Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
If you remember what happened, Karatemike was not allowed to say he worked for Kabam yet. That was the only reason he didn't, but then another community member outed him as an employee because they somehow figured it out. When in reality Mike was just waiting for the go-ahead to announce it himself. I imagine there are many processes to complete before they're allowed to go public.
Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
If you remember what happened, Karatemike was not allowed to say he worked for Kabam yet. That was the only reason he didn't, but then another community member outed him as an employee because they somehow figured it out. When in reality Mike was just waiting for the go-ahead to announce it himself. I imagine there are many processes to complete before they're allowed to go public.
Thanks for your response - do you have the CCP list available yet and the list of known employees who have an influential YouTube channel? I know you alluded to it in your previous comment, and it would be extremely helpful for this thread.
On the KarateMike historical situation it's not hugely helpful for the purposes of this thread where we have an opportunity to promote actionable outcomes for the future. Kabam could enhance their cheater of values and lead on this.
I seem to remember at the time that people had seen his actual account name on the Kabam socials with the gameplay and did he also do the voiceover? If it had reached that point the horse has already bolted before anyone can close the barn door. Realistically the announcement that he was employed in some capacity should've occurred prior to him undertaking paid-for work, let alone releasing it into the wild.
I say this as a learning point that could influence best practice at Kabam in their policies, not to attack anyone. He does a great job at what he does and works hard. This discussion is not too do a postmortem about the past, or a blame game. There's outcomes that could be won for the community here, still on the table. We just need Kabam to hear the communities voice on this topic and address it to close any loopholes.
I'm surprised so many people look at the question as a legal "can they keep it to themselves" instead of conscientious "should they warn the viewer"
Its not a health and safety hazard what are they warning the viewer of? Whether they work for kabam or not. Its not a scenario that warrants a warning. It's up to them to share purely out of choice its not an obligation. The situation is not any deeper than that
To the people who think they should disclose, what relevance does working for kabam have to do with their content?
I'm surprised so many people look at the question as a legal "can they keep it to themselves" instead of conscientious "should they warn the viewer"
Its not a health and safety hazard what are they warning the viewer of? Whether they work for kabam or not. Its not a scenario that warrants a warning. It's up to them to share purely out of choice its not an obligation. The situation is not any deeper than that
To the people who think they should disclose, what relevance does working for kabam have to do with their content?
Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
Wow! Thanks for this info!
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
Aside from Karate Mike, which other members of the CCP are also employees? I know you said it's known to the community. Is there a list of all CCP members and from that a list of CCP members who also work for Kabam? I only know of:
- Dork Lessons - Karate Mike - Daddy Long Legs - Metal Sonic Dude
Can you add any more?
You're asking an unintentionally bizarre question. Let's start with the fact that i would argue none of those people are in fact members of the CCP.
The CCP is a program originally created to work with content creators (originally, Youtube video creators) by offering them early access to upcoming content (originally, new champions, but later all sorts of content) so that they could work on video content related to that MCOC content and be prepared to release it when that MCOC content itself released. This way the content creators could be talking about what new stuff was happening in the game as it happened at a higher quality, which benefitted the content creators and the game. The program consists of three main parts: an NDA agreement which governs what the content creators can disclose and when (it is the primary means of enforcing embargos on new content information), access to the beta test server where things like new content and new champions can be granted and tested without altering live accounts, and access to the CCP discord, where content creators can discuss the game and the content directly with the developers.
No employee of Kabam would need to be a member of the CCP to gain access to any of these things. Employees are already non-disclosed as part of their employment contracts. Employees can probably request beta access directly. And employees obviously already have access to the devs: they can just walk up to them and chat. Those four individuals might have been members of the CCP at one time, but I think that their status changed when they became employees. Assuming MSD is an employee: I don't recall if he explicitly stated he was or not (he could be a contractual hire).
There's no handbook or anything governing this, but one thing CCP members are supposed to is disclose the fact that they are members of the CCP whenever they make content using information received through the program. This is often implicit when they simply state that their footage came from the CCP server, but technically they are supposed to say that. Furthermore, there's a general rule that they are not supposed to state or imply that they are Kabam employees or officially represent Kabam in their content. Obviously, a Kabam employee can't honor that stipulation because they actually are employees, so (presumably) employees have separate terms spelled out to them if they happen to be (or become) public facing content creators. Most companies like this have rules against astroturfing, for example.
