Here’s a new one: if you’re trying to increase your PC market share, why not advertise that your computers can run “plug-ins” (read: cheats) better than the competition?
Long-time local reporter and friend of the site David Hollingworth has come up with an absolute cracker this week, reporting that Dell has been advertising their latest PCs laptops in China as being able to “run more plugins to win more at Chicken Dinner”.
Let’s be clear here: when you see “plugins”, we’re actually talking about outright cheats.
It became clear during the Beijing launch of Intel’s 8th-gen CPUs, where a range of laptop and PC makers were showing off their latest hardware. Hollingworth – whose colleague Ben Mansill, another Aussie gaming media veteran, then found that Dell very specifically pitched their laptops were “better at running many plugins”. For clarity, here’s the full quote:
She spoke of how Chinese gamers are the most innovative and dominant in the world by using “plugins” to, for example, run faster than other players, or blow up ten cars at a time, and that these top gamers can really use 8th-Gen power to “run more plugins to win more at Chicken Dinner”, and that the top players run the most ‘plugins’ so that’s where 8th-gen Dell power gives them the gamer’s edge. Behind her a video proudly shows various cheats in PUBG in action (they really like the one with the massively oversized gun and show that a lot), with the new Dell gaming laptops shown every few seconds while Sally told us that gamers should buy a Dell because they’re better at running many plugins.
The full story is here, and you should absolutely give them a click for a great local scoop. Dell would have been full aware of what they were doing, and everyone should be pretty pissed that any manufacturer would even think of promoting the PC market in such a damaging way.
Update (1433 AEST): Dell Australia has responded to PC Powerplay’s initial report, saying that “inappropriate modification examples” were on display at the product launch. You can see the full statement here, although the line about condemning “any modifications misused in gaming” is … interesting phrasing.
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