EA confirms Dante's Inferno protest was staged

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jun 5th 2009 at 2:45PM }

Electronic Arts has admitted that the Dante's Inferno protest during E3 was staged by a guerrilla marketing agency. The publisher confirmed to the AP that the firm hired 20 people to hold signs like "Just say Infer-NO" and "Trade in your PlayStation for a PrayStation." There's got to be a better way to promote the game.

Tags: dantes-inferno, e3-2009, ea, electronic-arts, marketing, pr, stunt

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

jak33 @ Jun 5th 2009 2:50PM

fake bad publicity, whats this world coming to?

Ghen @ Jun 5th 2009 3:03PM

I dunno, I kinda liked it.

freedomfromconformity @ Jun 5th 2009 3:08PM

This is pretty insulting. What if they had "fake Muslims" protesting a new Call of Duty game that takes place in the Middle East? Or "fake jews" protesting a game about WWII concentration camps? People would be UP IN ARMS if they pulled that crap but fake Christians? Apparently that's OK nowadays.

I thought the game looked good and I wanted to play it, but making a mockery of other religions just for marketing is bad, bad, bad. Now I actually will protest the game.

jak33 @ Jun 5th 2009 3:10PM

lets protest the fake protesters

Fun DMC @ Jun 5th 2009 3:11PM

A mockery?

No offense, dude, but honestly, I've seen bigger protests, over dumber things. Nobody is looking at this and going 'oh, all Christians are like these fake protesters'. I'm really not seeing your issue here.

and it was pretty obvious this was tongue in cheek, whereas fake Jews protesting a Holocaust-based game wouldn't be. Pretty bad examples there bud

Erluti @ Jun 5th 2009 3:46PM

I guess the offensiveness to me is that there is already a stereo-type, though. A lot of people saw that and said, "Oh, it's wack-o Christians again."
I think a better analogy would be if someone dressed as someone dressed in a turban rushed the Call of Duty booth with a bomb on his chest that just exploded into confetti. Or if they had hired a bunch of big nosed guys in yarmulkas to push people out of the way to pick up coins on the ground and yell "I'm saving up for new game X!"
Like if those two things were done as some guerrilla marketing, it would be a huge fiasco. But using Christian stereo-types doesn't cause anyone to care.

CtrlBurn @ Jun 5th 2009 3:48PM

All religions are fake anyway, so it's not really inconsistent.

DBuck_Eye @ Jun 5th 2009 3:58PM

They'll get what's coming to them when they go to hell. What circle do liars belong in again?

Eh @ Jun 5th 2009 4:01PM

Bad publicity? I didnt know an insane religious group that nobody agrees with accounted for bad publicity. They were parodying the Fred Phelps church and all those dumbasses who protest Harry Potter, everything those groups do only create good publicity for whatever theyre protesting.

I thought it was good, I was just surprised by how many people it fooled.

EA - 1
People who believe everything on the internet regardless of context - 0

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ Jun 5th 2009 4:02PM

Well there is no such thing as bad publicity just really,really dumb publicity.

Well now I know who hired those guys who used to do the "PSP Squirrels" and "This is living" ads.

Avada Kadavra 9 @ Jun 5th 2009 4:06PM

Yeah they could have at least used hot chicks instead of, I come on did you not see the ones inside E3! Use them, with no shirts!

offday @ Jun 5th 2009 4:59PM

I thought it was funny.

Also, to all those who thought it was real, especially that idiot who said CONFIRMED, you know who you are. Cograts. You are a dumbass.

CH3BURASHKA @ Jun 5th 2009 5:18PM

I thought it was comical either way.

At least EA came forward; it'd be really awkward if they denied it, then admitted.

Master Bruce @ Jun 5th 2009 5:48PM

Considering this was the first I'd heard of a protest, it must not have been that effective.

