10 Insane Marketing Stunts That Were Used To Sell Video Games

2. Buy The Game On Day One, Win An Island (Just Cause 3)

just cause 3 skydiving
Square Enix/WhatCulture

Just Cause 3 takes place on a beautiful Mediterranean island called Medici, an open-world environment that players can explore to their heart's content. Not satisfied with just delivering an in-game island adventure though, publisher Square Enix sought to make that virtual locale a reality for one lucky player.

The company ran a competition in the run up to the game's release that would grant the winning player an island - literally - valued at up to $50,000. 90 days after the game's launch, whichever player accumulated the most Chaos Points (earned by completing missions, sabotaging vehicles and generally blowing stuff up) would win the top prize. The winner could also choose to take a $50,000 cash prize instead.

The only way to get involved with this campaign was to buy the day-one edition of the game, a sneaky strategy on Square's part that likely resulted in a lot more pre-orders and early sales of the game. Buy Just Cause 3, play it a lot, and win $50,000: who wouldn't want to get involved?

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!