Top 12 Worst Video Game Marketing Campaigns (Part 2)

If you missed it, you can read Part 1 here.

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.

At least they've done their homework about Dante's Inferno.
Heresy really IS the sixth circle of Hell.

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);

The many times SEGA used sexual humor to advertise its systems and games within the pages of Viz during the 90’s;

And that time Evony took “sex sells” to new heights and, in lieu of screenshots or gameplay, used pictures of sexy women in 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.

Our regularly-scheduled program will resume soon.