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Games Entertainment

Virtua Tennis Pigeons Divebomb Wimbledon 62

Posted by simoniker from the coo-coo-cracktastic dept.
Thanks to several readers for pointing to a GameSpot story indicating Acclaim will use spray-painted homing pigeons to advertise Virtua Tennis 2 at this year's Wimbledon tennis tournament. According to Acclaim's marketing director, Larry Sparks, "The Virtua Tennis 2 pigeon marketing campaign is highly targeted as it brings awareness of the game directly to tennis enthusiasts.. the Wimbledon tournament is famous for the occasional descent by pigeons onto Centre Court, but our advertising pigeons are trained to go straight for the fans and flap their logos in front of them." Acclaim are sadly infamous for other desperately outlandish publicity stunts, such as getting proud parents to name their baby Turok and trying to place videogame adverts on gravestones.
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Virtua Tennis Pigeons Divebomb Wimbledon More

Virtua Tennis Pigeons Divebomb Wimbledon

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  • Cruelty to .... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Tennis Fans at Wimbledon?

    Husband: What's that pink and white stuff on your shoulder honey?
    Wife: Eeeeeeeekkkk... It's pigeon crap with paint flakes in it!

  • Bandwidth thieves (Score:5, Funny)

    by metalslinger ( 656843 ) <metalslinger@roncari.net> on Thursday June 19, 2003 @10:37AM (#6243372) Homepage Journal
    Hey stop stealing our bandwidth for our ip over carrier pigeons!

  • Stupid idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @10:38AM (#6243392)
    People are really going to buy your products when you send filthy birds to fly in potential customers faces and take a shit on their head.

    Why don't you feed them non-digestable pellets with the Acclaim logo on them too.

  • Wow... (Score:3, Funny)

    by psyco484 ( 555249 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @10:40AM (#6243415)
    I can't help but think this will backfire horribly for them. Picture a pigeon hovering over some unfortunate person. Now picture the person looking up just in time for the pigeon to drop a little present and for them to see the advertising...sure it's memorable, but now this person is going to think about birds crapping on them whenever they see the name Acclaim.

    Maybe this isn't too likely, but hey, it could happen. And honestly, couldn't they just be paying the game's staff more?

    • But the 8 people sitting around the poor guy with bird kaka on his toupee will laugh whenever they see the name Acclaim. Brilliant!
    • How about not feeding the birds before the "stunt"?
    • Don't try to avoid the pigeon shit. Instead, try to realize that there are no pigeons.

      Seriously, Acclaim announces this advertising promos but very rarely follows through with him. In all the promos cited in the article, none of those actually came to fruition. This is no different. Basically, Acclaim announces this junk in order to get press - mission accomplished as evidenced by this article.

  • where they said they'd pay any fines you got speeding on the day of release

    I went through some speed cameras at a fair lick but it wasn't my lucky day. I was looking forward to the incredulous looks I would get but it never happened.

    • Would they pay the increased insurance premiums you'd incur, too? Or was that an added bonus?

      Seriously, I think that Acclaim would be much better off actually making good games than forcing shit off on people with insane (and often dangerous and/or unbelieveably [gamingworldx.com] tasteless [gamefaction.com]) marketing campaigns that resemble PR stunts more than anything else.

  • Shenanigans! (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    I call shenanigans!

    Thanks, Slashback [slashdot.org] for this new addition to my vocabulary! It's a worthy complement to "vulterant" [slashdot.org] and an endless stream of Taco-isms.

    Anyway, I don't believe this is any more real than the gravestone stunt.

    • You do realize that this was stolen from South Park right?
      • Well, I do but only because someone told me [slashdot.org] when I marveled at the phrase last night.

        Sorry, my old cable network didn't have Comedy Central so I'm behind on South Park, as well as on seeing Bachelor Party or Half-Baked every night.

  • "The Wimbledon tournament is famous for the occasional descent by pigeons onto Centre Court, but our advertising pigeons are trained to go straight for the fans and give them a little present."
  • ... I thought Turkeys could fly!

  • I wonder (Score:4, Funny)

    by aridhol ( 112307 ) <ka_lac@hotmail.com> on Thursday June 19, 2003 @11:01AM (#6243686) Homepage Journal
    Will Acclaim be responsible enough to use a "bird-friendly" paint? Make sure those fumes don't damage them. Be sure that the paint is non-toxic, so the birds don't absorb something they shouldn't. And be sure to collect and clean every bird.