Saria the Cat @ Jun 5th 2009 7:36PM

@Fun DMC: The point is that they were hired to falsely portray the interests of a religious group, not that people will think Christians are all fake protesters. That's like hiring a bunch of fat people to eat Cheetos, wear gamer shirts, hold game controllers, and protest "exercise" outside of a gym. Maybe not the best example, but that would rightly piss off REAL gamers, many of whom are battling the stereotype that all gamers are fat, lazy, and don't exercise.

If you look at the majority of comments on any Joystiq post that mentions religion, you'd understand why the normal, sane Christian would be frustrated by this --- a lot of people equate all religious people with "crazy" even though the people who DO put on wacky protests are not the Christian majority. Christians get upset when they see REAL crazy Christians promote the stereotype, but the fact that these people were hired as a marketing ploy makes it even worse.

Eh @ Jun 5th 2009 8:08PM

Christianity takes up a HUGE majority in the english speaking world. Who do you think thinks up stuff like this? Or thinks stuff like this is funny? My guess is christians because there sure arent enough athiests out there for this to be so popular. Im so sick of hearing about how being persecuted by the mainstream is just part of being a christian. YOU ARE THE MAINSTREAM. By FAR. Christians make the laws, christians write the news, and christians come up with stuff like this, its like statistically impossible for this marketing agency not to have a number of christians in their team.

When are the "persecuted" christians going to figure out that when they get made fun of theyre probably getting made fun of by another christian, and that making fun of one group of people in a GIGANTIC FREAKIN RELIGION with a huge amount of variety is not the same as making fun of or stereotyping the religion.

It is indeed possible for a christian to make fun of boneheaded churches that do this type of stuff for real, just like its possible for an american to make fun of american rednecks without making fun of all americans.

Saria the Cat @ Jun 5th 2009 8:43PM

@Eh: I never said Christians were a persecuted minority. o_O

And, there is a difference between making fun of a group through easily-recognizeable parody and making fun of a group through parody that isn't immediately recognized as parody. This protest falls into the latter category. Your satire is messed up if people have trouble distinguishing whether your stunt is real or not, and if enough people will think it is real, the stunt can be harmful in that it can promote negative stereotypes.

Courtney @ Jun 6th 2009 1:09AM

@Saria, I'm not sure that Eh was just replying to you, seemed more of a general response to multiple things going on in this thread.

On topic, I happen to live just a few miles from where Rev. Phelp's and his hoodlums are based out of, and have had the pleasure of "reverse protesting" them. As somebody with these wacko's in my backyard, I thought it was obvious that the protesters at E3 were fake. As stated by Joystiq (or perhaps a commenter), the slogans were just too witty and clever to be real. Also, real protesters usually send out press releases to a bunch of different media, hoping to get coverage, and I hadn't seen that indicated here.

Also, I agree with a lot of what Eh said. Much of the "persecution" that some Christians' complain about, is actually done by other Christians.

dantebk @ Jun 5th 2009 2:50PM

You know what's better marketing? Let media play your game so they can tell people about it. Big marketing pushes for games that were not playable (or were "behind closed doors" only) was my biggest pet peeve about E3. Like giant Assassin's Creed 2 signs were everywhere, but the game itself was nowhere.

Storm Eagle @ Jun 5th 2009 2:52PM

What are you talking about? AC2 was demoed at the Sony Press Conference. And it....was.....AWESOME!

dantebk @ Jun 5th 2009 3:00PM

I'm saying let us play it. I played 20 mins of God of War III and that's not coming out until March 2010. Assassin's Creed II is coming out much November 09, so why not let us play a 10 minute demo or something? Gameplay videos can be exciting, but it's not nearly the same as actually playing it yourself. And okay, Dante's Inferno isn't coming out until sometime in 2010, so if it's not ready to be played, fine, but then don't even make a big deal of it. Why waste money on these stupid protesters? Who is now MORE interested in Dante's Inferno because of it? Even if someone first learned about the game because of this stunt, that person will have forgotten it by the time the game is actually released. All this money is wasted on marketing when hands on demos are the easiest way to get people excited.

