Netizens slammed Activision for it is bad publicity stunt by posting real time tweets that Singapore was under a terrorist attack.
https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/648918298894147584
“Current Events Aggregate” began by tweeting articles about fashion and movies, both out of context and seemingly unrelated to Call of Duty. Twas a terrorist attack tweeted in real time. It read:
“BREAKING NEWS: Unconfirmed reports are coming in of an explosion on the North bank of the Singapore Marina.”
The Twitter response was almost unanimously confusion.
https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/648936565096456192
18 tweets later, the story ended, the Current Events Aggregator imagery went away, and that was that. Call of Duty was Call of Duty again.
Four hours after the initial tweet, and two hours after the final one in this fake story, @callofduty updated, simply, “This was a glimpse into the future fiction of #BlackOps3.”
This accomplishes nothing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn or gain from this that makes anyone more interested in Black Ops III.
While it’s simple enough to figure out this whole thing is fake by clicking through and seeing the username, Activision is looking for attention at any cost. It exploited peoples’ empathy and fear of tragedy to drive retweets and pre-orders.
That’s depressing.
This story would have been better conveyed, more understandable, and arguably exciting in another trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Call of Duty games are easily identifiable as fiction, and you can immediately get into that. Tragedy as entertainment works; tricking people into thinking Singapore is really under attack as a piece of marketing is irresponsible.
This sort of marketing is bad for video games, bad for the community, and bad for anyone who mistakenly misunderstood something Activision intentionally misrepresented.