edited to add: mashable.com points out that this stupid PR stunt has spawned its own hashtag so you can watch people’s reactions to it in real time by checking #eafail.
edited again to add: EA have now issued an apology for the Sin to Win contest. But at least we had a good laugh out of it first.
Thanks to Pete@Dragonchasers for wising me up on twitter last night to EA’s latest brilliant publicity stunt.
They’re running a promotion for Dante’s Inferno at Comicon this year where you have to commit ‘Acts of Lust’ with booth babes. Before I got round to pondering the sexist side of this, I was wondering if that was even legal.
Is there no anti-harassment protection in US employment law? Is prostitition legal in California? Would a contract specifying that the booth babe must allow herself to be sexually assaulted even be valid? Or is EA setting itself up for some nice lawsuits if any fans go too far and booth babes end up taking them to court? I’m sure they are usually hired as models, and even dancers in lap dancing clubs don’t usually let punters touch them up (without some kind of extra charge).
Coming hot on the heels of their ‘clever’ (as in: everyone who heard about it thought ‘that’s stupid’) stunt at E3 which involved the fake Christian extremist rally, I’m wondering which of their potential target audiences they plan to insult next.
Anyhow they are clearly going for shock PR tactics with this game, and it seems to be garnering them a lot of attention. Whether it will translate into sales we’ll have to see.
I will however forgive them everything if they decide to highlight the deadly sin of Wrath at GenCon and someone punches out an EA executive.
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