The CCP is a program for outsiders to gain access to Kabam. It would be somewhat nonsensical for a Kabam employee to also be a member of the program since the CCP program can offer them nothing they don't already have. Content creators who previously operated within the CCP have gone on to become employees, but as there is no Avengers moment when Tony Stark promoted them, I can see how that distinction might not be obvious.
Why this matters when discussing disclosure is I believe to the extent any ethical standard exists, the employee relationship takes precedence. In other words, it would not be a proper disclosure for a Kabam employee to disclose they were a CCP member and not an employee. There are exceptions and caveats to that, but I believe in general an employee saying their information came from the content creator program would be misleading.
I say there are caveats because there's a huge difference between the dude working in the mail room failing to identify themselves as a Kabam employee on their twitch channel and one of the champion designers doing the same while reviewing one of their own designs, say. But those nuances would be very difficult to identify from the outside.
Thanks for your response and contribution.
I think one of the things that's come out of this thread is that there's a number of mitigating, and aggravating factors:
1. The spectrum of what constitutes a "Kabam employee" and the duration and/or number of hours you do for Kabam.
2. There's also debate about how big your YouTube channel is and whether your sphere of influence beaches the threshold.
3. Then there's also the discussion around the nature of your YouTube content - i.e. are you protecting Kabam and carefully curating what messaging you put in front of your audience (or hide from them)? Or conversely, do you just make guides on his to beat content? E.g. MCOC NOOB type content
To conflate being an employee with just being a member of the CCP diverts focus away from the core issue - "Should an influential MCOC YouTuber who works for Kabam in a meaningful way disclose to viewers to mitigate the effects of a conflict of interest?"
In my opinion, only two things matter (well, three, but hold that thought). One: conflict of interest. Two: appearance of impropriety.
It would be an actual conflict of interest to be an employee of Kabam and present yourself to the audience as a neutral third party. I’m not saying an employee can’t be objective or critical, but even the most objective person alive would be subject to certain skews of perspective as an employee. They would be privy to information no outsider would have access to that would influence their opinions about things like, say, whether Kabam was doing enough to fix an issue. It would be hard to believe they were not doing enough when all your friends were working overtime on it, for example. Disclosing that relationship allows viewers to make up their own minds as to whether to judge your opinions reasonably free of bias.
Even if you are an employee and disclose that fact, there are still conflicts of interest possible that can require further disclosure. If I were DLL, for example, I would make it a point to disclose when I was making a video about a champion i myself explicitly designed (which is a thing I’m pretty sure he actually does), separate from reviewing something that was not my own work, to further disclose any specific source of bias.
Completely separate from that, even if there is no actual conflict of interest there can be the appearance of one, and those should be disclosed purely from a credibility perspective. If you don’t disclose and then one day it comes to light, it will be much more difficult to argue no actual conflict existed, when you elected not to disclose. There will be, in the eyes of many, a presumption of a conflict if it was perceived as actively hidden.
I don’t believe how many subs you have matters. I don’t believe the reach of individual creators matters. I think those are generalities that matter within the larger discussion of whether disclosure should happen in general. Content creators in general have a reach, they in general have influence, and they in general have the trust of a significant percentage of their viewership. Because of these generalities, all of them should follow the same ethical guidelines, because they themselves cannot be an objective judge of whether the rules should apply to themselves.
There is, of course, a third thing that enters into the discussion, and that is the legal or regulatory environment. That’s a much more complex discussion. In general, however, the CCP members are not financially compensated, and thus would avoid most of those requirements in general. Employees are a different matter, but that’s a legal grey area.
I'm surprised so many people look at the question as a legal "can they keep it to themselves" instead of conscientious "should they warn the viewer"
To the people who think they should disclose, what relevance does working for kabam have to do with their content?
It goes both ways. Ths negetives are the biases. Which are bound to happen.
But there's more positive. Their feedback or communication holds much more value than normal content creators. Which is a very big positive compared to the occasional negetive.
As someone who is indifferent its an interesting conversation. It seems some people are questioning how authentic content creators are and is why they'd like to have disclosure
As someone who is indifferent its an interesting conversation. It seems some people are questioning how authentic content creators are and is why they'd like to have disclosure
Sir, this game is more than a Wendy’s but not much more.
OP, you should take this initiative and go get involved with local politics. File some FOIA’s, get after your elected officials. Trying to muckrake in the ecosystem of an online game isn’t worth your time.
Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
If you remember what happened, Karatemike was not allowed to say he worked for Kabam yet. That was the only reason he didn't, but then another community member outed him as an employee because they somehow figured it out. When in reality Mike was just waiting for the go-ahead to announce it himself. I imagine there are many processes to complete before they're allowed to go public.
Thanks for your response - do you have the CCP list available yet and the list of known employees who have an influential YouTube channel?
I'm obviously not gonna send that and @DNA3000 already explained why.
Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
If you remember what happened, Karatemike was not allowed to say he worked for Kabam yet. That was the only reason he didn't, but then another community member outed him as an employee because they somehow figured it out. When in reality Mike was just waiting for the go-ahead to announce it himself. I imagine there are many processes to complete before they're allowed to go public.
.I seem to remember at the time that people had seen his actual account name on the Kabam socials with the gameplay and did he also do the voiceover? If it had reached that point the horse has already bolted before anyone can close the barn door. Realistically the announcement that he was employed in some capacity should've occurred prior to him undertaking paid-for work, let alone releasing it into the wild.
I may be misremembering, but he didn't start doing the voiceovers - he was simply helping record the content. Dave still did the voiceovers. But another community member "outed" him and then he was shortly allowed to say that he worked for Kabam on a limited commission based type of thing, just on the deep dives.
THEN eventually he took over the Deep Dives entirely.
THEN when Miike and Jax left Kabam, Karatemike joined Kabam as part of the Community Team with Pinwheel and Dave. He wasn't officially hired on until then.
For instance, to my understanding, MetalSonicDude does not actually work for Kabam. They're just paying him to help with the Deep Dives.
Every creator in the CCP who is employed by Kabam in any way is known to the community. There are no "secretly employed" content creators.
I do agree there needs to be a disclosure of that, though. But there always has been.
So if a YouTuber who is in the CCP does work for Kabam in any way it's known - nobody secretly works for them aside from who we already have been informed of.
Has this always been the case? Because I know when Karate Mike was doing work for Kabam he was asked directly about it in streams and didn't respond, it was only subsequently that he did a post officially announcing it. I feel like he was the first person that has it happened to.
If you remember what happened, Karatemike was not allowed to say he worked for Kabam yet. That was the only reason he didn't, but then another community member outed him as an employee because they somehow figured it out. When in reality Mike was just waiting for the go-ahead to announce it himself. I imagine there are many processes to complete before they're allowed to go public.
I've tried to go back and get the information for you.
On 08/28/22 Jay Axe released the interview he did with Kabam John where he shared the fact that Karate Mike did work for Kabam. KT1 released a video on the same day covering this information.
I then went to Karate Mike's community tab to see his announcement, and the statement he made about his past with mercing (when it wasn't frowned upon - it was from years before). The problem is that post has disappeared, or has been deleted, so I cannot continue any further corroborating anything because the trail ends there.
What I do remember vividly was that the community came out saying Karate Mike's in game name was visible for months on official Kabam socials, and that it wasn't a suprise, we just weren't paying attention and we were at fault for not checking Kabam's content, and only complaining about it now.
Not sure any of this really matters, and as I said before he is very good at what he does and he works extremely hard. What is important is what Kabam can action right now to close the loophole, rather than digging up the past.
This thread had no need to go more than 5 comments, Pointless yapping and bickering that makes no sense nor change anything.
We've learnt a lot from this thread and I'm really grateful for everyone that's contributed to date. It COULD change something - all that needs to happen is for Kabam to hear it and put an action point in place. You're talking like Kabam creating, or improvising a policy is never going to happen, and is a foregone conclusion.
Why aren't you optimistic about Kabam's capacity to continually seek to improve everything they do?
My question is, what is the end goal of this line of questioning?
2) We've had SlayerOfGods stating there's list of CCP members and employees that have a YouTube channel already, so that'll hopefully be posted soon.
I never said this, by the way. I don't understand where you got that from.
Here's the comment that sounded like you were saying that.
1) "Every content creator who is employed by Kabam is known to the community. There are no secretly employed content creators"
Okay, great, I'm a part of the community (hopefully) where is the knowledge-base link that gives the community this globally known info? If there's no secretly employed content creators and it's very transparent why isn't there a resource, or a thread, or a singular place where this information is kept as reference material on an ongoing basis?
2) "I do agree there needs to be disclosure, of that though. But there always has been."
