Scaring women in the name of advertising! Yeah, that's one Hell of a low-hanging fruit.
Studios are likely to cater directly to the target audience of the game they’re about to release. It only makes sense to do so. And since a lot of video games are horror or shooter types, who is the audience? Teenagers! And what is the stereotype of teenagers? That they hate their parents, or that they think their folks aren’t cool! Therefore, if their parents – or someone similar – object to their product, that product will instantly look cool to these teens! Sound logic there!
In 2011, Visceral Games and Electronic Arts made big plans for their latest survival horror shooter, Dead Space 2. Heavy stuff, hunting down monstrous aliens on a space station and dealing with mental illness. My brain who has never played this franchise immediately went, “that sounds like Aliens meets Resident Evil”. Anyone versed in the franchise can correct me. This combo says exactly what you can expect: Blood and guts galore.
That rating at the bottom couldn't be clearer!
The ad helpfully informs us that the women presented in its 32 seconds were part of an “actual focus group”, not actresses. So, we can assume their reactions are genuine. Grandmothers, moms, older women, you know, exactly the kind of person unlikely to enjoy what is being shown. Beyond the ad, the official Dead Space channel included full versions of some of the interviews. Hammering in these women’s outrage and anger at what they’re shown.
There’s just one problem: The game isn’t directed at younger teens. The ESRB rated it M for Mature. AKA, for older teens bordering on adults. I'm not saying they must have outgrown "your parents suck" at 17, but at that age, there's no need to involve the parents into the advertising. So, this campaign, on top of traumatizing multiple women, also completely missed the mark as to who it was speaking to. The whole thing was considered in very poor taste. The use of an age-old (pun intended) stereotype also turned away many people outside of the ad’s target demographic. To say nothing of the ESRB, who got a strong talking-to for allowing the ad to be broadcast.
All natural? Nice. Maybe don't advertise your burgers with gross pictures of what they'll look like after a month. That's a quick way to make anyone not feel hungry anymore.
It’s that time of the year again, and instead of thinking up a new idea for a Top 12, I’m going back to a well I began exploring twoyears ago. As I said at the time, marketing is a fascinating field to study and discuss. Some marketing campaigns have practically changed the world for the better. And on the opposite end of the scale, there have been several embarrassing campaigns; oh well, wipe the slate clean, try again later. That is, unless the marketing campaign bankrupted the damn company; you’d be surprised how often that did happen.
When it comes to video games, it’s as if anything goes. The target audience is kids and teens, sometimes families or adults. Such campaigns were aired as TV spots or as full pages in print magazines for a long time. In the age of the Internet, we see a lot of campaigns thanks to YouTube and on various social media platforms. And although the Web may be great to promote your product, it can become a double-edged sword.
SEGA does what Nintendon't. Like pissing jokes.
In the original two-part article that I wrote on the topic, I overplayed my hand. If you reread it, you’ll notice that I frequently talk about more than one disastrous campaign at a time. Maybe I should have kept some on the side, just in case I wanted to do another of these, right? Well… During my research for this new list, I found several more promotions that went haywire and gave exactly the wrong kind of attention to the product. But hey, you know what they say: Even bad publicity is still publicity.
This time around, I’ll leave more room for types of campaigns and stunts that weren’t as prevalent in the original list. Other than that, everything’s on the table, games and consoles alike. After all, failing to adequately promote a console means that said console’s entire library of games is at risk of underselling.
Be aware that some topics discussed may be heavy, and some images may be disturbing.
12. Bloodvertising
Oh, this is gonna be funny.
Just as they opened my previous list, Acclaim once more find themselves at the front of the line. Some companies have left their mark in the world of crazy advertising, and there are plenty of examples; but few have gotten as tasteless and horrid as some of the ideas that Acclaim’s marketing team came up with.
Continuing last Friday’s article with Part 2, covering the cream of the crap – the worst marketing campaigns and stunts done to advertise video games. Little time to waste, let’s jump into it right away.
Be warned, however, that I will be discussing some serious topics, and some pictures will be unsettling.
6. Assassinate your friends (on Facebook) thanks to Hitman
Depending on the game, nuns or an all-male party might be involved.
Square-Enix’s Hitman series kinda advertises in its name exactly what you can expect it to be about. You’re a Hitman, you kill people. Okay, so how do we market this, in a first-person shooter scene that’s already saturated with “you’re contracted to kill people” types? Well, a way was found… and since it’s on this list, you can imagine it wasn't great.
For Hitman: Absolution, released on November 20th, 2012, the advertising department thought to involve Facebook, already a red flag. An app was created, titled “Hire Hitman”. People who joined the app could “order a hit” on a Facebook friend, choosing among a list of gnarly flaws of all kinds before picking a reason to have that friend killed. The app would then post a video to that friend’s Facebook page, including all of the chosen details said by a voiceover, and even the friend’s profile picture. The video would only be viewable by that friend, so no harm no foul, right?
