Picture this – you’re about to load your favourite video game and then the message of death pops up: Update Required. And it’s a compulsory one. No Fortnite for you.
And for the Battle Royale-rs amongst us, that was literally the case. The world-famous online video game, Fortnite, recently sucked its thousands upon thousands of players – and the entire Fortnite map – into a virtual black hole. No explanation was given for the game’s sudden disappearance, but it divided the people of the internet.
One half reckoned that was it. The End. Kaput. Bye bye Fortnite.
The other half thought it was a highly elaborate publicity stunt pulled off by the developers to prepare the game for its new season. In other words – a very melodramatic compulsory update was required.
And to be fair, if you have to shut down your online game for an update and risk losing a huge chunk of your loyal, paying customer base, then what better way to make sure they retain interest than to make them think you’ve deleted their data and money without explanation?
A couple of days later and the latter half of the Internetonians were proved right, but all this Fortnite hoo-hah got me thinking. I remembered back to when a mysterious horror game, simply titled P.T., popped up on the PlayStation Network in 2014 – and turned out to be a promo for the Silent Hill franchise.
Developers are creative buggers at the best of times – so it’s no surprise that some of the craziest and most original guerrilla marketing campaigns out there came from video game promotions. In case you missed them, here are some of my favourites:
Rise of the Tomb Raider: #survivalbillboard
When you’re up against some of the biggest titles in gaming such as Call of Duty and Halo, you’ve got to do something a bit drastic. UK agency McCann London did exactly that with #survivalbillboard.
They recruited eight hard-wearing gamers to stand on platforms in front of a London billboard, while being bombarded by intense weather conditions chosen by a viewing public – over 3.5 million viewers in fact. The last person standing was Adam, who survived for 20 hours and 45 minutes after being battered by freezing cold snow, blizzards, heat and rain. Basically living in Lara Croft’s fictional boots for a day.
The reality TV-style campaign was hugely successful, and also helped to convert Ms. Croft from the pin-up girl she’d become to the female heroine that she needed to be in order to keep with the fast-moving times of today.
Castle Clash: Spam Bots
You know when you’re playing a free game on your phone and an advert appears? One of those really annoying simulation games where you have to wait for about five seconds before you can skip it? Castle Clash is one of those adverts – and you’ve probably skipped it several times before.
I call it a poor man’s Clash of Clans, which is actually a very good mobile strategy game. And the team behind Castle Clash found themselves so desperate for new players that they took to dating app Tinder to create fake profiles – that then went on to inconspicuously (conspicuously) message lonely men about Castle Clash.
There’s so much wrong with all of this that I just don’t know where to start. Objectifying women, assuming that only men want to play, and resorting to catfishing innocent lads that just want to go on a date are several reasons why I for one, won’t be touching Castle Clash.
That, and Clash of Clans is better.
Red Faction: Guerrilla: Sledgehammer
If any game is going to exercise guerrilla marketing, surely it’s going to be a game with ‘Guerrilla’ in the title?
This is what I like to think of as next-level, Derren Brown s**t. If you were walking down the street, minding your own business on your way to work as you do every day and saw a car parked up, would you think about smashing it? Probably not. What if you happened to notice a pile of video games inside it? You probably still wouldn’t. What if there was a sledgehammer chained to it? You might think it odd that such a lethal weapon would be left in the public domain – maybe you’d even call the authorities – but would you choose to take said sledgehammer, smash the car up, and steal the games?
Not without our Derren’s hypnotic influence, surely. And not with health and safety like it is.
That’s what happened though – and it’s what now-defunct developers THQ wanted people to do. Obviously health and safety was a lot more relaxed back in 2009 when it took place. This was a publicity stunt like no other, and the brave (violent) people that got involved earned themselves a shiny copy of the game. Nothing like rewarding crime. And they say video games bring out the worst in us.
Saint’s Row IV: The Super Dangerous Wad Wad Edition
Remember Saint’s Row? For those of you that aren’t familiar, it’s basically an even more tongue-in-cheek Grand Theft Auto – a bit like if GTA was combined with Borderlands and Leisure Suit Larry. The latter of which I’m hoping none of you will have had this misfortune of playing. Don’t google it.
The gamers among you will be familiar with the concept of special editions. You know – the regular game will cost £49.99. Then there’s the Flamingo Edition, which includes a downloadable flamingo hat for your main character that costs £59.99. And then there’s the Ultimate Edition, which includes all of the above – plus an extra level that you have to download and a keyring. That costs £99.99. This is all hypothetical of course, but not far from the truth.
Anyway, the geniuses behind the Saint’s Row IV marketing campaigns decided to create a special edition that would make the rest of the world pay attention – and it worked. For a mere $1,000,000, yes, ONE MILLION DOLLARS, you could bag yourself the Saint’s Row IV: Commander in Chief Edition and…
- Virgin Galactic space flight
- Lamborghini Gallardo
- Toyota Prius
- Plastic surgery
- Two holidays to both Dubai and Washington D.C. with first class flights
- Spy training day
- Hostage rescue experience
- And more crazy things that you never knew you didn’t need.
There was only one Super Dangerous Wad Wad Edition up for grabs – and oddly enough for something sold in dollars it was available exclusively at GAME here in the UK.
As the contents of the edition came to (apparently) around $400,000 less than $1,000,000, some said it could have been a desperate bid from developers THQ to make some dosh before going bust. If you bought it, please get in touch.
There have been many more outlandish publicity stunts – such as free iPads in the Lara Croft GO promotion – but these ones are easily my favourite. If you know of any more then drop me a line – I could do with a nerdy natter.
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