Again this sounds like you're saying there's always been a disclosure of who is employed by Kabam (i.e. a permanent, fixed, disclosure mechanism method - like a thread, post, link, resource).
Sorry if what I've inferred isn't what you actually meant. It's just the comment you made seems like a very robust response to the key question in this thread, I didn't realise it was actually talking about the piecemeal, ad-hoc disclosures that we've had historically. That inherently relies on just the content creator to behave ethically, whereas Kabam could go further than that by stipulating that content creators should be totally open about their paid relationship. If nothing else it helps protect the Kabam and consequently, the Marvel brand from unnecessary damage.
My question is, what is the end goal of this line of questioning?
2) We've had SlayerOfGods stating there's list of CCP members and employees that have a YouTube channel already, so that'll hopefully be posted soon.
I never said this, by the way. I don't understand where you got that from.
Here's the comment that sounded like you were saying that.
1) "Every content creator who is employed by Kabam is known to the community. There are no secretly employed content creators"
Okay, great, I'm a part of the community (hopefully) where is the knowledge-base link that gives the community this globally known info? If there's no secretly employed content creators and it's very transparent why isn't there a resource, or a thread, or a singular place where this information is kept as reference material on an ongoing basis?
2) "I do agree there needs to be disclosure, of that though. But there always has been."
Again this sounds like you're saying there's always been a disclosure of who is employed by Kabam (i.e. a permanent, fixed, disclosure mechanism method - like a thread, post, link, resource).
Sorry if what I've inferred isn't what you actually meant. It's just the comment you made seems like a very robust response to the key question in this thread, I didn't realise it was actually talking about the piecemeal, ad-hoc disclosures that we've had historically. That inherently relies on just the content creator to behave ethically, whereas Kabam could go further than that by stipulating that content creators should be totally open about their paid relationship. If nothing else it helps protect the Kabam and consequently, the Marvel brand from unnecessary damage.
Because it is up to the employee to disclose, when it becomes relevant to disclose.
Suppose there's a Kabam employee that works in the mail room. But he is a full time employee of the company drawing an actual salary. And one day he decides this Content of Champions thing everyone goes on about sounds like fun, so he decides to start playing it, and after a while decides to start streaming his game play on Twitch. Is he required to disclose this fact to his employer? Are then in turn required to publish this information in a public facing database? Is he required to show the Kabam employee tag on his game account profile?
I'm sure there are people reading this right now who with absolutely no hesitation would say "sure, of course, why not." But anyone with any situational awareness at all would understand that's a horrifying notion that no game company should or likely would try to implement.
Perhaps this seems like an easy thing to exclude, and it is, kind of. The problem is where you draw the line. This is obviously a ridiculous extreme, and zero disclosure seems to be a ridiculous extreme, where is the exact precise line located? If you're going to make an actual company policy, something that affects legal issues and HR issues and lots of other corporate operational things, the line would have to be drawn pretty precisely.
The general principle (as I understand it) is if you speak for the company there's a presumption you work for the company when you do, and vice versa if you don't work for the company you cannot portray yourself as speaking on behalf of the company. Separate from that, if you've given information ahead of time under non-disclosure limitations, you're required to state that you used such materials in your content if you do so.
But employees of the company making their own independent content, I don't think there are strict rules governing. That's more of a case by case thing, which is why there's no formalized systems for handling disclosure or other stuff related to that.
In the 10th anniversary Live Stream, you can see who are the content creators, because they appear for some seconds to congrats Kabam on a video inside the live.
If they are "paid" to promote the game, its a win/win for both sides...
Why not?
Forgot to say, that they dont need to disclose anything, even if its not on contract.
Or maybe their subscribers may say "this channel is biased"
My question is, what is the end goal of this line of questioning?
2) We've had SlayerOfGods stating there's list of CCP members and employees that have a YouTube channel already, so that'll hopefully be posted soon.
I never said this, by the way. I don't understand where you got that from.
Here's the comment that sounded like you were saying that.
1) "Every content creator who is employed by Kabam is known to the community. There are no secretly employed content creators"
Okay, great, I'm a part of the community (hopefully) where is the knowledge-base link that gives the community this globally known info? If there's no secretly employed content creators and it's very transparent why isn't there a resource, or a thread, or a singular place where this information is kept as reference material on an ongoing basis?
2) "I do agree there needs to be disclosure, of that though. But there always has been."