Take a moment to read the list... *sigh*
Wrong. 2012 is the year where cyberbullying on social media became a major topic on the news. Media had covered several instances of teenagers taking their own lives due to cyberbullying, including the heart-breaking story of Amanda Todd in October of the same year. This gag had to make things worse with its list of “flaws”, which included common bullying or sexist comments like “strange odour”, “small tits”, “big guts”, “small penis”… What’s more, whereas gamers were likely to use the app, they were just as likely to order the “hit” on someone who’s not a gamer and would therefore not know what this insulting video they just received is about. The app was up for only an hour before it was unceremoniously pulled, with the idea buried right afterwards. Bad timing? Doesn’t matter, it would have been tasteless regardless of the time of release.
5. Shop at Wesker & Son
Needless to say, while fans of the series enjoyed the contest of finding body parts, those unaware of the franchise might not have appreciated those body parts lying around London.
I could dedicate an entire article to ad campaigns made to promote the Resident Evil games. From showing a bathtub filled with blood in a children’s magazine (and, later, an entire pool), to a video showing a baby being breast-fed by a zombie for RE4, to scattering fake human body parts around London for fans to find for a contest around the release of RE5…
Oh, and they basically did that “Hire Hitman” thing first when they were promoting Resident Evil: Outbreak, set for release on March 31st, 2004 in North America. On a dedicated website, one could input the mobile phone number of a friend, and that friend would then receive a text notification basically saying “You’ve caught the T-Virus!” For those unaware, the T-Virus is the disease in the RE universe that causes zombification. Again: Might have worked if the person getting the message knew the franchise. But those who didn’t… well, let’s just say they either panicked over being told they had contracted a disease they had never heard of, or went to tech support help desks with the serious worry that their mobile had caught a computer virus or been hacked into.
But nothing tops what they did for RE6. First was an elaborate sequence of fake murder scenes in front of media offices in London, followed by fake autopsy reports, followed by boards and press packs further hinting that these grisly displays were promotion for a Resident Evil title. This culminated in the opening, on September 28th-29th of 2012, of the Wesker & Son Human Butchery.
The shop was technically more akin to a horror house, meant to be scary but in an entertaining way.
Yeah, if you have no idea about what this is supposed to promote, then this is a horrifying butchery-themed haunted house ride.
Set in the Smithfield Market of East London, the shop featured various cuts of animal meat deliberately reshaped by food artists to resemble human body parts. Hands, torsos, feet, legs, genitalia, you name it. Unfortunately, the illusion was so successful that the sudden "horror house"-style display turned stomachs and curious visitors had to be reassured that this was not, in fact, human meat. Never mind the market’s regular visitors who had no idea that this was meant to promote a horror/shooter video game. In all fairness to the shop, all proceeds from the sale of these cuts would be given to the Limbless Association, a non-profit organization helping amputees in the UK. It’s a little on-the-nose, no pun intended. The marketing made a mark for sure; but did it have to go that far?
For the record, neither Wesker nor his son are cannibals in RE6, so it wouldn’t even make sense in-universe.
4. Billboard space on gravestones
We’re not done with Acclaim! This particular case might not be the most extreme (encouraging speeding fills that spot in my opinion) but it’s their most (in)famous marketing screw-up. Let’s go back to March 2002, same year as the Turok AND Burnout stunts. I don’t know what Acclaim’s marketing department was smoking at the time, but I don’t want any.
Who would see this and go "I miss Charles so much... oooh, a new game is out? Awesome!"?
At the time, the task was to promote Shadow Man: 2econd Coming (a very stupid way to number a sequel, if you ask me). The idea likely happened in part to homage the franchise’s running theme of a world of the dead. The campaign was simple, if tasteless: We’ll pay the mourning relatives of people who are recently deceased in exchange for a little bit of permanent billboard space on their loved one’s tombstone. Funerals are expensive, after all, and that little extra could help. To add insult to injury, the press release implied that this offer would be particularly interesting to “poorer families”. Classy.
The Church of England refused to comply with the pitch: There is no way they would turn their graveyards into ad spaces. "There was enough fuss with plastic flowers in churchyards." Such a move would also require the prior planning permission from local governments as well. As far as I can tell, nobody ever took the studio up on that offer.
Fun fact: The company's name is Acclaim only because they wanted to be seen before Activision alphabetically on a directory of game studios.
At the time, Acclaim Entertainment’s head of PR Andrew Bloch tried to justify not only this move, but also every other: Due to the lower quality of the games and the smaller audience compared to larger established studios such as Electronic Arts or Activision, there was a need to create a burst of interest through word-of-mouth. The ideas were relatively cheap to set up and would get some buzz going. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, am I right? Well, Acclaim’s stunts regularly make it onto “worst video game marketing” lists long after they went out of business (on September 1st, 2004), so I hope they enjoy their afterlife of infamy.
3. God of War’s Greek goat party
Before Kratos took a chill pill and God of War was retooled into the much-acclaimed Dad of Boi Norse Mythology simulator, the franchise used to be quite the violent, sexual and edgy affair. Justifiable, it was based on Greek Mythology, and that stuff could get nasty fast. I doubt this justifies the lengths this campaign went to, however.
