Dead Realm publisher accused of flouting YouTube advertising guidelines

It has emerged that two YouTubers who failed to declare their financial ties to games promoted on their channels.

Gamasutra reports that Tom ‘Syndicate’ Cassell and Adam ‘SeaNanners’ Montoya both uploaded videos of Section Studios’ Dead Realm to their channels without disclosing that they are financially linked to the game’s publisher 3BlackDot, an influencer-driven” entertainment company they co-founded with ex-Machinima staff.

FTC guidelines stipulate that YouTubers must disclose paid endorsements, in much the same way as is no enforced by the ASA in the UK.

In the pair’s defence, they have both in previous, unrelated videos in which their relationship with 3BD is discussed. Fellow 3BD partner and YouTuber Evan ‘VanossGaming’ Fong in the foot notes of one of his Dead Realm videos refers to the game’s production team as we”.

However, FTC requires that disclosure should be clear and conspicuous, and should be upfront and easy to see where the viewer won’t miss it”.

3BD has previously argued that its YouTubers make their commercial interests very clear” in their videos.