Top 10 Worst Video Game Marketing Fails

Despite the Red Ring of Death, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was a phenomenal console. But even if there wasn’t a ton of hype leading up to its next system, we still would have been disappointed by this. Microsoft held a press conference in May of 2013 to reveal the Xbox One and talk about its features…which had almost nothing to do with video games. Over half the presentation was devoted to television integration and the new and improved Kinect, which no one really cared about. Even worse, a required internet connection and restrictions over used games made pretty much everyone mad. Microsoft had to reverse these decisions due to outrage and worked an entire generation to earn back its goodwill.

“Dante’s Inferno” is an action game loosely based on the first section of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy.” And to drum up excitement for the game, publisher EA hired a group of fake protesters to gather outside E3 2009. The group stated the game glorified eternal damnation and held signs with statements like “Just Say Infer-NO.” Not only did the stunt annoy gamers, but actual Christians as well. EA clearly didn’t learn its lesson. At Comic Con a few months later, it held the objectifying ‘Sin to Win’ contest. Fans were encouraged to take lustful pictures with booth girls in order to win a "sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of booty." Gross.

THQ once released 10,000 red balloons in San Francisco in honor of “Homefront,” a major hazard to the environment that earned it a $7,000 fine. But still, after a brand merge to become THQ Nordic, this marketing decision was far more questionable. With upcoming “Darksiders III” DLC, two higher-ups at the company hosted an AMA on 8Chan, a site famous for featuring insanely controversial content. It was even blacklisted by Google in 2015, information that would’ve been easily available if anyone had bothered to check. The decision caused immediate backlash, but the AMA went on as planned. And in between questions about the actual game, the AMA also saw questions too despicable to quote here.

As part of the marketing campaign for the sequel to its wildly successful, wildly violent “God of War,” Sony threw a party in Athens. It was a good idea in theory, celebrating a new franchise in the home of its hero and theming it around Kratos’ era. But in practice, it came under some deserved fire. Pictures from the event showed up in the Official UK PlayStation Magazine, showing the dead body of a goat as a centerpiece. The Daily Mail fanned the outrage flames, though Sony refuted its coverage and pointed out some inaccuracies. Still, maybe don’t include the body of a cute animal at your party. It’s bound to piss some people off.

In 2015, Activision and Treyarch seemingly wanted a less traditional way to get fans excited for the campaign in the upcoming “Black Ops III.” But they made just about the worst decision possible on how to do so. The “Call of Duty” Twitter account was renamed Current Events Aggregate, complete with a new logo and tagline: “Where We Bring You Real News.” The account then proceeded to tweet out false news about a terrorist attack in Singapore to its nearly 3 million followers. The idea was clearly to give fans a taste of story events. But considering terrible things like this happen all over the world all the time, the stunt was distasteful to say the absolute least.

To promote 2014’s “Watch Dogs,” Ubisoft sent small safes of promotional gifts to Australian news outlets with notes to check their voicemails. But no one did proper research as one safe ended up at Ninemsn, which doesn’t even cover video games. The journalist who received the safe didn’t use voicemail. And after finding that no other similar outlets received the safe, which began to beep, Ninemsn thought the worst and called a bomb defusal squad. You’d think Ubisoft would learn from marketing stunts like this. 4 years prior, it promoted “Splinter Cell: Conviction” by hiring an actor to show up to a New Zealand bar dressed as an in-game enemy with a fake gun. Because nothing builds up game hype like fearing for your life.

Before it went bankrupt, Acclaim pulled some pretty bold marketing stunts. To promote “Turok: Evolution,” it offered $10,000 to the first parents to name their child Turok. It also attempted to buy space on gravestones to promote “Shadow Man 2”. But the most actively terrible marketing ploy Acclaim ever pulled was for its 2002 racing game, “Burnout 2: Point of Impact.” Acclaim offered to cover any speeding ticket issued to UK drivers as long as it was issued on the game’s launch date. This was seen by most sane people as encouraging reckless driving. To Hell with everyone else’s safety, just make sure you go buy our new game. Utterly shameful.

There are a lot of upsetting things about “Resident Evil 6,” including this marketing stunt. To get fans excited for the upcoming action horror game, Capcom redressed the Smithfield Meat Market in East London to be the Wesker & Son Human Butchery. For two days, fans could purchase a variety of meats made to look like various human body parts. Torsos, hands, eyeballs, legs; you name it, they probably had it. And the re-creations actually looked pretty accurate, which just made the whole thing a lot more gross. What’s worse is that widespread disgust likely overshadowed the pop-up’s good cause: all proceeds went to the Limbless Association, a UK-based charity founded to help amputees. Just write a check next time.

This one is just plain mean. Shortly after the launch of “Hitman: Absolution,” developer IO Interactive released a Facebook app that allowed users to put fake hits out on their friends. It was a weird marketing decision, but how the app actually operated was way worse. Users could choose from different physical descriptors, which could be incredibly offensive like a muffin top or bad hair. You could also choose the reasoning behind the hit, like the fact that they smell bad. Targeted friends would then receive a special video on their wall, using their photos and details as well as showing Agent 47 kill them. Backlash was immense and immediate, prompting IO Interactive to take down the app the same day it launched.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions.

Moms Reacting to Video Game Violence Was Dated Long Before This Campaign

Backfired When Retailers Weren’t Ready and Sony Announced the Playstation’s Cheaper Price

Caused Confusion About Whether It Was a New Console or Wii Add-on

Honestly, it doesn’t get much worse than this. Sony’s PSP released in Japan in 2004 in the standard black color. But in 2006, to promote the upcoming white version, it released a series of billboards in the Netherlands that were highly insensitive. They featured two models, one Black and one White, in racially charged stances. The most widespread one featured the White model aggressively grabbing the Black model’s face, accompanied by the tagline, “PlayStation Portable White is Coming.” It’s baffling how anyone who had anything to do with the marketing didn’t realize what this looked like. But everyone else did as soon as the billboards went up. Sony issued a non-apology, but nevertheless removed the ads.