wild video game marketing disasters that backfired...

Whether it be fake protests, outrageous marketing stunts, or even just simple in game events. Almost no video game is safe from marketing disasters.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames 0:00
Fortnite 2:17
PSP Billboard 5:38
PlayStation 3 Launch 6:46
PlayStation Network Hack 7:45
Fake PSP Rap Song 8:25
Dante's Inferno Fake Protest 10:28
Homefront Balloon Disaster 11:45
Xbox One Launch 12:27
343's Halo Era 13:53
Cyberpunk 2077 Launch 15:36
No Man's Sky Broken Promises 16:02
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare Reveal Trailer Dislikes 16:39
E3 Presentation Cringe 18:02
Star Wars Battlefront 2 Reddit Controversy 21:12
Gearbox CEO spicy USB stick 23:15
Subway's Pants Dance for Kids 24:29
Grand Theft Auto Controversies 27:46
The Day Before (it was gone) 31:19
German Doors 32:21
Godfather 2 & EA sending not so legal things to press 32:36
Resident Evil 5 Capcom looses fake body parts 34:09
How does it keep happening? 35:36
Nintendo PR Disasters 38:10

[connorross]

"Fortnite MLK event" is such a South Park combination of words that I cannot believe it was real

[chrisbengtson]

I still remember that video PlayStation made called "How to borrow games from your friend on PS4" and it was just two Sony employees in an office and one of them said "Hey can I borrow this video game" and the other was like "yeah sure". 15 second video. Crushing blow against Xbox.

[AndrewBarsky]

“Fortnite had an MLK event.”

I couldn’t help but laugh because I knew EXACTLY how this was gonna go down.

The whip crack emote being one of the only ones you could do is so ironic that it reeks of parody. It’s so egregiously absurd that it seems like a Chappell show bit.

[dengdesigns]

I mean the sign calling EA the electronic anti-Christ was pretty spot on. 😂

[walnzell]

The Infinite Warfare trailer was downvoted so hard because the franchise was stagnating, but way more than that, they showed a remaster of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but revealed you could only get it with a special bundle of Infinite Warfare. That pissed people off to no end. Not mentioning that is a disservice to the story.

[dragonithv]

The "Praystation" is hilarious

[inductivegrunt]

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare is so iconic with how hated it was. The game wasn't terrible, just that it was not what CoD players wanted. We at least got boots on the ground afterwards and never got another advanced movement CoD after that huge outrage by fans.

[jackschneider]

The whipcrack emote is crazy how did they miss that

[otaking]

I've heard that Epic's contract with DC prevented the whip emote from being disabled, which just raises a whole bunch of questions, such as "Did Epic seriously not talk to DC and tell them how bad this would make them look?" Then again, knowing DC, they probably wouldn't care.

[MagitekBahamuto]

"We hired people who hate Halo to destroy Halo"

- 343i

[AntaresMiraSun]

The way your videos start as old style compilations to then evolve into podcast, where your personalities and ideas have the chance to emerge, is truly what makes these types of videos so entertaining and unique. Sometimes I don't even realise that 40+ minutes have passed

[GroovyLeon]

Surprised you did not include the God of War 2 launch party with dead goats and naked ladies feeding grapes to guests

[PikaLink]

18:32 To be fair to the guy (at least according to a vlog he made after the fail) his big moment was filled with technical difficulties making him panic. Could happen to anyone.

[BaxterAndLunala]

Nintendo's biggest PR disaster has to be their constant abuse of copyright strikes. While admittedly, many people did have it coming (the guy who made that mod for Palworld that turns it into Pokemon did get donations from the community, which technically means he was making money off an IP without Nintendo's consent), most of the time it's completely uncalled for. Like when asked why AM2R was taken down, Reggie responded with saying it was a "commercial product" despite no evidence supporting said claims (Samus Returns being an official remake being the only reason I can think of, but it's not like people weren't gonna buy that after playing AM2R), and another example is last year, they threatened to shut down a Smash Ultimate tournament for disabled people for using third-party controllers. Not only isn't the use of third-party devices for first-party systems perfectly legal since they all have Bluetooth built in as standard, but it's even more jarring because Nintendo doesn't make any first-party controllers for the disabled and yet have the audacity to go overboard over something they know full well is even worse for PR. If any of the participants were children, it makes it even more of a disaster since Nintendo puts great emphasis on making games specifically for children. Thankfully in this case, the only thing stronger than Japanese copyright lawyers is Norwegian lawmakers.

[john_toss]

8:56 I remembered when Mr.Metokur played this on one of his streams. And i just kept laughing on how bad it was

[Dulika]

Regarding the Fortnite scandal, I used to work for Epic at the time when that happened. I was a technical support.

First of all, I laughed so hard when the kids found the exploit for the emote of the whip. But this was because of the legal agreement of DC and Epic. Basically other companies "rent" their IPs to Epic/ .
This means that in all times of the game, the linseed stuff cannot be disabled. It was so absurd and I still laugh to this day

[joshfoustcommunity]

I will never forgive the marketing of halo 5 guardians, it’s campaign was just terrible, and I didn’t want a repeat of that happening again, which is why I gave all of my feedback on halo infinite!

[Gashnor]

Regarding the Halo community manager blaming the Ukraine war for not responding, the other crazy part of that was that guy's side account (which was linked to in his community manager account) was posting all weekend about crypto stuff and clearly he was focusing on his personal stuff.

When people saw him posting about crypto all weekend, then blamed the war for being distracted, it was way obvious. That stuff got hidden immediately and he was moved elsewhere in 343, but it was wild

[Vincent-mixc]

I didn't even see the black person at first on the billboard at 6:14 💀

[Simte]

Great video lads. I still remember the whole Dante's protest lmao, btw the PSP rap is a certified classic.