7 – Blast It,
- It’s the one that all the retro-game fans have been waiting for, Blast Processing was such a nonsensical piece of PR fluff that it’s now a catch all term for a made up marketing gimmick.
- Basically the term came from the fact that the Genesis had just enough power to occasionally be able to draw 256-colour static images and the developer referred to it as ‘blasting data into the DAC’s’
- So the PR company took that line and ran with it, the man responsible actually feels guilty for sparking the seed of ‘Blast Processing’ since it meant little more than nothing, unless you like playing static image gaming.
6 – Deadvertising,
- So you’ve got a game that deals with the theme of death – hooray, you’re super original – so you take that originality and hand it off to your marketing team, and boy do they come up with a doozy.
- Get this, what’s more related to death than the passing of a human life? Obviously the most logical way to advertise this game is by plastering it on cigarette packets.
- Just kidding, they actually decided to try and advertise on gravestones; you don’t need to be a kindergarten-graduate to figure out that this wouldn’t go down well, but then we are dealing with PR teams here.
5 – Wrong Number,
- It was inevitable for the marketing team to decide that a game about a virus would be called outbreak another brilliant connection would be to link organic viruses with computer viruses.
- So for a promotion for the game they set up a site that would send a text to any number you put in there telling the person they’d been infected with the T-Virus.
- Essentially this just ended up with a bunch of people calling their providers and tech-support asking how to get the virus from their phone.
- Yeah great, let’s associate your game series with a software virus, well done.
4 – Mysterious Packages,
- Quick question, if you got a random package in the mail, would you open it? What if it was a safe? What if it was a safe that beeped when you try to open it?
- Ubisoft decided to send this package to a non-gaming newsroom and forgot to send a voice mail explaining what it was, so naturally a bomb team was called in.
- This wasn’t even marketing, it was just a stunt to sweeten the journalist’s experience to maybe influence the score and it backfired on them.
3 – So Stupid it Almost Hurts,
- Some people hanging around outside a bar in New Zealand were surprised and then fucking terrified when they saw a man pull out a gun in public, the police turned up and detained him.
- Only it turns out that this man was an actor hired by Ubisoft and he was the to promote the new Splinter Cell game, needless to say the actor almost got shot at by the police.
- Clearly the person that thought of this and everyone that greenlit it shared half a brain cell between themselves because there’s no way anyone with any sort of intelligence would do this, or at least not without a chaotic malice that would put the Joker to shame.
2 – Worst Names Ever,
- This isn’t so much dumb as it is cruel, two different companies decided that it would be a good idea to reward parents that named their child after their game (Turok and Dohvahkiin).
- Listen, obviously some dumb, overly obsessive couple will take this bait, but it should be within human decency not to put yet another child on the planet with a name not even a gamer can appreciate.
- I just hope they also offered to pay for some private health insurance for the kid as well, because he’s going to be pummelled until he resembles a fleshy version of a dragon or dinosaur.
1 – A Quick Death
- And now we come to the most irresponsible and insane marketing stunt in gaming history, in order to promote the new Burnout game Acclaim offered to pay for any speeding tickets incurred on the date of the game’s release in the UK.
- This could have actually ended someone’s life, this could easily include speeding through a school zone and those speed limits exist for a very good reason, actually some poor, thick sod might’ve crashed into a family and never got to claim the ticket, we may never know.
- But hey, vehicle manslaughter could make a great subtitle for the next Burnout game, right?
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