Mercenaries 2 gave out free gas
The campaign: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames takes place in Venezuela, and much of the plot focuses on fuel tycoons. Great. That gave the marketing team plenty to go on. What did they end up with? Offering thousands of dollars of free gas in major cities like Los Angeles and London. Hmm, wonder what would happen if a gas station were to offer free gas, particularly during rush hour traffic?
The result: Easy answer. The giveaways started just before rush hour, meaning thousands of commuters all over the world were gridlocked for hours. More like "world of flaming mad." Authorities eventually shut down the gas stations to get traffic flowing again.
Resident Evil 6 was meaty and disgusting
The campaign: Does a game like Resident Evil 6 need a lot of promotion? It's a numbered entry in a massive franchise, after all. Well, Capcom wanted to do something, so it set up a special butcher shop in London called Wesker & Son Resident Evil Human Butchery. That name couldn't mean yes. Yes it could. They actually sold meat in the shape of human limbs.
The result: Again, they sold meat in the shape of human body parts. All proceeds went to charity, but that didn't stop, like, everyone from being disgusted by this. And neither Wesker nor his son Jake is a cannibal, so this whole things just makes zero sense.
Watch Dogs drops a (literal) bombshell
The campaign: Watch Dogs had a massive ad campaign from its announcement, through its delay, and up to release. The hype train was flying down the track, but Ubisoft decided it needed one last push at launch. And by "push," I mean a marketing campaign that involved delivering a ticking safe to an Australian media office." The Aussies immediately panicked, thinking they had been sent a bomb. Can you blame them?
The result: Not learning from its Splinter Cell mistake, Ubisoft got the authorities called in once more. This time, it was a full-on bomb squad, flocked by multiple police units. Oopsy.
The white PSP was racist
The campaign: The picture you see above was plastered on billboards all over the Netherlands. Sony was going for an "out with the old, in with the new" vibe, but the ad just comes across as super ill-conceived. Why?
The result: It'll take you about half a second to look at the ad and reel away in disgust. Sony had a few other, less bothersome pictures of the PSP models, which they quickly sent out to try to save face, but who the hell thought this would go over well with anyone?
Hitman killed your Facebook friends
The campaign: The goal of every Hitman game is exactly what the title implies: killing a target for a high-price contract. It's pretty dark, but that darkness fortunately stays in the virtual realm. At least it did, until publisher Square-Enix created a Hitman: Absolution Facebook app for killing your friends. No, seriously--this app let you "take out hits on your friends" based on characteristics like hair color and genital size. I so wish that last sentence weren't true.
The result: Understandably, people weren't big fans of having their friends murdered, virtually or otherwise. The app was pulled from Facebook within hours, leaving only a few friends-list corpses in its wake.
Acclaim was completely insane
The campaign: If you're unfamiliar with Acclaim, it's the team behind Turok, Burnout 2, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, Virtua Tennis 2, and Shadowman--those are about dinosaurs, racing, gladiating, playing tennis, and journeying through nightmares, respectively. So how did Acclaim promote these nifty games? For Turok, it put up a 10 thousand dollar bond to the first parents to name their kid "Turok." For Burnout, it offered to pay your speeding ticket if you rushed to the store to buy the game. For Gladiator, it wanted poster ads to actually spurt blood. For Virtua Tennis, it painted pigeons like tennis balls to be thrown into Wimbledon matches. And for Shadowman, it literally posted ads on tombstones. No respect.
The result: Utter insanity. Acclaim shut down in 2004, had its logo bought by someone else, and shut down again in 2010. Pin an ad on that grave.
Back to the drawing board
There you have it--a bunch of marketing ideas that totally backfired. Some were bad from the start, and some had a chance but never found success. Which campaign do you think was the worst? Are there others you remember? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to see some more video game ads? Check out these gaming slogans you can never forget. If you want more screw-ups, then have a gander at these blatantly sexist video game advertisements.
