The Hall of Shame 08.30.07: Acclaim's Marketing

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 08.30.2007

Gravestones do not make good billboards

There have been many abnormal marketing campaigns in the video game industry, ranging from the bad such as God of War II's "dead goat" campaign to the weird like Nintendo's "Wii theater challenge" to both such as those PS3 commercials. And then there's Acclaim's marketing.

No other video game company could possibly be as insane or stupid as the people of Acclaim who have come up with some of the worst, controversial marketing in history. It's one thing if a company does it once. It's another when they do it two or three times. But Acclaim has done it so many times, it deserves an induction into the Hall of Shame.


I wonder who's worst: The three stooges of TNA or Acclaim's marketing team

Just how many insanely bad ideas did Acclaim have? The actual count is not certain, but from I was able to gather there have been 7 different marketing campaigns that were questionable at best. Here they are in no particular order.

"Baby Turok"
Game: Turok Evolution

The first idea is one of the most ridiculous ideas ever that it boggles my mind that about 3,000 people were willing to do this. Now, unlike sucking at women's basketball, that will really scar you for life. For the latest in the crappy Turok series, Acclaim was going to pay $10,000 to anyone who named their baby Turok for a year. This stunt was also going on in the UK, only Acclaim would pay five people 500 pounds each if they legally changed their name to Turok.

Of course Acclaim was going to get flak for this, so what did they do? Pass it off as someone else's idea! They claimed this was the work of Dr. Simeon Cantrell of Australia's Marketing Science Centre, author of a book called "Market Their Pants Off." Dr. Simeon Cantrell, however, is not a real person and the ISBN number of that "book" was actually a book of knock knock jokes.

But you know what's even a bigger joke? Compared to names like Warrior Warrior and Shi-Thead (apparently it's pronounced sha-TAY), Turok isn't the worst name to have.

"Jason Read: MIA"
Game: Turok Evolution

Now here's an idea that actually seems good on paper. A 25-year-old gamer named Jason Read was not just going to get the game Turok: Evolution. He was going to wait in line for a very long time. So long that he was going to hold the world record for standest longest in line for a video game. A fan willing to stand in a line so long for a game? Sounds pretty positive to me. He was equipped with a tent, a game console, TV, and portable generator supplied by Acclaim.

"I've been a huge fan of the Turok series and was excited to see that a fourth game is being released later in the year," Read said. "This gave me the perfect excuse to make my record-breaking queuing attempt, and I'm fully committed to going all the way."

So what did Jason Read ultimately end up doing? Does he now hold the record for standing longest in line to buy a video game? Did he wind up giving the game back because it turned out to be really bad? Or he decide to sell his spot to the person behind him for cash?

Nope. He simply disappeared.

That's right: right after he received major news coverage, Jason Read suddenly disappeared without a trace with no reason given. There are many theories as to why this happened. Perhaps he was kidnapped by humans from the future to be given super powers. Perhaps he was abducted by a serial killer and put into one of his sickening "games." Or perhaps he had to get to Athens to compete in the 2004 Summer Olympics on the U.S. Men's rowing team.

Or maybe he found out that the game he was waiting for really sucked.

"Gravestone billboards"
Game: Shadowman 2

Even though the Turok games were just ridiculously wrong, this one for Shadowman 2 is morally wrong, and thankfully the Church of England helped put a stop to this one. Acclaim was going to pay for the funerals of the recently deceased under one condition: They get to put a small billboard above their gravestone advertising the game. Seriously, there is just no way to defend this as a great advertising campaign. It's bad enough that we're getting product placements in our movies and video games, but on our graves?!

Besides it morally questionable, one also has to wonder why they would an ad in a place where a lot of people aren't going to see it. Millions of people drive on highways each day, but just how many are driving through a graveyard? And even then are they really going to be looking at those ads when they've got much more important reasons to be there? Yet somehow, this idea gets green lit.

"Dave Mirra: Porn star?"
Game: BMX XXX


Willing to pay $50 for porn you'll barely get to see?

With the Tony Hawk Skateboarding series taking off, Acclaim teamed up with Dave Mirra to release a series of Freestyle BMX games in his name, and it was all going good. But then one day, for reasons unknown, somebody decided that the BMX games needed something much more. Perhaps a revamping of the gameplay? Online features? Nope, it needed porn. Acclaim decided that with it's next BMX game, they were going to make it a PORN game! That right there automatically kills any chance of this game selling well. With the possible exception of Custer's Revenge, there has been no porn video game that sold really well.

The game was to be called "Dave Mirra's BMX XXX", and obviously, Dave Mirra got pissed and wanted nothing to do with this abomination. Even though his name and likeness were removed, Acclaim still used them in their marketing materials anyway. This of course gets Dave Mirra to contact his lawyers and sue the company for over $20 million.

Not surprising, the game turned out to be one of the worst games in history. The BMX gameplay was horrible, the humor was juvenile, and the pornographic portions of the game, which was the major reason to get this game, was just about impossible to unlock.

"Advertising pigeons"
Game: Virtua Tennis 2 (aka Sega Sports Tennis)

Acclaim has a new tennis game coming out. Wimbledon, the biggest tennis championship, is coming up real soon. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with the idea of advertising the game at the tournament. Though it does take one to figure out why Acclaim decided to take this idea and increase it to a ridiculous degree. Instead of just using any old billboard, Acclaim was going to paint the logos (using water based paint) on the wings of 20 pigeons and train them to fly in and out during the game.

Seriously, they take a simple plan and somehow make it more complicated and stupid. Good job TNA Acclaim.

"Bloodvertising"
Game: Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance

In order to show off just how much of a bloody game Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance was going to be, Acclaim decided to create ads in bus shelters that would seep blood. Thankfully it wasn't actual blood (by now you shouldn't be surprised if they did that), but rather red dye. The ads, placed behind plexi-glass for a six day period, would shoot red dye onto the backside of the plexi-glass which would then drip down onto the street. This form of advertising is not so bad compared to the others, but unfortunately it didn't help the game from selling and fell below expected levels.

"Bad driving? No problem!"
Game: Burnout 2: Point of Impact

For those who've never played a Burnout game, the biggest and funnest feature is taking your car and ramming it into traffic to cause as big as a wreck you can possibly can for points. While this is fun to do in the game, it is extremely dangerous to do in real life. But Acclaim's marketing for this game, however, almost borderlined on making real life wrecks. Acclaim offered to refund the fines of any driver caught by speed cameras.

Really, do I have to go into detail for this? Encouraging people to do something that can END THEIR FUCKING LIVES is automatically considered bad marketing. Thankfully this was pulled before someone actually did die. Too bad this lesson wasn't learned before those radio dicks held that "Hold your wee for a Wii" contest.

You'd have to hand it to Acclaim though. The people in those marketing meetings must've have balls to size of coconuts to come up with and use those ideas. Unfortunately, the size of one's courage to do those things does not transfer to success, as Acclaim's games still sucked and sold terribly. Surprising to just about no one, the company went bankrupt in 2004. The company has since sold many of it's franchises to other companies, and in May 2006, Disney Interactive (formerly known as Buena Vista Games), announced they were going to make a new Turok game. Hopefully Disney will not try to do a ridiculous marketing campaign for the game.

Before I end this however, if you have any information on the whereabouts of Jason Read, please contact us immediately.