The game was God of War II, the year was 2007, and the month was April. It takes place during an event held in Athens, Greece, befitting the game’s setting. Throw in a bit of decadence, as some reports indicate that topless women at the event fed grapes to guests. Not bad enough? Let’s have an honest-to-Zeus goat sacrifice as part of the event. That will get people talking.
And indeed they talked. Sensationalist British tabloid The Daily Mail took the story and ran with it, inventing a whole lot of bullshit that’s become meddled with the facts. I’ll try to set the record straight. Was a goat “sacrificed”? Not in front of guests; an already-decapitated goat WAS wheeled into the party, though. Were guests invited to reach into the warm innards and eat the raw offal? No! Nor were they encouraged to eat a meal right out of the organs; actually, they were served in china bowls a traditional Greek meat soup made by caterers for the event; the meat wasn't from the goat. As for the topless grape-feeding women? It sounds too improbable to be true, but it’s been reported by more reputable news outlets, so it seems legit. And the goat? It was sent to a butcher immediately after the display. Props to them for the reality show-style challenges cooked up for the journalists, and props to the actor going around the party dressed as Kratos and handing out garlands. There was even a video of the event.
Low quality, because the video on Dailymotion was posted 15 years ago.
So, as bad as it was reported? Hell no. But still daring, perhaps far too much so. Animal rights activists decried the stunt, and shortly afterwards Sony admitted that this was in poor taste and that this “fell below the high standards of conduct [they] set [them]selves”.
2. The Dante’s Inferno fake protest at E3
Despite the omnipresence of Acclaim throughout this list, only one game has the dubious honor of appearing on it twice, and it’s Dante’s Inferno. I already discussed the series of promotions inspired by the seven deadly sins in Part 1, but it gets worse. The hyperactive marketing department behind the game went as far as to create fake companies (Hawk Panther, claiming to help one steal their best friend’s girlfriend before condemning them to Hell for Envy) or fake games (such as Mass: We Pray, "trailer" above, allowing players to partake in religious ceremonies, only to condemn them for Heresy) to drill in the theme.
Never saw any of those protests when lootboxes came around.
Whoever thought of all of these flooded the market with these stunts, annoying everyone; and though it’s not the last, the most reviled one happened at E3 2009, held on June 2nd to 4th. E3 is no stranger to gaming stunts and promotions, it’s an event meant for those, but there’s always the one group that decides to push its luck. The guerilla marketing agency hired for the stunt brought about 13 people outside of E3, protesting with signs decrying the existence of such a sinful video game. As you can imagine, the signs and slogans veered heavily on the stereotype of the fun-hating Christian fundamentalists, with pearls such as “Just Say Infer-NO” or various threats of going to Hell for playing it. They even handed out flyers with links to web pages designed to promote Dante’s Inferno as much as they were condemning it, in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
Look at that, they almost look like they believe it.
At first, a lot of games journalists were fooled, reporting the protest as real; but EA spokeswoman Tammy Schachter confirmed that this was a stunt. Journalists weren’t pleased. Moderate Christians, who accept gaming as a form of media, also were outraged by the stereotyping. Ironically, this might well have annoyed Christians who could have been interested in a playable version of the Divine Comedy; who better could we think of as a target demographic? Lastly, as I mentioned, this was the umpteenth stunt for this one game, so I assume many were sick of these trickeries. This may not be the worst marketing stunt, but it left a terrible long-lasting impression.
Before moving on to #1, here’s a few…
(Dis)Honorable mentions:
That time the Xbox One was revealed at E3 and the presentation focused solely on the console’s capabilities, nothing about the video games, and the infamous "always-on DRM";
That time the marketing team behind Dead Space 2 showed images of the gory game to mothers, using their shocked reactions for a “Your mom hates this game” spot;
That time the Nokia N-Gage marketing used scantily-clad women to promote the system, which flopped;
That time John Romero, during marketing of his new title Daikatana, swore to “make you his bitch” (his words, not mine);
And that time Evony took “sex sells” to new heights and, in lieu of screenshots or gameplay, used pictures ofsexy womenin Internet ads to promote their garbage empire-building free-to-play game.
1. The PlayStation Portable White Edition
This could have been done without racism. And yet.
The PlayStation Portable has had a rocky history with promotion. On launch, billboards and posters came out with red text on white backgrounds. One, posted on the side of metro tracks opposite to the station, said “Take a running jump here”; to the casual observer who wouldn’t notice the PSP logo at the bottom, it was a jokey invitation to suicide. Other ads in the campaign were either raunchy or inappropriate. The intention was to imply games on the PSP could take you to new worlds and it had extra functions, such as file storage (photos and videos). One notable ad, saying “Your girlfriend’s white bits here”, referred to how one could, as an example, store their significant other’s nudes on the console.