Again this sounds like you're saying there's always been a disclosure of who is employed by Kabam (i.e. a permanent, fixed, disclosure mechanism method - like a thread, post, link, resource).
Sorry if what I've inferred isn't what you actually meant. It's just the comment you made seems like a very robust response to the key question in this thread, I didn't realise it was actually talking about the piecemeal, ad-hoc disclosures that we've had historically. That inherently relies on just the content creator to behave ethically, whereas Kabam could go further than that by stipulating that content creators should be totally open about their paid relationship. If nothing else it helps protect the Kabam and consequently, the Marvel brand from unnecessary damage.
Because it is up to the employee to disclose, when it becomes relevant to disclose.
Suppose there's a Kabam employee that works in the mail room. But he is a full time employee of the company drawing an actual salary. And one day he decides this Content of Champions thing everyone goes on about sounds like fun, so he decides to start playing it, and after a while decides to start streaming his game play on Twitch. Is he required to disclose this fact to his employer? Are then in turn required to publish this information in a public facing database? Is he required to show the Kabam employee tag on his game account profile?
I'm sure there are people reading this right now who with absolutely no hesitation would say "sure, of course, why not." But anyone with any situational awareness at all would understand that's a horrifying notion that no game company should or likely would try to implement.
Perhaps this seems like an easy thing to exclude, and it is, kind of. The problem is where you draw the line. This is obviously a ridiculous extreme, and zero disclosure seems to be a ridiculous extreme, where is the exact precise line located? If you're going to make an actual company policy, something that affects legal issues and HR issues and lots of other corporate operational things, the line would have to be drawn pretty precisely.
The general principle (as I understand it) is if you speak for the company there's a presumption you work for the company when you do, and vice versa if you don't work for the company you cannot portray yourself as speaking on behalf of the company. Separate from that, if you've given information ahead of time under non-disclosure limitations, you're required to state that you used such materials in your content if you do so.
But employees of the company making their own independent content, I don't think there are strict rules governing. That's more of a case by case thing, which is why there's no formalized systems for handling disclosure or other stuff related to that.
Which is why we were discussing where the line should be drawn.
Maybe some hard numbers and examples, might be the answer.
Scenario A: Content creator with 690 subscribers, nature of videos isn't of a nature that will influence perception - I e. Just crystal openings.
I wouldn't expect a disclosure here because upon assessing the particularly of the situation it's low/no-risk
Scenario B: Content creator with 24,000 subscribers, nature of videos includes "state of the game", influential on players perception of the game.
For this I would expect a disclosure.
Scenario C: Content creator with 61,000 subscribers, nature of videos mostly guides, but has video about whether Deathless champs are worth it.
For this it's borderline.
Scenario This content creator has 85,000 subscribers, nature of videos includes almost anything MCOC related, including "state of the game" and has an influence on player perception of the game.
For this one I'd absolutely expect a disclosure, even though he's very candid and honest about what he thinks, he should inform viewers nonetheless.
Whether someone is part of the CCP or not, everyone’s perception of the game can (and should) be different — that’s just how opinions work. People are allowed to say positive or negative things about the game or specific champions, regardless of whether they have any connection to Kabam.
The idea that CCP members are somehow blocking boycotts or manipulating community opinion feels like a stretch. It almost sounds like you’re suggesting there’s some secret syndicate trying to brainwash summoners, and only a few are awake to it. That’s a bit much.
Let’s be real — if 100,000 players think the game is in a bad state, and someone like RichTheMan posts a positive video that gets 40,000 views, what actual difference does that make? Everyone has their own voice. One video doesn’t cancel a movement.
Also, let’s look at what CCP members actually do:
They show real gameplay from the beta server.
They explain how new champs work — abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
They give their personal take, like “I enjoy this champ because they’re fun” or “not my style.”
That’s not “hype.” That’s just honest content — informative and personal.
Hype would be if they exaggerated the champ’s power, misled viewers, or pushed people to spend on something under false pretenses. But when someone just says, “I like this champ for XYZ reason,” that’s not shady — that’s just opinion. You’re free to agree or not.
If a creator is just sharing facts and gameplay with their own spin, and you instantly discredit them only because they’re in the CCP, maybe ask yourself: where’s that distrust coming from? Is it really about the content, or is it frustration with Kabam in general?
