A recent advertisement for Ubisoft’s upcoming The Division suggests that a gaming website declared it to be better than Destiny. Problem is, the website never actually said that.
The Division, which comes out next week, has drawn all sorts of comparisons to Bungie’s Destiny thanks to their shared genre; both games are online-only RPG-shooter hybrids that will undoubtedly vie for the same audiences in the months and years to come. Perhaps unable to resist themselves, Ubisoft’s marketers wrote in a recent advertisement (h/t NeoGAF) that The Division “blows Destiny out of the water”, according to the website GameZone. Impressive declaration, right? Right. Until you see the actual article:
GameZone wasn’t referring to the quality of either game, nor were they declaring that The Division had outsold Destiny (which would have been difficult, as The Division isn’t out yet). The article, written by Tatiana Morris, is actually about how The Division‘s beta had more players than Destiny‘s. The Division had 6.4 million; Destiny had 4.6 million. That’s the context.
It’s yet another example of how big companies skew quotes to advertise their games — or other forms of entertainment — in a disingenuous, actively misleading way.
“[Ubisoft] did ask for permission to use the quote; however, they didn’t specify in what way or form it would be used,” GameZone‘s Morris told me in an email this morning. “I think in the future, in an effort to be more transparent with gamers and our audience, I will ask how the quote will be used and where it will be placed.”
Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that IGN quote, “Best New Franchise”? It’s from their E3 2013 awards. IGN thought it was the best new franchise revealed at E3 that year.
Comments
22 responses to “The Division’s New Anti-Destiny Advertisement Is Incredibly Misleading”
Because article writers have never ‘skewed’ a quote to get people to read their stories?
What’s the problem though? Destiny is bad and everyone knows it.
no only those that jumped on the internet sheeples hate train a year ago and for whatever reason, even after a year, they still have nothing better to do than complain about a game they dont like. Seriously either they need a game to play or a better hobby because trashing a game still after a year and a half is a bit sad.
I am not suggesting Destiny is perfect but it is still way better than people who make comments like “Destiny is bad and everyone knows it.” “Worse game EVER” etc etc and are so desperate to spread the hate. After playing the BLOPS3 free weekend, the only thing i could think of was how much more refined the Destiny gun and fighting mechanics are to everything else. Went back and played another 40 hours of Destiny.
600 hours, wow if only all games could pay for themselves that much.
I really like Destiny, I wish I still played it with people but I feel screwed over by the cost of the Taken King, and have been waiting for a discounted price. I admit the 2 expansion packs I got where light on content but that content was a lot of fun.
Not really. I was in destiny closed beta, open beta, day one player and day one taken king player. It is not even close to a good game. The only reason anyone sink so many hours in is because they just repeatedly doing the same raid again and again to get a 320 equipment. Which was designed to make you spend ages to get.
Time spend playing != good game.
how is that different to any online MMO or online shooter? in an MMO at end game you have dungeons, raids, daily solo stuff, questing and the like or PVP. In online shooter like say Call of Duty the story only takes 5 hours and while replayable not at all in the same way as Destiny with as much diversity . then you can PVP and thats it. Call of Duty doesnt have raids or strikes/dungeons .
So please explain to me how is Destiny offering anything less (or what it is offering is not enough) than all two types of games on the market which (debate aside) they are most similar…
Yes Destiny is all about rinse and repeat that is the type of game it is and in online games how else is there to do it to keep you interested after a year or so?! (new DLC excluded) please that is an honest question because I am sick of hearing people complain about repeating stuff… thats the type of game it is, dont like it play something else but dont expect it to change
I did play other games and ditched destiny. Please don’t compare destiny to mmo. The content in destiny is not even 10%.
You do know you literally just told me destiny is between cod and mmo and it is not as good as cod and not as good as mmo? Which on point cod is not even good anymore and destiny has less than 10% of mmo content but sure, keep telling yourself that.
Enjoy the expansion pack you will be getting this year which will include 5 x 10 minutes mission and a raid.
in all that you didnt answer my question… it is only an MMO in part, in terms of how its longevity works. Raids, dungeon/strikes, questing, game search for end game loot (to name a few) where do you think all those game play ideas come from? Call of Duty? Titanfall? Medal of Honour? . No none of them have raids or dungeons and the like. About the only thing they have in common is loot. Stop thinking in such narrow means. Yes it is not an MMO in terms of open persistent world etc but it is in terms of using MMO style end game and applying it to a shooter, it is INSPIRED by an MMO ideas to keep its players playing.
