10 Insane Marketing Stunts That Were Used To Sell Video Games
"Let's give away free petrol - what could go wrong?"
While it's always ideal to have a great game to work with, the quality of the experience doesn't matter one bit if you can't sell it to people. If marketed poorly, a great game can perform below expectations, and the opposite is also true: a bad game can sell like gangbusters when paired with a clever and unique marketing campaign.
Persuading someone to drop £50 or £60 on a game isn't easy, but the more buzz the publisher creates, the bigger its potential audience will be. This is why you'll often see companies pulling all kinds of crazy promotional stunts in an effort to get themselves noticed, because ultimately, any publicity is better than no publicity at all.
From publishers painting pigeons with game logos, to that time when Ubisoft caused a bomb scare by sending a ticking goodie box to an Australian media outlet, the number of bonkers stunts that have been used to advertise video games is shockingly high.
Not all of them resulted in a successful game, but regardless, you have to applaud the creativity and brazenness of the teams involved.
10. Bottled Messages Washed Up On Beaches (BioShock 2)
Thanks to the superb original game, BioShock 2 had an enormous amount of pressure on its shoulders, and people were hungry for just about any new information they could get their hands on. Knowing this, the marketing team decided that they would wash several glass bottles up on beaches around the world, each containing a mysterious poster that teased the game.
The week before this happened, media outlets like Kotaku received a message telling them to head to certain beach spots on 8 August 2009. The message listed nine beaches around the world - with longitude and latitude coordinates and exact times attached to each - including Brighton Beach in England and Rimini Beach in Italy. At this stage, nobody had any idea what to expect at these locations, which generated much excitement and curiosity within the gaming community.
On the day itself, the bottles washed up and the social media posts began to pour in. Dozens of strangers congregated on specific beaches around the world, hoping to find something cool. In Brighton, roughly 40 bottles landed on the beach, with cryptic posters contained within. These posters didn't reveal anything about the plot of the game - which disappointed some - but they did contribute to the air of mystery surrounding BioShock 2, which further drummed up the hype.