HipHopGamer the voice of ECA?
The ECA, or Entertainment Consumers Association, is a company that touts itself as being dedicated to the interests of North American gamers. The ECA hasn’t had the best track record when it comes to representing gamers which multiple controversies over the past couple of years. Their latest was when they continued to charge members the yearly fee even after those members cancelled their memberships. So clearly ECA has some work to do to repair their image with the gaming community. One smart way to start would be to hire a respected gaming journalist to represent their brand and help rebuild the trust they once had. What did ECA end up doing? They hired Gerard Williams, aka HipHopGamer, as their ‘voice’ of the gamers. Gerard has had his own troubles with online feuds with other gaming journalists and even using vulgar, homophobic language, which he stands behind, against another person when Gerard was told to “shut up”. This had brought the company even more controversy as Gerard is not widely liked in the gaming community and stands to even further the divide the gap between the company and the gamers it says it represents.
Heather Ellertson, the ECA’s vice president of marketing, sent out the following message in response to all the negative criticism:
“Gerard approached us wanting to know what he could do to help the cause. He’s in the process of turning his life around, becoming more professional and inspirational to his friends and followers. It’s exceedingly rare that we have individuals approach the organization laying it all out there, offering to do whatever they can, and asking for nothing in return. While we weren’t aware of any of his perceived transgressions online, we choose to embrace his support, his efforts, and his selflessness. If we were all judged solely upon the negatives in our past, we would all be damned. We would like to give him the opportunity to be a voice for gamers and a positive role model for gaming.”
Read that 3rd to last sentence, they weren’t ‘aware’ of any past transgressions? Did they not bother to do any research into him before making him their face and voice of the community? Hiring someone with a history of using vulgar language against those he’s now supposed to represent wasn’t the best or brightest move ECA has made and this surely won’t do anything to help the fragile relationship the company already has with the gaming community.
Read the twitter exchange and comments below and judge for yourself whether or not Gerard is the best choice to be the public face of this company.
Pictures courtesy of NeoGAF
0 comments:
Post a Comment