$300 And I’ll Talk About Breasts on my Blog

Earlier this year an iPhone app came out that let you set which parts (breasts) of an image (sexy lady) should wobble. When you shake the iPhone, whatever you set to wobble would do as expected. There’s a new version of the game on the way and sticking to a tight moral code, the [Ed - apparent] game’s makers are offering $300 to bloggers who mention it.

Negative Gamer didn’t get such an offer, if we did, you would know. I would happily take the $300 (that’s several months of hosting paid for) and write about some low-brow iPhone game for the rich and lonely, but it would take the form of a labelled sponsored post. What I wouldn’t do is simply treat the fact I got paid as an unimportant side issue.

However, some people would and have. Something I assume is much to the displeasure of the FTC.

An email sent on the 6th of December to multiple sites, and forwarded to Negative Gamer by a kind tipster, reads;

Hi there,
I’m Jon Atherton of Glentwood, creator Wobble.

I’m developing the new version of Wobble (Wobble 2).

In order to promote my new version, I’d like to sell some more copies of the original Wobble and spread the word of our upcoming application.

I’m willing to pay 300$ (USD) if you’ll write an article about Wobble where you’ll mention about an upcoming version (Wobble 2).

I’ll be able to pay you right after the article is published and you sent me a link ‘“ please include your paypal email

It seems the news of the sequel to the highly profitable first app first hit the net late last month, but only made headway in non-English speaking countries (CrackeaTuiPhone, applicationiphone, Ispazio (20k+ subscribers), iPhone3GSystem.fr and more). Whether these sites have also been paid is unclear, but let’s be nice and assume not.

Less uncertain are those English speaking blogs which wrote about the new app after the email quoted above was sent (OneMoreTap, iPwnGames, Pulse 2 and more). One of which, iPwnGames, confirmed to NG they were expecting payment for their article of $300.

Assuming it’s the same app being talked about, it seems the [Ed - supposed] game’s creator is willing to not just pay $500 if the $300 offer is rejected, but also be an asshole and try a bit of blackmail.

As stated above, I have nothing against sponsored posts; even ignoring the blackmail and rude emails, this just does not sit at all right with me. Why not spend the potential thousands of dollars in bribes on advertising, or sending out some press releases? God knows the mere mention of breasts is enough for the average blog to jump on a story. Instead, the makers of the game decided to try bribing several sites for small mentions. Some of those sites then duly obliged without any mention of being paid.

This is no Kane & Lynch, but in my eyes it’s just as troublesome.

Update: We got an email reply from [Ed - name redacted as it has become unclear who the original email is from] which reads “who the f are you ?”

Update #2: Glentwood denies these emails were sent from them, or that Wobble 2 is even in production.