Report: IGN Instructed and Even Offered Prizes for Crowd to Cheer During Phil Spencer and Other Live Interviews
Just a few days ago, IGN had a very special guest in its IGN Live show, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer sat down and answered questions about Xbox’s future, console exclusivity and more.
During one bit of the interview, Phil Spencer was asked about the recent studio closures that a lot of gamers felt strongly against about. Spencer’s answer seemingly avoided the question, and instead mentioned how painful it was to make hard decisions in order to run a sustainable business. Oddly enough, the crowd cheered at this response.
It seems we now know why they cheered. One of the IGN Live crowd attendees mentioned that they were told to cheer and be loud in order to keep the energy up, and whomever was the loudest even got prizes.
We were told and pumped to cheer, the loudest cheerleader got prizes, they did whatever they can to keep the energy in the room pic.twitter.com/UIztqXlOFo
— Bruno Rodriguez (@BrunoRo11530134) June 10, 2024
Some of the “bigger” prizes apparently included gaming headsets, and the show even gave out free 5 Hour Energy drinks all weekend for the crowd to drink. The person who talked about it, Bruno Rodriguez, mentioned that this cheering and shouting wasn’t an exclusive thing just for Spencer, and this was something they were instructed to do regardless of the person being interviewed.
While I understand IGN probably did this to make sure the crowd looked excited, perhaps one of their producers should have been mindful in telling people when to cheer or not?
Related Reading:
- It Looks Like Former PlayStation CEO Shawn Layden Was Baited to Mock Xbox Boss Phil Spencer
- Xbox Handheld Console Seemingly Teased by Phil Spencer
- Phil Spencer Promises More Multiplatform Xbox First-Party Titles, Sees Them as “a Benefit to Their Franchises”
Stay connected to MP1st and the latest news by following us on Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Google News.
Yep and IGN own Eurogamer now. THAT explains why Eurogamer was deleting ANY comments/replies to the articles about the Obsidian director saying that they are perfectly happy being a studio run by Phil and Xbox and have zero worries. You know, the usual paid for crap we hear around the “wait for the Xbox showcase” time of the year, every year.
Usually they pay big money for these articles from Jan to June every year but it was a bit hard to pretend this year that Xbox is great and THIS is going to be Xbox’s year and blah blah blah game pass when the Xbox business update happened this year and more disastrous news every week, then console sales dropping off the map, then the studio closures.
Anyone would have been called the shill that they are for talking up Xbox for the first 6 months of THIS year. But nah, its okay now, because its showcase time, all is forgiven slimey Phil. Phil wouldn’t do anything slimey like control who gets Starfield reviews and then make sure only 50 reviews go to metacritic the first 3 weeks the game is on sale. Nah, that would be slimey.