Some PR strategies are similar. A company hold an annual conference several weeks ago. The company was under represented in the HN user base. What was eye opening was that many new users joined HN in a short timeframe to write very pro-company comments - it looked like an concerted effort to polish the company reputation. Another example is related to a recent video game release. The marketing was in a gray area almost a fraud and the launch was like a debacle, though the PR managed to get away with it with a black eye.
Do they really need a marketing department in the video game industry? because game news sites are just that, a outsourced marketing department, I mean just look at IGN,Polygon, GS and co, heavily pushing Batman these days with like 12 "articles" a day to build the hype,same thing with many games before. There is no criticism over the terrible commercial practices, the games riddled with bugs at launch, nothing. What the point of "reviewing" ? they are selling these games way before they launch and the reviews are published like one week after launch if not more ( like the order, and others ).
The game industry in collusion with "game journalists", succeeded in making people want less for their money. The dream of any big corp.