Then it was time to announce a new model to replace the classic, black-colored original model: A white edition. Surely there was a right way to promote this, right? No confrontation between the two, just encourage players to get the white edition and they’ll have as much fun as those with the black edition do… maybe have two actors, one Black and one white, playing together in complete comradery…
YIKES.
…Oh.
…OOOH.
Yeah, no, they went for the absolute worst thing they could ever do. Literally the white woman grabbing the Black woman at the jaw.
It's a nice-looking portable console! Why risk people avoiding it out of spite due to marketing?
There’s one thing I need to explain about marketing campaigns: Barring exceptions, they are scrutinized on all levels of an enterprise, to ensure they don’t make the company look bad or open them up to lawsuits. Things can be muddled if ad agencies get involved, but in general, lots of eyes should have run over the project before it’s finalized. For both campaigns around the PSP, ad agency TBWA was hired; considering the controversy they caused over “Take a running jump”, we ought to wonder why they were re-hired for “White is coming”. Someone, at some point in the making of this campaign, should have stood up and gone “This looks racist and everyone will be mad at us”. That didn’t happen.
And don’t serve me that “It was a different time” crap, it was 2006 and everyone should have known better. During photo shoot, several pictures were taken for this billboard, all emphasizing contrast between black and white, some of which put the two women at a more equal balance of power; so why go for the one image that looks like a white supremacy manifesto in picture form? The billboard, which was first put up in Holland in the Netherlands, quickly led to mass online outrage. Sony went into damage control, first defending their photo shoot, only to withdraw the entire campaign shortly afterwards.
Sounds like it doesn't really matter which picture they chose for the billboard, this was gonna be blasted regardless.
Definitely the worst marketing idea that’s ever come out of the world of video games; don’t worry, there’s been lots of similarly terrible moves while attempting to promote other products or events (You can probably name a few!), but that’s a rabbit hole I’m not going into. This list was enough for me.
Marketing is one of the most interesting forms of communication. Advertising a product to a market, usually through a great display of creativity. Some events are entirely dedicated to marketing and advertising; in video games, think of the yearly E3 convention. Some people might watch the Super Bowl for the football match, but several just want to see what agencies have come up with to occupy the year’s most expensive ad breaks.
Taking a stroll down the rabbit hole of terrible advertising campaigns is equal parts fascinating and disheartening.
I have a bachelor’s degree in social communications, so I have touched upon marketing alongside journalism, media, public relations and crisis management. I was more interested in journalism, but marketing has a charm to it. Find the best way to get your message across and convince people to buy your product or your service. Aim for your target audience, be inventive, appeal to the mass. Think of something with the same tone as what you’re advertising.
When it comes to video games? Your target audience is either kids or teens of all stripes, from well-behaved to edgy, so you can go just about any way with the tone. Throughout the history of video games, we’ve had consoles that were considered more for kids (such as Nintendo), consoles more for teens (PlayStation) if not outright grown-ups (Xbox), and anything in-between. Titles ranging from the innocent and sweet (Animal Crossing, Mario) all the way to GTA, Postal or Saints Row. Some consoles aimed for a specific tone in their advertising; as an example, SEGA kept advertising itself with dirty jokes for a while, especially during its console rivalry with Nintendo.
Hey, remember that time Nintendo basically had a whole movie made just to promote their dumb Power Glove? ...It's so bad.
Obviously, with more than 40 years of video games behind us, there’s been ad campaigns that we remember for the worst possible reasons. Too edgy, went too far, caused legitimate damage… Let’s make it clear: However insane the next points sound, these all happened. Being on this list doesn’t mean that the marketing campaign was unsuccessful; only that it went too far and/or was received harshly for it. But I am getting ahead of myself. We're counting down.
Fair warning, a lot of these entries discuss heavy topics and may include horrific imagery.
12. Name your baby Turok or Dovahkiin, win stupid prizes
A Jurassic Era FPS? ...Sure, I guess.
Not sure what the connection is between naming your baby Turok and the Dinosaur Times from the game...
Acclaim is a studio you’ll read about often on this list, as they are infamous for creating some of the most insane marketing stunts for their games. This first example, when compared to their other shenanigans, is tame. In 2002, Acclaim (also known for the Mortal Kombat series) created a campaign for their then-upcoming Turok: Evolution, the latest installment in their Turok series. They came up with a rather peculiar contest: New parents with children expected on September 1st, day of the game’s release, name your baby Turok for 10,000$!
The contest mentioned making the name official for only one year, and the prize money would only be won by the first baby registered for the contest (on the official Turok website) to be born on that day. To encourage participation, the campaign involved average people (actually actors) claiming they had legally changed their name to Turok for the occasion (they hadn’t). As far as I can tell, nobody was fooled, nor did anyone "win".
For some reason, nine years later, Bethesda had the exact same idea to celebrate the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Name your kid born on November 11th 2011 Dovahkiin and gain free download codes for every Bethesda game past, present and future. This time, one mother did actually participate and win. Be a big enough name, and silly ideas that don't work for smaller companies might work for you...
