This is just going to be a short blog about a growing problem I have noticed occurring in N4G's articles, over the last 6 months or so I have seen an increase in false advertisements being posted by fake user accounts attempting to either gain hits or scam legitimate users.
I wont post any examples with links for fear of encouraging the practice, but here's a message I received from a fake account only an hour ago.
"babyrita 1h ago
hi
My name is Rita never married. l saw your profile today and after going
through it many times then l made up my mind to
contact you as my friend. so l want you to write back to me through my email
address so that l will give you my picture and for you to know who l am.
(ritalwal1@live.com) l hope to see your mail ok. lt is from
me,
miss Rita"
We've all likely received these kinds of spam messages in our personal emails junk folder, but I think it is unacceptable to put up with this kind of crap on a gaming website.
I feel this kind of junk mail and spamming may become a bigger concern if more is not done to prevent it, the mods here already have enough to deal with regarding the many user complaints (legitimate or not) without having to respond to reports of fake user accounts spamming articles and such.
I'm honestly not entirely certain on how the management of N4G accounts is handled, but it seems to me that it's all too easy for anyone to create an account and start spamming articles, then have their account closed and move on to opening another. If I remember correctly I recall being told that the email address of a problem user is logged and restrictions are placed on them if they create a new account, but the Internet being as it is these days getting a new email address is no problem for most, the solution seems to be to increase the difficulty of signing up for and creating an N4G account, it mite put some potential users off but it would also turn away many potential problem users who intend to create fake accounts for purposes of spamming or creating duplicate accounts.
I think we'd all like to have less duplicate accounts and spammers but since this isn't an ideal word all we can do is attempt to discourage it, maybe there's another way to tackle this issue that I haven't mentioned.
So with that being said, what do you think? do I have a point or am I just making mountains out of molehills?
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
It's a well known fact that there will always be spam profiles created on websites like this. Even if the staff install one of those CAPTCHA systems to deter spambots, there's always a way to circumvent it.
With that being said, however, is it not bad taste to write a spam blog about spam? N4G is about gaming - spam is not gaming. :P
(that was a joke, in the event that someone decides to take it seriously)
I never had a personal SPAM message, however my complaint is more of the fake accts in random stories that post their propaganda. I always vote down, and report every time they appear.
Spammers are a huge issue. There's only so much that can be done to prevent them entirely before we start adversely affecting our users.
Having said that, lots of issues on how to prevent spammers have been discussed and more thoughts from users is always welcomes. If you get a PM like the one zero describes above, please don't feel like it's a waste of our time to report the user from their user page as such and/or submit a ticket via the 'Contact us' link below.
Thanks!
I had one of those spam private messages yesterday and blocked the person who posted it
Lol, I've never received a message like that. Why don't random non-women want to try and get my personal info? WHAT DO YOU HAVE THAT I DON'T!!!
But yeah, the spam is simply due to the traffic of the site. Bots are programmed to go to the high traffic sites and post their spam everywhere, plus there are those people getting paid very little (but evidently enough that they'll do it) to create phony accounts and spam everywhere.
It'll never be completely undone unfortunately. As users, all we can do is report it everywhere we see it.