Hitman Absolution is a great game, as some of you may be aware of. Still, it hasn’t had the most public of advertising campaigns and with Christmas around the corner, Square Enix needs to make some money. The solution? A Hitman Absolution promotion that allows you to place hits out on your buddies through Facebook, contracts with parameters such as their eyes, hair and whether or not they have small tits. Wait, what?
To say that the promotion has been well received, would be a bigger lie than the excuses given for Jacob Zuma’s not-compound. The promotion that RPS picked up on, allowed for players to tag their friends with certain categories, based on gender, including some of these gems:
Male friends
- Shit hair
- Tiny penis
- Ginger hair
Female friends
- Her hairy legs
- Her muffin top
- Her small tits
As for the reasons why you would like to give your friend a lead Christmas gift between the eyes, these ranged from the fact that they smelt bad, or were cheating on their partners. Once that was done, recipients on Facebook would then receive the video detailing the hit put out on them, with a voice message telling them that they were indetififiable by their, erm…assets.
And it’s not just fans and Facebookers who have found the assets to be in bad taste, as various other developers have had something to say as well.
Here’s what Batman Arkham City community manager Sarah Wellock had to say:
With the horrific rise in internet bullying it seems like a risky move to publish an app that encourages bullying.All press is good press?
— Sarah Wellock (@rikkusarah) December 4, 2012
And here’s BioWare designer Jos Hendriks adding his two cents:
The Hitman facebook advertising thing is just all the kinds of messed up. How did anyone think this was a good idea?
— Jos Hendriks (@Sjosz) December 4, 2012
And Nathan Vella, co-founder and president of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes developer Capybara summed it all up nicely:
This Hitman facebook ad campaign has to be made up. There’s no way something like this gets made, then ok’d, then launched public.
— Nathan Vella (@Capy_Nathan) December 4, 2012
After being up for around three hours, Square Enix removed the app, and issued the following statement:
Earlier today we launched an app based around Hitman: Absolution that allowed you to place virtual hits on your Facebook friends. Those hits would only be viewable by the recipient, and could only be sent to people who were confirmed friends.
We were wide of the mark with the app, and following feedback from the community we decided the best thing to do was remove it completely and quickly. This we’ve now done.
We’re sorry for any offense caused by this.
Make no mistake, Hitman Absolution is a game with some risky content, but it’s done so in a cheesy way that doesn’t really offend. Looks like the marketing department could have learnt a thing or two from the source material. But hey, at least it’s better than that time the fans of God of War were treated to a live goat sacrifice decapitated goat on display at a launch party, amirite?
Last Updated: December 5, 2012