As far as my research can tell, the name stuck and the baby is now a kid who'll turn 11 in about two weeks. Happy birthday, Dovahkiin Tom Kellermeyer!
11. Homefront’s red balloons in the bay
A game with political commentary? Oh boy, I can't wait! /s
Sure, it's pretty. But...
Upgrading from a dumb contest to an ecological disaster. In 2011, publisher THQ wanted to promote the latest shooter developed by Kaos Studios, titled Homefront, about a weakened America invaded by North Korea. At that year’s Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, THQ staged a rally meant to “decry the North Korean regime and the treatment of its citizens”. The stunt ended with the release of ten thousand red balloons, all branded “GameStop”, into the air.
However, what goes up comes down, and as they deflated, the thousands of balloons landed in the San Francisco Bay, littering the water with plastic. The balloons even had additional ads for Homefront pre-order bonuses attached to them. Attacked on social media on all fronts for their participation to the stunt, GameStop released a press statement indicating that the company had no prior knowledge of the action, and blamed THQ. On their end, the publisher’s PR team claimed that the balloons were biodegradable, so no actual environmental harm.
...after that, you have to clean up.
As further punishment, the California Department of Fish and Game indicated that THQ could be prosecuted over the act, as littering any sort of waste into the waters is unlawful per the California Fish and Game Code, section 5652. In response to that, THQ responded saying they hired a cleanup crew to remove the excess red plastic from the Bay.
They should have stuck to the other stunt they did during the event, offering free Korean meals from a food truck with Homefront written on it. Still, that’s not as bad as…
10. Ubisoft’s fake terrorism causes real terror - TWICE
At least the balloons were unlikely to kill anyone. After 2001, if the crux of your marketing involves staging a fake shooting or terrorist attack, you shouldn’t have to be told that it’s a really fucking bad idea. And yet!
AKA Just Another Shooter.
Hi, Ubisoft. Very smart of you to take a rather direct method to promote the then-latest Splinter Cell, subtitled Conviction, set for release in April of 2010. On the 16th of that month, an actor dressed as the main character of the game (articles mention bandages on the man’s hands) arrived to the Degree Bar in Auckland, New Zealand, and pointed a firearm towards the people present outside. Police were quickly called to the scene, and officers did not realize the weapon was fake until they took it from the actor’s hands. Ubisoft’s NZ marketing partner Monaco Corporation said it had hired a different firm for the event, and did not know that a firearm, however fake, was to be involved.
This legitimately could have ended with a real tragedy; someone panicking in the crowd, or the cops fatally shooting the actor. In our days where mass shootings are terrifyingly common in the United States, this stunt rings even stupider than it did at the time. (Yeah, that was in New Zealand, not in the U.S.; but such an idea is inexcusable no matter the place.) But the sad part is: It’s not their last act of fake terrorism.
A mysterious box is shipped to your job and it starts beeping. How the Hell would you react?
This time promoting the upcoming Watch Dogs released on May 27th, 2014, the company sent to several gaming journalism offices black safes with numpads and messages telling the recipients to check their voicemail. Fine, right? Wrong. One was shipped to a reporter working for Ninemsn, an Australian news website. The reporter did not have voicemail, and Ninemsn doesn’t cover video game news. After trying the code taped to the box on the numpad, the journalists heard the package start beeping. Bomb squad was called. The media office did assume it was some sort of PR stunt, but preferred to be cautious. Inside the safe? A copy of the game, some goodies, and a request to embargo until 5 PM.
Of all the stunts on this list, these are among those that piss me off the most…
9. Normalizing sexual misconduct at Comic-Con
…but this one also pisses me off, to no end.
Dante’s Inferno is a semi-forgotten 2009 title developed by Visceral Games and published by EA. The marketing around the game sought to evoke the deadly sins in every way possible, from incurring Wrath from games journalists by encouraging them to smash a box that Rickrolls them, to baiting them with 200$ checks for Greed… Okay, but what would they do for Lust, then?
I couldn't find any images from the contest, therefore here's a random online screenshot of the game. Out of respect, I'm also not gonna post any pictures of "booth babes", either.
Simple: Set up a booth at San Diego Comic-Con and encourage congoers to commit “acts of lust” towards the models working at the booth… or any other booth at the event, whose "booth babes" weren't exactly made aware of in advance. Participants then had to post the pictures to social media and/or e-mail them to EA. Now, the creators of the contest clarified they merely meant taking pictures, not actually lusty ones, with the models, and judges even reserved the right to refuse any submissions that were “inappropriate”. But try explaining that to the guys who only read the title and not the fine print. Worse even, the contest’s grand prize further encouraged the potential for sexual misconduct, as it was stated to be "dinner and a sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of booty” (their words, not mine).
Encouraging sexual assault, promising sex, treating women like objects: Yeah, this gross and sexist contest checked every box of the Lust Sin Bingo. This was a terrible idea that should have never happened, and I fully endorse EA getting blasted (…in general, but also) for this boneheaded move. Women at conventions already have to deal with enough bullcrap without adding this to the list.