I still play Destiny and I still play other games, I ditch it for months on end because I know (unlike a lot of other sheeple out there) sometimes, well always, having a break from online games is the best thing ever. Just because they dont hold you obsessively, that is not a failure of a game, its healthy.
If you think all taken king had was 5x 10mins missions and a raid you are sorely mistaken, those missions were like a prologue, after that their was a massive web of interconnected story missions that open up after you killed the name.
but you still didnt answer my question… what do you want from the end game? it the raid, strikes, pvp, pve etc, how beyond a new small DLC (because they only ever offer a small injection of stuff) or a full DLC/expansion… between releases what is it you actually want to do end game to make a game last and last for years? its not enough to just complain about repetition (because it why a lot of us play) without that how do you expect it or any online game to last
You asked me 2 things, how is destiny having lesser content which I have already explained and how is it different than mmo and other shooter which I already explained it does both at mediocre level.
It’s a new great idea of game hence why division took the formula but the game itself is not great
Personal dislike != bad game.
Some people enjoy the game for varying reasons, shockingly there are even people who enjoy the MMO-style grind. Though I absolutely agree with you that the content in Destiny doesn’t even approach the amount of content in basically any actual MMO.
I’ve played since beta, and also quit repeatedly after getting bored pretty quickly each new content push. I personally do think Destiny’s particular grind is actually a lot worse than a number of other MMOs, and with far less content that’s not what I’d call ideal.
I enjoyed the hours I spent playing it, the number of which is nowhere near the time I expect it’d require to get all the end game gear, etc. And I’ll never spend that sort of time with the game, because I simply don’t see the value for me personally as I do with many other games.
But just because I don’t see the value others do, still doesn’t mean it’s automatically a bad game.
Destiny is… interesting. I played it (and enjoyed) until House of Wolves. The grinding is the biggest complaint I think but it never bothered me, I was very lucky with my drops. The worst thing was having any time spent being rendered useless by updates and iron banner having crappy incentives (for a bit). I did heaps of multiplayer and loved it. I did all the raids multiple times as a shepherd and a noob because it was really fun. Detractors can’t deny how responsive the combat is, feels pretty damn good.
That being said I stopped playing because it’s a huge time sink. So i COULD say it’s bad, or I could say nothing and play something else… I do the latter.
Not on Gizmodo or kotaku.
Never.
Industry watchdog Kotaku standing up for the little guy, Activision.
Not sure what the problem is marketing outright lies or manipulates constantly is anyone really surprised by this?
The irony that it was destiny, one of the overhyped train wreck lol.
It was pretty hyped… It would have been nice if they weren’t all:
“Oh we want you to play with people on your friends list only, it’ll be more fun that way”.
I’ll decide that for myself thank you. Everyone was forced onto LFG or similar and had to play with randos anyway. Mission fail.
The thing was it’s still clever advertising to compare itself to Destiny.
Sure you’re right that technically it’s saying it’s better than a bit of a disaster, but in people’s minds they’ll think it’s doing what they wanted Destiny to do but better.
So in their minds it becomes conflated with their hopes of Destiny pre-launch.
While I definitely agree the use of the quote out of context was misleading, I do find it amusing that a Destiny-supporting (by extension) article was of course written by Schreier.
Disclaimer: I played the Destiny alpha, beta, day one vanilla, TTK. Have beaten all raid etc etc.
I’m still looking forward to The Division. Massive’s communication thus far (with the unfortunate exception of the IGN AMA) has been excellent – it’s what Bungie should be doing. Even small things like how easy it is to join friends and matchmake are really well done. That probably makes the use of this quote especially disappointing.
Haha. I’ve often wondered if those quotes are ever taken out of context. I used to imagine some site writing something like:
“This game will never be the best shooter ever made, nor is it better than Half Life 2…”
Then the publisher using quotes like:
“The best shooter ever made” and “Better than Half Life 2.”
sodomizing yourself with a barbwired cheese grater is better than Destiny…doesn’t take much to beat it.
The thing is its how you take the quote itself. Most people would assume that it means game play and quality was better, but they could easily argue that they meant player amount and they would be right. You’re the one who made the assumption base on the given information, not them in the end. They simply said it blows Destiny out of the water, it didn’t say how – you put that in yourself.
Interesting that Ubisoft and The Division has been singled out here. I refuse to believe that with damn near every game using similar quotes for marketing, Ubi is the first to quote out of context. So again, why has this title been singled out??