Whether someone is part of the CCP or not, everyone’s perception of the game can (and should) be different — that’s just how opinions work. People are allowed to say positive or negative things about the game or specific champions, regardless of whether they have any connection to Kabam.
The idea that CCP members are somehow blocking boycotts or manipulating community opinion feels like a stretch. It almost sounds like you’re suggesting there’s some secret syndicate trying to brainwash summoners, and only a few are awake to it. That’s a bit much.
Let’s be real — if 100,000 players think the game is in a bad state, and someone like RichTheMan posts a positive video that gets 40,000 views, what actual difference does that make? Everyone has their own voice. One video doesn’t cancel a movement.
Also, let’s look at what CCP members actually do:
They show real gameplay from the beta server.
They explain how new champs work — abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
They give their personal take, like “I enjoy this champ because they’re fun” or “not my style.”
That’s not “hype.” That’s just honest content — informative and personal.
Hype would be if they exaggerated the champ’s power, misled viewers, or pushed people to spend on something under false pretenses. But when someone just says, “I like this champ for XYZ reason,” that’s not shady — that’s just opinion. You’re free to agree or not.
If a creator is just sharing facts and gameplay with their own spin, and you instantly discredit them only because they’re in the CCP, maybe ask yourself: where’s that distrust coming from? Is it really about the content, or is it frustration with Kabam in general?
It's not about CCP members, they don't do paid work for Kabam.
That could be a different thread altogether, this is more about someone with a big YouTube channel who gets paychecks from Kabam, and reports more favorably about MCOC to a noticeable degree.
Comments
On the KarateMike historical situation it's not hugely helpful for the purposes of this thread where we have an opportunity to promote actionable outcomes for the future. Kabam could enhance their cheater of values and lead on this.
I seem to remember at the time that people had seen his actual account name on the Kabam socials with the gameplay and did he also do the voiceover? If it had reached that point the horse has already bolted before anyone can close the barn door. Realistically the announcement that he was employed in some capacity should've occurred prior to him undertaking paid-for work, let alone releasing it into the wild.
I say this as a learning point that could influence best practice at Kabam in their policies, not to attack anyone. He does a great job at what he does and works hard. This discussion is not too do a postmortem about the past, or a blame game. There's outcomes that could be won for the community here, still on the table. We just need Kabam to hear the communities voice on this topic and address it to close any loopholes.
To the people who think they should disclose, what relevance does working for kabam have to do with their content?
Ths negetives are the biases. Which are bound to happen.
But there's more positive.
Their feedback or communication holds much more value than normal content creators.
Which is a very big positive compared to the occasional negetive.
OP, you should take this initiative and go get involved with local politics. File some FOIA’s, get after your elected officials. Trying to muckrake in the ecosystem of an online game isn’t worth your time.
THEN eventually he took over the Deep Dives entirely.
THEN when Miike and Jax left Kabam, Karatemike joined Kabam as part of the Community Team with Pinwheel and Dave. He wasn't officially hired on until then.
For instance, to my understanding, MetalSonicDude does not actually work for Kabam. They're just paying him to help with the Deep Dives.
Pointless yapping and bickering that makes no sense nor change anything.
On 08/28/22 Jay Axe released the interview he did with Kabam John where he shared the fact that Karate Mike did work for Kabam. KT1 released a video on the same day covering this information.
I then went to Karate Mike's community tab to see his announcement, and the statement he made about his past with mercing (when it wasn't frowned upon - it was from years before). The problem is that post has disappeared, or has been deleted, so I cannot continue any further corroborating anything because the trail ends there.
What I do remember vividly was that the community came out saying Karate Mike's in game name was visible for months on official Kabam socials, and that it wasn't a suprise, we just weren't paying attention and we were at fault for not checking Kabam's content, and only complaining about it now.
Not sure any of this really matters, and as I said before he is very good at what he does and he works extremely hard. What is important is what Kabam can action right now to close the loophole, rather than digging up the past.
Why aren't you optimistic about Kabam's capacity to continually seek to improve everything they do?
1) "Every content creator who is employed by Kabam is known to the community. There are no secretly employed content creators"
Okay, great, I'm a part of the community (hopefully) where is the knowledge-base link that gives the community this globally known info? If there's no secretly employed content creators and it's very transparent why isn't there a resource, or a thread, or a singular place where this information is kept as reference material on an ongoing basis?
2) "I do agree there needs to be disclosure, of that though. But there always has been."
