The old saying is that “there is no such thing as bad press”. While quite possibly true some of these situations do little more than make the parent company either foolish or idiotic. Here are what I believe to be quite possibly the dumbest public relations mishaps of recent memory in relations to the videogame industry. These are in no particular order.
Capcom’s Dead Body Parts
For the release of Resident Evil 5 Capcom tried to emulate a trick used by the producers of the Batman Film: The Dark Knight. The Batman idea was to distribute joker cards all over a few cities to get folks excited about the movie; Capcom chose body parts instead.
Imagine if you will, a leisurely walk around Trafalgar Square (a.k.a. one of the bigger tourist spots in London) and you stumble upon a severed head, what bad could come of that?
The idea was for the person to find the most severed limbs and other body parts was to win a trip to Africa to celebrate the game’s new locale.
The publicity stunt went wrong for two reasons:
Many folks took the body parts and simply kept them for some bizarre reason, or even worse, mistook them for real ones and contacted the authorities.
The second problem was that the parts were smeared in chicken livers and blood, making them a huge contamination risk due to salmonella and other food-borne diseases.
They got desperate due to pressure form a few groups to release a few statements like:
"The body parts are very realistic and we don't want people to be alarmed by them. They've all been taken from their original positions, but we now have no idea where they are. "If you have them, please either return them, or dispose of them in a responsible and careful manner. In addition, chicken livers were used for added gore, and, uncooked, they can be dangerous."
To make matters worse the participants were told to stand around and nonchalantly wave the severed limbs around:
“Participants were instructed to: ‘Alert [Capcom] to your presence by standing on the bridge, holding the artificial body parts over your head and shouting “Kijuju!”. We will be there, watching you, and will approach when you make yourselves known.’”
….which caused a bit of panic.
Goat Feast for God of War
In today’s rabidly political correct world the following PR stunt is probably the worst idea to ever have. A few years ago in the buildup to the European release of God of War II Sony had a great idea:
“let’s throw a depraved God of War Party!”.
Problem was that the word “excess” was not in the party planner’s vocabulary. UK newspapers had the lowdown: “Sickening images of the party have appeared in the company's official PlayStation magazine – but after being contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Sony issued an apology for the gruesome stunt and promised to recall the entire print run.
Critics condemned the entertainment giant, which produces scores of Hollywood blockbusters each year, for its "blood lust" and said the grotesque "sacrifice" highlighted increasing concerns over the content of video games and the lengths to which the industry will go to exploit youngsters.”
During the party a freshly decapitated goat was hauled in and party-goers were treated to the still warm goat intestines as a feast. The intestines, which were cooked, had been placed back into the goat, as if it was a huge party platter.
There was even a contest to see who could eat the most meat, and the grizzly remains of the animal were showcased as a centerpiece. This would have gone unnoticed except the pictures were tossed into their very own OFFICIAL magazine.
Add in a few topless dancers, booze, and other poor choices and you can see why many found this a tad too much.
Rule of Rose Gets Cancelled (In Europe)
Ever wonder how to get your own game release cancelled?
This is exactly what happened with the survival horror game “Rule of Rose” which was banned in Europe for having "obscene cruelty" and being "profoundly shocking."
It seems that this all stems from a remark from the Mayor of Rome, Italy:
"Rule of Rose is a horror genre videogame, similar to a number of other videogames and movies on the market today, but does not in any way incite minors to commit violent acts and does not promote acts of violence towards minors... Following an in depth analysis by Pan European Game Information, the Interactive Software Federation of Europe and the Video Standards Council, the Rule of Rose videogame was judged to be suitable for European market distribution."
This remark made Sony suddenly drop all support with the title despite it not actually being that bad at all. Suddenly, papers began to run hatchet job pieces saying that the game contained adolescent rape and other vulgar acts not actually in the game.
It seems that at first these comments were seen to be good for the game and were inciting shock value. 505 games even tried to fuel the fire by making a few rumors worse, until it got out of hand. Even the folks at the rating board were confused about the media hype:
"I have no idea where the suggestion of in-game sadomasochism has come from, nor children being buried underground. These are things that have been completely made up."
"There isn't any underage eroticism," added Hall. "And the most violent scene does indeed see one of the young girls scare Jennifer with a rat on a stick. But the rat's actually quite placid towards her and even licks her face."
Since nobody stood up, the game and others distanced themselves from it, Rule of Rose never saw the light of day.
PS3 Launch
Sony’s Playstation 3 hardware is finally getting a lot of support and sales that it deserves, but this wasn’t always the case, as the launch of the very system was a mixed bag. There were more than a few people that had it out for the system from the very beginning due to the hefty price tag and a few other small problems, like the original rumble-less controller. The launch carried great word of mouth, but a large amount of fans were starting to sour on the system due to the over the top arrogance of its owner company and a few of its execs. Take our old buddy Ken “Krazy Ken” Kutaragi and a few of his “gems” of quotes that really got the fans going
"We want for consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.”
"I believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world. Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that."
"With the PS3, our intentions have been to create a machine with supercomputer calculation capabilities for home entertainment."
"[PS3] is not a game machine. We've never once called it a game machine. I'm not going to reveal [the PS3's] price today. I'm going to only say that it'll be expensive. I'm aware that with all these technologies, the PS3 can't be offered at a price that's targeted towards households.”
“It’s probably too cheap.”
“Cell will make possible a transformation in entertainment like that from novels to movies.”
As you can see a large amount of people were insulted by a few of these, not a good way to launch a system.
Sega Saturn Launch
Instead of doing what Sony did with its almost overexposure of a launch, Sega did the exact opposite with a “secret” launch for its Saturn system. It all started when Sega decided to release the Saturn just prior to the release of the new and untested Sony Playstation. In a genius move Sega announced that the Saturn would launch in the U.S. on "Saturnday", September 2, 1995.
Many were excited for this release until a shocking move occurred. In May of 1995 Tom Kalinske, the president at that time announced that the “saturnday” event was a ruse and the system would arrive in may, almost four months early.
The eagerness and joy soon turned sour as fans turned on Sega. There were many problems with the launch including a general lack of games, due to development cysles ending in time for “Saturnday” and not this new date. Another problem was the fact that huge stores like Wal-Mart did not initially get the system for sale.
EA mass Felony With Brass Knux
Weapon trafficking is generally frowned upon my law enforcement, so a scenario where a company mails out a huge amount of illegal weaponry as a publicity stunt might be frowned upon right? EA was really gearing up for the release of Godfather II a around a year ago, so much so that it mailed out press kits containing a genuine set of brass knuckles. In California, where EA’s offices are based brass knuckles are illegal, so simply having them was bad, but imagine a situation where you start to rack up felonies for this offence, in fact simply having possession of one is a class 1 misdemeanor. According to Colorado state law:
“Manufactures or causes to be manufactured, imports into the state, keeps for sale, or offers or exposes for sale, or who gives , lends, or possesses any cane gun or wallet gun, any undetectable firearm, any firearm which is not immediately recognizable as a firearm, any camouflaging firearm container, any ammunition which contains or consists of any flechette dart, any bullet containing or carrying an explosive agent….(the following is a list of illegal wepaons)”
All I Want For Christmas is a PSP
After a successful viral campaign for Halo, a lot of other folks were crazy to not at least try it out. Imagine that a company exec doesn’t really know how to pull off a viral campaign, and you may end up with a travesty like the following:
For more information, click view to visit VGchartz where this article was originally published