"Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game. The corpse of the decapitated animal was the centrepiece of a party to celebrate the launch of the God Of War II game for the company’s PlayStation 2 console. Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach."
Sony have since officially apologised for the event and have issued a recall on all the magazines that contained the article. Thanks to Kotaku we've also heard Sony's side of the story which reassures readers that a) the goat was already dead before the party and b) no-one was allowed to touch it, they certainly didn't reach inside the carcass.
Even so, like most people I'm all for a good PR stunt, but blimey - Sony's infamously strange PR department have outdone themselves, I really can not see how they thought they'd get away with this one, are they that desperate to shift PS3's? Actually yes, they probably are.
Head on over to the Daily Mail for the original article.
[source dailymail.co.uk, via kotaku.com]
Comments (5)
Amazing, Rockstar should let Sony do the party for the next GTA game!
Completely bonkers, I bet this sets relations between 'videogames' and 'the entire world' back a few years.
I hate PR stunts that are so close to immoral... basically Sony are so desparate to sell PS3s they're willing to try extreme techniques... I can image the PR company sitting round their meeting table saying "Yeah i know it's really f*^ked up, and we'll get into trouble, but it will make mainstream press!" I do design work for 2 big PR companies and I know how they work... I guess bad PR is good PR nowadays..
Too far.
I bet they already had the press release saying "sorry" (feebly I must say) ready before they even launched the 'event'. As you said "any publicity is good publicity".
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