8. The SEGA Saturn’s surprise launch
The oldest screw-up on the list, and one of the most infamous “corporate Darwin Awards”; where a company does something stupid that tanks them, usually in a way they can’t recover from. This one has more to do with the business side of things, but is frequently cited as one of the reasons SEGA left the console market.
Tom Kalinske, whom (as interviews indicate) in spite of this unfortunate turn of events, still loves SEGA dearly.
The very first edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, took place from May 11th to 13th, 1995. We’ve seen our fair share of both incredible and disastrous E3 presentations in the 27 years since, but the event had to start somewhere, and boy did it start with a bang. SEGA was competing with a new rival, Sony’s PlayStation; their new consoles, the Saturn and the PS1 respectively, had already been released on the Japanese market, leaving them to see who would conquer North America. There was a lot on the shoulders of then-SEGA of America president Tom Kalinske. On the 11th, he walked onto the stage and made a shocking announcement: The Saturn, whose release date was originally set for September 2nd of that year, was now being released this very same day, with 30,000 copies shipped to many retailers. Kalinske then revealed the price of the console, with which was included a copy of Virtua Fighter: 399$ USD.
Then, it was time for Sony’s presentation. Olaf Olafsson, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America, handed the microphone to head of development Steve Race, who said only one word before leaving the stage, "299$”, to roaring applause. That wasn’t a burn; that was a tactical nuke.
Despite releasing four months later on September 9th in America, the PlayStation easily defeated its competitor. The Saturn’s launch was plagued by issues: Not only were many stores unprepared for the surprise, but some retailers who hadn’t been included in the surprise were angered; one of them, KB Toys, swore to never sell SEGA consoles again. There were too few launch partners and too few copies for the demand. Very few games were available on the new release date, with the selection of titles remaining bare for a long time.
Yeah, that sounds about right for a corporate Darwin Award.
7. We’ll pay your speeding ticket!
We started this part with Acclaim, we’re closing it with Acclaim. And that time, they pissed off a government.
In early October 2002, the studio was preparing for the release of Burnout 2: Point of Impact, a racing game developed by Criterion Games. The idea: What if you’re in such a hurry to acquire the game that you won’t even respect road laws, and, say, get a speeding ticket because of that reckless driving? Don’t worry, Acclaim will pay it for you! Or at least, that’s what they pretended. Also, y’know, to avoid any legal headaches of paying the speeding tickets of gamers in other countries, the offer was limited to residents of the United Kingdom.
No game is worth speeding, getting a ticket, or risking death or an accident for.
I don’t know what’s with all these marketing stunts that encourage terrible behavior in people (see the earlier point about sexual misconduct). As you can imagine, this didn’t fly with the UK government of the time. Reckless driving can lead to much worse than just speeding tickets; property damage, accidents, deaths, to name a few. So yeah, UK officials gave the publisher a piece of their mind in the local media. Facing backlash from people far more important than the average moral guardians, Acclaim quietly ended that particular promotion. Hope you weren’t speeding in the UK in early October 2002 hoping to have that ticket paid for you, because it’s not happening.
Well, this was pretty long… well, I will have to split this list into two parts. Tune in Monday for Part 2, covering points 6 to 1. If you can believe it, they’re even more insane than the ones listed here.
Welcome to Part 2 of the list! Be sure to check Part 1 if you've missed it. Here are 6 more reasons why one might stop playing a video game.
I wonder if I should make some kind of clickbaity statement à la "Number 1 will surprise you!" But nah. I don't need that.
6. You can’t win (And it’s your own damn fault)
Good job, champion, you're stuck.
The thought of starting a game from scratch after sinking at least a dozen hours into it, that’s the kind of thing I refuse to think about. Especially when I have to do this because of small mistakes I’ve made, that halted my progress. It’s a lot more enjoyable to start a game over after you’ve beaten it once. However, what if you seek trouble on purpose, and manipulate the game in such a way that you get yourself trapped?
Why, oh, why did you release all of your other Pokémon,
lose all of your money, and got yourself in an area
where anything can kill a Level 5 Mon in one shot?
Then you’ve only got yourself to blame. Admittedly, if you do that, you have probably accepted the consequences of your actions, since getting stuck was your end goal. Most games do come with the option to open a new save file. Some that don’t still have a way out, such as a suicide code (pressing a specific series of buttons together), in order to run away. The most common manner to trap yourself in a video game is to save exactly before an encounter you cannot win against – either you don’t have the necessary items, or you’re out of ammunition, or your character is too weak to win. It’s especially bad if there’s no way to go back in order to gather these items or do some good old level grinding.
That said, unlike other examples on this list, if you sought that outcome, you’re probably not going to be mad at the game to such a point where you’ll give up on it. You were kind of asking for that situation to happen. Thankfully, many situations that look hopeless can actually be resolved in some way. I can think of one YouTuber out there that willingly traps himself in an older Pokémon game, with no apparent way out, and yet a long (and incredibly tedious) series of actions can be taken to eventually get out of that situation.
