more than just a silly show. It seems that he only likes to throw figures from certain less popular companies against the wall in an effort to help sell them to impulse buyers. Why cant he take one for the team and throw Maketoys Utopia against the wall to prove its durability ? Why does it get a free pass ?

You seem to be a very pro reviewer guy. Anything they say you support. Maybe that works in your world. Not for me. They aint my buddies. They dont do me any favors that I can turn a blind eye to their used car salesman tactics. I see right through them from a mile away.

Rated X wrote:

Delta Magnus wrote:Yeah, the "Tetrajet test" is a traditional part of Vangelus reviews (mianly to give a proper demonstration of how durable or otherwise a figure is).

Oh and X, stop moving the goalposts. You've said "Reviewers aren't trustworthy, they never give negative reviews!" and have been proven utterly wrong- saying "Ah, but, uh, they aren't the right kind of negative reviews, so they're still shills!!!" is just trying to redefine the original point you made to weasel your way out of the fact that you are WRONG.

You've lost. Give up. You are defeated. You get nothing. You LOSE. Good day sir.

I saw him throw the tetra jets and now ive seen him throw the set of wings. Ive failed to see vangelus throw any more expensive items against his wall. If you can show me a video of him throwing FP Cubrar or PE Warden against the wall, then maybe his durability tests will be more than just a silly show. It seems that he only likes to throw figures from certain less popular companies against the wall in an effort to help sell them to impulse buyers. Why cant he take one for the team and throw Maketoys Utopia against the wall to prove its durability ? Why does it get a free pass ?

Because, you know, he hasn't reviewed any of those figures?

You seem to be a very pro reviewer guy. Anything they say you support. Maybe that works in your world. Not for me. They aint my buddies. They dont do me any favors that I can turn a blind eye to their used car salesman tactics. I see right through them from a mile away.

Or maybe (much more probably) you're seeing things that aren't there.

Just because someone throws toys across the room or on the floor. Does not mean he cares less because he got the toys for free. Just think it's a case of some having less OCD with their toys. Perhaps some video reviewers realize their just plastic toys and regard other things as more important in life like people, family and friends.