Storm Eagle @ Jun 5th 2009 3:22PM

So these people are staged outside, ok? Let's say you've never heard of Dante's Inferno and you see these folks standing outside supposedly protesting the game. I don't know about you, but even if the protest is staged, the publicity alone informs of the games existence and I would be sure to atleast give it a glance while I'm roaming the floor. And let's say for the sake of argument, I think the protest is REAL, well then that's going to make me wonder even more what the fuss is over this game it would definitely make my list of things to check out. So it's not wasted marketing, it's very smart marketing.

And just as a side note you lucky punk, be glad you got to even GO to E3 and quit complaining because you didn't get to play AC 2. Oh boo-hoo. You know how many of us dream of going year after year but can't? How selfish.....

dantebk @ Jun 5th 2009 4:31PM

I'm not upset I didn't get to play AC2, I'm upset that video game companies are laying people off left and right these days while at the same time wasting money on useless marketing. How much money did it cost to put up an AC2 banner covering half the convention center? How many people that weren't going to buy it before are suddenly convinced just because of a picture? How many more people could be convinced if the game was playable on the floor and word of mouth spread from there?

You say: "I would be sure to atleast give it a glance while I'm roaming the floor." -- but that's the point, dude, it wasn't on the floor. Why market something you're NOT actually showing?

Why are you arguing with me anyway? Are you personally more excited to play Dante's Inferno now than you were before they hired these people to protest it? Despite our difference of opinion, I believe you're better than that.

Leejin @ Jun 5th 2009 2:50PM

what?? I LOVED how they did this.

"My High score is in Heaven"...

Epic..

Desert Eagle @ Jun 5th 2009 2:58PM

Actually, I loved the "EA = Electronic Anti-christ" one a bit more, because it reminds me of the Nazi-EA era. Gave me big laughs. At first I didn't notice what it said, but after a closer inspection I caught what it said and burst a long-lasting laughter. Hehe.

Danthok @ Jun 5th 2009 3:00PM

Agreed I think this is a great ploy to advertise the game. Protests get a lot of attention, I bet news trucks even showed up to see what was going on.

Gameplay or a demo would also be nice.

Markez @ Jun 5th 2009 2:51PM

Tongue in cheek I suppose, but it was hilarious seeing killjebus act like a kid on Christmas morning rallying and making a big fuss about how much he hates religion on the original post about this. Talk about unresolved childhood issues, yeesh.

Fun DMC @ Jun 5th 2009 2:53PM

To be fair, shit like this isn't quite outside the realm of possibility

Markez @ Jun 5th 2009 2:58PM

100% right you are.

Buddy keeps nagging me to watch 'Fall from Grace' on Netflix Instant Watch I just haven't gotten around to it. Have another documentary with Ben Stein in the queue about the shunning of Christian scientists that I haven't watched either, both look good! Although admittedly, Fall from Grace looks like it might make me want to uncontrollably projectile vomit all over the place if I were to watch it.

chispito @ Jun 5th 2009 3:16PM

The point isn't whether somebody out there would have the means and the desire to stage a protest over a game like Dante's Inferno. The point is that Killjebus posted things like:

Never, evaevaevaevaevaevaevaevaevaevaeva......(thinks Smokey from Friday) underestimate the STUPIDITY of the Xtian right.

when it was obviously a publicity stunt. He proceeded elsewhere to borrow liberally from the types of FSM straw men rhetoric that passes as logic on Digg.com

time @ Jun 5th 2009 3:36PM

"Have another documentary with Ben Stein in the queue about the shunning of Christian scientists that I haven't watched either, both look good!"

Do yourself a favor and don't dumb yourself down by watching that tasteless horseshit.

Markez @ Jun 5th 2009 3:40PM

Pickings can occasionally be slim on the instant watch, it's no good? Maybe I've just been lucky, seems like there are tons of good docs on instant watch.

Word Wars is great!

dogmaticatheist @ Jun 5th 2009 5:03PM

> documentary with Ben Stein in the queue about the shunning of Christian
> scientists

Christians scientists are not shunned. Christian scientists who think "Goddidit" is a valid answer to scientific inquiry, and want to teach this drivel in the classroom are shunned. And rightfully so.