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Video Game Advertising Reaches New Lows
Anonymous Coward writes "The Guardian is reporting that Acclaim is attempting to purchase advertising space on gravestones of the recently departed in order to promote its new game ShadowMan 2. This certainly takes the encroachment of commercial messages on public space to new levels." I understand RockStar is looking for a molotov cocktail partner...
Well, ok, maybe they said they wanted to buy space on graves, but let's face it, it wouldn't happen (unless Eminem's mum died I guess). It's just good publicity - hey they've just pulled in a few thousand nerds if nothing else!!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
i cant believe you guys fell for this.
... its a shame that in the majority, games are rewarded with mainstream publicity only when they are offensive or go for outlandish publicity stunts like this, instead of being innovative and well designed.
a company releases a second grade tomb-raider-but-with-dead-people ripoff, destined to disappear into the archives of me-too crap gaming, and to try and save themselves on the way down, they come up with something that will offend all the right people and get them all sorts of publicity even in places where gamers really arent part of the target market.
they could have saved themselves the trouble and just gave the lead character a massive pair of boobs.
read the article if you have to, see it for the cheap publicity stunt that it is, move on, and hope that this game doesnt become more popular than it deserves
acclaim want to make you their bitch. maybe it worked.
I got into a conversation about advertising limits and as an absurd, extreme case someone suggested Coke agreeing to pay for a new born's college education in exchange for tatooing their logo on the inside and outside of the baby's eye lids. Why waste every blink?
What frightens me is that at the time it was meant as a joke, but I could almost see people considering this. A life time of walking subliminal ads and a gauranteed lifetime customer.
I don't think we'll ever see how far the advertisers are willing to go, we'll only see how far we're willing to let them.