Following his trial for defamation of the families of the children and school staff killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is using Valve Corp.’s Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for PC games, to sell an Infowars-themed video game. Jones claims to have earned hundreds of thousands in revenue from the video game, yet he has refused to pay the Sandy Hook families. Alex Jones: NWO Wars also mirrors and cartoonishly repackages the conspiracy theorist’s regularly violent, hateful rhetoric despite the platform’s policies against hate speech.

  • @CharlesDarwin
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    195 months ago

    I do find it weird that Steam actually had this as a game pushed to me. Not sure if that was targeted due to other game choices I’ve made, but I saw the ad and laughed and shook my head.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      145 months ago

      Alex Jones got to his position by gaming the advertisement system for self-promotion. I can’t say I’m shocked to see his video game once again exploiting the Steam store’s algorithm, just like he’d gamed the YouTube and Twitter algorithms before.

      You’ll see Ann Coulter do the same thing with book sales. Have someone straw-purchase 10,000 copies of “Smelly: The Liberal Campaign To Fart A Lot And How It Is Destroying America”, and rocket to the top of the Best Seller Lists.

      • @CharlesDarwin
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        55 months ago

        I think Regnery Press does that last bit all the time…I don’t know if people that maintain such lists take that kind of thing into account or not. And yeah, I have no trouble believing that Lil Alex found some demon willing to help him game the Steam system.

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          75 months ago

          I don’t know if people that maintain such lists take that kind of thing into account or not

          It takes more work to find out who is purchasing the books, particularly if the publisher includes straw-purchases as part of its marketing strategy and therefore has an incentive to report their number inaccurately.

          I have no trouble believing that Lil Alex found some demon willing to help him game the Steam system.

          He’s got enough money to simply do it himself (or outsource the process to professionals). Sort of a priming-the-pump method to marketing. Its very possible that the vig Steam gets from your straw purchases is less than the cost of paying them upfront to advertise your game. Also possible he’s doing both, in which case Steam has a strong economic incentive not to discourage this behavior.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 months ago

          At one time the NY Times bestseller list put this dagger (†) icon at the end of the summary when it happened. That way people in the know would get it was because of bulk sales.

          But I think NYT changed how they do their best seller list to be a survey of booksellers, and probably just don’t include bulk sales at all anymore. But I don’t know. But if you see a dagger on a bestseller list, it means shenanigans are afoot. (†)

          • @CharlesDarwin
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            15 months ago

            The sad thing is that the people most likely to know about the shenanigans are the ones least likely to fall for Regnery schemes in the first place…those least likely to know are the target audience of Regnery, etc…

            • @[email protected]
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              05 months ago

              Yeah but it’s probably well beyond the scope of making a best seller list to convince the people that have already been fooled by these scammers that these people are scammers.

      • dr. pibb
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        25 months ago

        Don’t under estimate how many conspiracy theorists and conservatives are on Steam. A good portion of my friends list is fractured after 2016 and 2020

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        I usually just put 123 Main Street, Schenectady, NY 12345. Most places don’t even check to see if it’s a real address.

      • @CharlesDarwin
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        15 months ago

        I think there are some plugins that will autofill things like that? Not sure what the current best one is.