How do you promote your game so you can make headlines and be the talk of the crowd? The era of billboards and massive ad campaigns is over, so all that’s left is viral marketing and embedding a launch as deeply as possible into real life. That’s exactly what Splinter Cell’s promoters thought, but they went a little too far. And by little, I mean a whole lot. They went so far that I can’t see them coming back.

Here’s the story. The marketers at Monaco Corporation thought that it would be a good idea to stage a fake robbery and spice up with some action the lives of some quiet residents in a town from New Zeeland. So they hired an actor, bandaged his hands heavily, gave him a fake gun and sent him to point it at some local fellows in a bar. Given the not so fake appearance of the gun, it was enough for someone to cry out “He’s got a gun!” and it all went downhill from there. The police came and an investigation was started, not leaving enough time for the good guy to come and save the day, as the script read.

I have a feeling that people did not camp out in front of video stores to buy the game.

Via Cracked. Read more here and here.