But yeah… if that happened to me, I would feel like such a damned idiot that I’d probably put the game down forever out of shame.
5. Annoying gameplay mechanics
Ah, yes. It had to come down to this eventually. We’re still squarely on the subjective side here, but we’re also reaching the question of one’s own ability with a game.
Hope you like Powersliding.
You'll be doing it a lot.
As I said, a humongous amount of work goes into every single facet of a video game. You’d think that applies to controls… and you’d be right! It’s not all about setting them early on and calling that a done deal. At times, it’s necessary to judge on the impact of these controls on the game as a whole. I am reminded of the #1 reason why I dropped Mario Kart DS: On later difficulties, the player has to achieve a complex maneuver that involves quite a bit of button-mashing in order to get a speed boost and reach the top place. Meanwhile, the CPUs could utilize that maneuver effortlessly.
Which brings me to the other aspect of “gameplay mechanics”: As an example, the opponent(s)’ artificial intelligence, which can make the game either too easy or too hard – both cases have been seen. The AI can have a huge impact on the game as a whole.
How the Hell is that comment supposed to help me?
Tell me something useful, Grandpa!
Then we have gameplay mechanics that don’t exactly involve AI or the regular controls. Side-quests or altered states that switch things around, as an example. Unreliable items or maps, or inaccurate information given by objects or NPCs (some games of the early Nintendo era suffered from this; the first Legend of Zelda game was made so much more difficult in the English version with the enigmatic and, at times, incomprehensible advice Link was given).
That’s not to say that “bad” gameplay mechanics can’t be utilised for fun; I’ve played more than one game on Steam that impedes your abilities in order to provide a challenge (think of Octodad or Surgeon Sim). But when it’s unintentionally bad, and you feel your interest in a game wane because you can’t stand the gameplay mechanics… There goes one game you might never touch again.
4. The chore of repetition
Sure, the map's got a lot of stuff to do...
But how many of those are copy-pasted missions?
Some games pride themselves on a thrilling story, or new and innovative mechanics. Others market themselves on their size, others on their length.
…I now realize that this could be seen as an innuendo, so let me clarify: Many studios nowadays brag about the size of the map you can explore in their game, while others market themselves on the estimated number of hours of content they offer.
We all play games to have fun, right? That’s the core idea of such a thing known as a video game. So when any game stops being fun, that’s pretty much the best reason to quit. That’s why I’ve skipped on every Uno table I was invited to in the past 5 years.
"I've heard of a settlement in danger..."
"AGAIN? It's the 8th time this week!"
This point actually covers two reasons as to why a video game may stop feeling fun, but there may be overlap. The first is when it starts to feel like a chore to play. The second is when the gameplay requires constant repetition, especially if it’s of tasks that just aren’t all that interesting to the player. Many games add variety precisely to prevent repetition from getting too bad, and to the developers’ credit, it usually works. A lack of variety in tasks to be done becomes particularly noticeable after a while. You can easily tell, then, when a game is suffering from a lack of diversity in tasks and side-quests. How many settlements are you willing to help until you get sick of doing that? Shut up, Preston Garvey.
You know what’s worse about this particular point? If there’s such an insistent repetition of tedious tasks for the player to do, it’s usually for the sole purpose of padding out the length. If a game has to resort to padding in order to give an experience that feels long enough, something’s wrong.
You liked the first few hours?
Good! Re-do them 4 more times.
I'm never buying that one.
But hey, it could be worse. You could have the same game repeating itself multiple times, like a bad version of Groundhog Day, as a core element of the story. Bravely Default, anyone?
3. Failure by comparison
Yah, no. I'm going back
to the other ones.
They're way better.
This one tends to apply mostly to franchises, but I guess it can also apply to larger genres. Let’s say you’ve bought a new game in a franchise you enjoy – Super Mario? Call of Duty? Just Dance? Should be good, right? But wait… your interest is waning in this new installment. As it turns out, this new game of the series just doesn’t quite cut it. You realize you enjoyed the previous games more, and so you happily return to those. Maybe you’ll be going back to that new game at some point. Maybe. But you’ve clearly got your preference.
I don't have Fortnite. But if I did, I
would not bother with any other game
trying to be "like Fortnite".
I would have the OG. I wouldn't need
another.
Perhaps the latest release changed some gameplay elements, perhaps it made changes to the formula that you disagree with (Mario Party 9, anyone?). This one doesn’t have the charm of the earlier games, is all. By your opinion, the older titles are better. I remember being pretty bummed about the newer Just Dance games focusing so much on multiplayer and online modes at the cost of single-player achievements.