Again this sounds like you're saying there's always been a disclosure of who is employed by Kabam (i.e. a permanent, fixed, disclosure mechanism method - like a thread, post, link, resource).
Sorry if what I've inferred isn't what you actually meant. It's just the comment you made seems like a very robust response to the key question in this thread, I didn't realise it was actually talking about the piecemeal, ad-hoc disclosures that we've had historically. That inherently relies on just the content creator to behave ethically, whereas Kabam could go further than that by stipulating that content creators should be totally open about their paid relationship. If nothing else it helps protect the Kabam and consequently, the Marvel brand from unnecessary damage.
Suppose there's a Kabam employee that works in the mail room. But he is a full time employee of the company drawing an actual salary. And one day he decides this Content of Champions thing everyone goes on about sounds like fun, so he decides to start playing it, and after a while decides to start streaming his game play on Twitch. Is he required to disclose this fact to his employer? Are then in turn required to publish this information in a public facing database? Is he required to show the Kabam employee tag on his game account profile?
I'm sure there are people reading this right now who with absolutely no hesitation would say "sure, of course, why not." But anyone with any situational awareness at all would understand that's a horrifying notion that no game company should or likely would try to implement.
Perhaps this seems like an easy thing to exclude, and it is, kind of. The problem is where you draw the line. This is obviously a ridiculous extreme, and zero disclosure seems to be a ridiculous extreme, where is the exact precise line located? If you're going to make an actual company policy, something that affects legal issues and HR issues and lots of other corporate operational things, the line would have to be drawn pretty precisely.
The general principle (as I understand it) is if you speak for the company there's a presumption you work for the company when you do, and vice versa if you don't work for the company you cannot portray yourself as speaking on behalf of the company. Separate from that, if you've given information ahead of time under non-disclosure limitations, you're required to state that you used such materials in your content if you do so.
But employees of the company making their own independent content, I don't think there are strict rules governing. That's more of a case by case thing, which is why there's no formalized systems for handling disclosure or other stuff related to that.
Or maybe their subscribers may say "this channel is biased"
Maybe some hard numbers and examples, might be the answer.
Scenario A:
Content creator with 690 subscribers, nature of videos isn't of a nature that will influence perception - I e. Just crystal openings.
I wouldn't expect a disclosure here because upon assessing the particularly of the situation it's low/no-risk
Scenario B:
Content creator with 24,000 subscribers, nature of videos includes "state of the game", influential on players perception of the game.
For this I would expect a disclosure.
Scenario C:
Content creator with 61,000 subscribers, nature of videos mostly guides, but has video about whether Deathless champs are worth it.
For this it's borderline.
Scenario
This content creator has 85,000 subscribers, nature of videos includes almost anything MCOC related, including "state of the game" and has an influence on player perception of the game.
For this one I'd absolutely expect a disclosure, even though he's very candid and honest about what he thinks, he should inform viewers nonetheless.
Whether someone is part of the CCP or not, everyone’s perception of the game can (and should) be different — that’s just how opinions work. People are allowed to say positive or negative things about the game or specific champions, regardless of whether they have any connection to Kabam.
The idea that CCP members are somehow blocking boycotts or manipulating community opinion feels like a stretch. It almost sounds like you’re suggesting there’s some secret syndicate trying to brainwash summoners, and only a few are awake to it. That’s a bit much.
Let’s be real — if 100,000 players think the game is in a bad state, and someone like RichTheMan posts a positive video that gets 40,000 views, what actual difference does that make? Everyone has their own voice. One video doesn’t cancel a movement.
Also, let’s look at what CCP members actually do:
They show real gameplay from the beta server.
They explain how new champs work — abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
They give their personal take, like “I enjoy this champ because they’re fun” or “not my style.”
That’s not “hype.” That’s just honest content — informative and personal.
Hype would be if they exaggerated the champ’s power, misled viewers, or pushed people to spend on something under false pretenses. But when someone just says, “I like this champ for XYZ reason,” that’s not shady — that’s just opinion. You’re free to agree or not.
If a creator is just sharing facts and gameplay with their own spin, and you instantly discredit them only because they’re in the CCP, maybe ask yourself: where’s that distrust coming from? Is it really about the content, or is it frustration with Kabam in general?
That could be a different thread altogether, this is more about someone with a big YouTube channel who gets paychecks from Kabam, and reports more favorably about MCOC to a noticeable degree.