Sony Promotes Gods of War II with Decapitated Goat
The UK’s Daily Mail is talking about how Sony, after apparently smoking WAY too much crack, decided that it would be smart to promote the launch of a new violent video game by having a FRESHLY SLAUGHTERED GOAT at their launch party, as well as inviting people to reach inside the "still warm" goat and eat offal from its stomach.
Areyoufreakingkiddingme?
Sony is ALREADY the number one target for violence in video games – I know – I used to rep GameWEEK Magazine – Try handling crisis comms for GameWEEK at e3 a week after Columbine… This is just brutally stupid.
Oh, and also? It’s really freaking CRUEL. You don’t kill animals to sell video games.
Photo from the Daily Mail below. If anyone gets a copy of the Sony Playstation Magazine mailed to them, I’d love to see a copy. They pulled all the magazines from the shelves, but were too late to stop the issues sent to subscribers.
Not cool. It should be fun as hell to watch Sony crawl out of this..
April 30th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Ugh, that’s disgusting. Who on earth approved that idea?! And I wonder if it would even sell more games with the target audience – I feel like even they would know (and be disturbed by) the difference between dead goats in a game and in real life.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Maybe it’s so unbelieveable because it’s quite likely a hoax? Why is the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, the only news source for this incident? Every other news agency just quotes the Daily Mail article. The fact that Sony apologized is also quoted from the Daily Mail, so none of this may have actually happened.
Considering how big Sony is, this would have showed up on a major news network by now. Or at least on FOX, which would have seen some anchors screaming moral outrage by now: dead goats and naked girls? I think American media would have noticed. Or at least someone other than the Daily Mail, given that this launch was apparently attended by many journalists.
May 12th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I echo Katie’s skepticism. If it did happen, then yes – really stupid move. Also, gratuitous. But unless you’re a vegetarian (I can’t remember if you are, but I’m guessing no, since I tend to remember fellow veggies), getting offended by dead animals seems strange; it’s something that happens every day, we’re just insulated against what it looks like.