So far, I talked only about cases involving a single franchise, but what if this applies to an entire genre? As a fan of Jim Sterling, however controversial he may be, I say he has once raised a solid point: The gaming industry has a tendency to copy the latest popular thing (shooters for a while, then loot boxes, and the latest trend at the time of writing is Battle Royale modes). Thing is, they take inspiration from the leading title of each genre (Call of Duty, Overwatch, Fortnite), but the players who enjoy the leading games… already have the leading games to play with. They’re not going to bother with industry followers who copycat formulas, usually for a quick buck, and usually without any attempt at replicating what made the industry leader a popular game in the first place. Pure failure by comparison.
2. The game is too short/too long
Going back to the topic of a game’s perceived length. I’ve touched upon the possibility of a game studio padding the length by adding very few different quests for the player to complete, only repeated all over the map. That’s not accounting for the length of the main quest, the “story mode” if you will. And this, depending on the genre, can vary. Depending on the dev’s willingness to give the player their money’s worth or not… this is part of the point here.
I heard that point of criticism about Dark Souls 2:
Too much stuff, some of which could have been left
out to create a better experience altogether.
Have you ever played a game for so long that you never really reached the end, and gave up partway through? It can happen. As I said, any game can get tedious, especially if it doesn’t offer enough diversity to keep the player invested. If it keeps dangling the carrot at the end of the stick, but takes too long before it allows the player to reach for it, then the player may just give up. This may also go with the "repetitive tasks" described earlier, or a plot that appears to take too many twists and turns before getting anywhere. Or if the game is built in such a way that grinding is mandatory to move on, making the game longer... but the reward doesn't seem to be worth the effort.
100 minutes, and it's 100%'d. Kinda short, no?
(Admittedly, it IS a good game though.)
We then have the opposite situation: When a game is too short. As far as indie games are involved, it’s normal to see shorter games. Most titles of the puzzle-platform variety don’t overstay their welcome. Others seem to have just the right length, or contain just the right amount of side-quests, difficulty levels and bonus content to keep the player occupied for a few hours, should they bother with all these extras. On the other hand, if the experience was too short, and there’s no way to remedy that situation, it may discourage one from playing again. Unlikely, but possible.
That is, unless you’ve purchased a full-price game, 60$ a pop, and you barely get two to six hours of content. If the game cannot justify its retail price by offering enough content for the player, something’s not right. That’s enough to get angry. I know I’d be pissed if I bought a game with my hard-earned money, and it took me less time to finish than it took me in work hours to gather the money to buy it. And those games are usually the ones that end up gathering dust in the deep corner of a drawer, or shoved aside in the virtual library, never to be touched again. Those are also frequently the kind that offer no additional challenges to lengthen the experience.
Is it fallacious to expect a certain length to a game based on its price? One could say that there's no link. I would argue that there is, but it's all down to your own expectations. If, to you, paying full price for only a couple hours feels wrong, you have a good reason to be disappointed. If you don't mind... well, more power to you.
Getting very angry at a 60$ game for being only four hours long
is a perfectly justified sentiment. Thanks, Angry Joe.
1. The Player Punch
Let’s end this long, long list on a special note. We don’t always turn to video games when talking about media that makes us feel. And yet, it’s just as valid as any other media of fiction – may they be books, movies, theater. Video games are just as capable of bringing us through the entire spectrum of emotions. That includes shock, sadness and regret.
No! Don't kill my Metroid baby!
No! Mother Brain, you monster!
Have you ever watched a movie that you couldn’t finish, not because you thought it wasn’t good, but because it punched you so hard, right in the feels? I don’t think it ever happened to me personally, but it’s a possibility out there. Especially if you take the story seriously.
The Player Punch is a tried-and-true technique that involves setting up story elements leading to tragedy, to shock or sadden the player and make them feel even more attached to the characters. We tend to forget the sheer power of emotions. A similar situation is to force the player into a moral quandary where they can’t be certain that they’re doing the right thing. That element of doubt alone can do the trick. In other cases, the game will remind the player frequently that they’re not doing the right thing – but then again, said game is then made in such a way that the player cannot back down, cannot escape the consequences.
Admittedly, while the Player Punch is a thing (it’s even got a trope to its own), any such situations that make one stop playing are actually pretty rare. Has anybody stopped playing after the death of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII?
Thankfully, some of these situations can be escaped by starting over. I think of the No Mercy route of Undertale, which is a collection of moments calling out the player for their extreme violence. As I mentioned in my review of it, many people stop a No Mercy route as soon as they reach a character they refuse to harm. Usually, it’s Papyrus.
Noooooooooooooo
Somehow I feel guilt over this thing that
I am not even sure I ever actually did...
Some other games don’t offer that luxury… I’ve been hearing a lot of things about a shooting game titled Spec Ops: The Line, and how it bombards (heh) the player with inhumane situations that the protagonist carries through with nonetheless, to the point where you can be considered the game’s true villain for actually moving forward instead of stopping the game right there and then. Two words: White phosphorus. The game even calls you out during loading screens. Has it been strong enough to stop a player from continuing their playthrough? It wouldn’t surprise me if some folks were incapable of continuing past this point. Such a thing demands a true mastery of the art of storytelling on the part of the game's writers.
Alright, that’s all for this list. See you soon for more new content.
