Is SEGA Paying YouTube Creators To Never Mention Aliens: Colonial Marines Again?

Almost a year after the commercial and critical flop that was Aliens: Colonial Marines, a leaked image shows that SEGA is planning to pay YouTube creators to never talk about Aliens: Colonial Marines again. 

Released for consoles and PC in February of 2013, the game has been a total disaster for SEGA and the game's developer, Gearbox Software. Outside of a suspicious Eletronic Gaming Monthly review that gave it a 9/10, it received unanimously low reviews citing buggy AI, terrible cutscenes/story and lackluster mulitplayer that amplified the problems found in the single player campaign.

Talk has slowly died down about the game and SEGA, through it's partnership with Machinima.com, allegedly is taking actions to keep it that way based on leaked images and documents from Machinima's official twitter account. According to a legal agreement in the leak, SEGA will be paying video creators $3 CPM (essentially $3 for every 1,000 video views) for not mentioning the game, with the stipulation that they also will not mention the fact that they are being paid to not talk about it. When we interviewed one inside source with SEGA, he confirmed that the above image on twitter (which has since been pulled) was in fact legitimate. 

"Yes, I saw the tweet regarding that-which-shall-not-be-named," he told us, refusing to even speak the name of the maligned first-person shooter, "we would just like to pretend the game doesn't exist and every time someone mentions it in a video we all die a little inside. They are literally prepared to pay every single YouTuber to never mention it again." 

Also according to our insider, there was more to SEGA's plan than just paying YouTubers to not mention the game. On top of the promised $3 CPM, channel operators would also be paid an additional $5 CPM for actively stopping other people from talking about the game. If someone was on their video and even started to say the word "Alien" they were to be hit with a blunt object or pushed off camera. Payment would be doubled if the hit drew blood from the defender and it was caught on camera. 

The real question this all raises is simple: is this illegal? To answer that we spoke with local attorney Richard Bartlett, who told us "Technically, yes. What SEGA is doing is trying to force people to not talk about their product, and not disclose that they are being paid to do so. But between you and me, if this goes to court there's not a chance in hell I'll prosecute them. Every second I don't have to see or hear about Aliens: Colonial Marines is a second of my life not filled with deep and unrelenting sadness."

Allegedly, bloggers also have received a similar offer to limit the number of times they mention Aliens: Colonial Marines to no more than four times in any given blog post. In doing so, the writers will receive upwards of $10 per page view for not mentioning the game. 

While we at Texture Pop Gaming have not received such an offer, nor would we even considering taking them up on it if we did, we will be sure to keep you up to date if we hear about any scumbag blogs not mentioning ████ ████████ ███████ more than four times simply to earn an extra buck.

Disgusting.