    In short, I don't think they should be doing this. Maybe the SPCA or PETA should be supervising this.

    • I was wondering about that myself.

      I could see it now; birds flying over wimbledon in brightly painted colors when their gangrenous legs and wings start dropping onto the crowds.

      Virtua Tennis 2: White meat or green?
    • The article did mention the use of 'harmless' water-based paint. I wonder if anyone is actually going to be able to see the ads on the flapping wings. I'm sure they'll clean off the birds, so they'll be able to advertise something else, like Animal Crossing.
    • I can already see how PETA would protest [lettuceladies.com] this stunt [zabu.org]: Scores of women show up to Wimbledon wearing nothing but spraypainted slogans such as, "Spraypainting pigeons is cruel." and "Brand me, not animals!"
      • sounds like an idea to me ... id be much more interested in the ads if they were spray painted onto naked chicks ...
        • I gotta say, when some of my friends organized a wet T-shirt contest with the proceeds benefitting some ecofeminist organization, a lot of people showed up.
    • feel free to read the article ... this is hardly 'insightful' because all the people that bothered to already know the answer ... looks like the mods arent reading the articles either ... hopefully i get to meta mod this one ...

  • Acclaim..no such thing as bad publicity... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bonewalker ( 631203 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @11:14AM (#6243826)
    If this is true, Acclaim continues on with its firm belief that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

    In fact, I think maybe it is not true, but some crazy, wacked out advertising genius/demento thinks up all these bizarre advertising schemes, then releases that Acclaim will be using them, just to get the free bad press that goes with them...all the while, they have no intention of ever actually pulling these shenanigans.

    Pure genius...free pub.

  • Acclaim's "Marketting" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Thursday June 19, 2003 @11:21AM (#6243913) Journal
    Apparently getting a good ranking in GameSpy's "25 dumbest moments in gaming" just goaded them on.

  • ... tasteful? (Score:4, Informative)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @11:30AM (#6243992) Homepage
    This is not at all tasteful.

    1. It's acceptable if a bird or two comes by and decides to do whatever during the event, on its own volition. It's something you have to live with when playing outdoors.

    2. This is clearly, clearly, an intentional act that may or maynot disrupt the event.

    3. Couldn't a rented plane be just as effective without taking what was once a wild animal and training it to do something that it naturally wouldn't do? No, I'm not a fan of circuses either. It'd be tasteful too. Hell, do one of those neat sky writting things.

    4. Companies do "normal" advertising targeted at events. I.e. you don't see ads for tampons at hockey events but you'll see golf equipt ads during golf events. Hrm...

  • Mission Accomplished (sort of) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Traderdot ( 677425 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @11:40AM (#6244089) Homepage
    This achieved exactly what Acclaim wanted. They haven't even let them fly yet and they've already generated lots of free publicity.

    Before tasteless pigeon stunt: nobody heard of Virtua Tennis 2.
    After tasteless pigeon stunt: lots of people have heard of their game.

    Unfortunately, this is likely to be negative publicity. Yes, it's worth a minor laugh but will it really make people want to buy the game? Most likely not. Probably will turn a bunch of people off from buying it.

    • Yes, it's worth a minor laugh but will it really make people want to buy the game? Most likely not. Probably will turn a bunch of people off from buying it.

      I don't know about that. If they actually did this, I could imagine it turning people off, but just hearing about it makes one think "Well, that's wacky. I wonder if this Vitua Tennis thing is any good."

      In fact, if I cared about tennis at all, I might go and look at some reviews of this game right now. Of course, I won't, because I really only care ab
    • Actually the first Virtua Tennis is a pretty good and fun game. Too bad Acclaim are responsible for the distribution. I'm sure they'll do something to make it completely unplayable.
      • Um, Virtua Tennis 2 has been out practically forever. It's a Sega production, IIRC, and an excellent game. I wasted many, many hours playing it on the Dreamcast. Actually, this stunt strikes me as rather odd, seeing as the only two platforms I've seen it on are Dreamcast and arcade.

        Perhaps they're re-releasing it for the current generation of consoles? If they are, I'm going to buy it without so much as a second thought... hm, I guess their advertising paid off, eh?
    • What, they're advertising a *game*?

    • You are correct.

      I think nearly all of Acclaim's recent marketing stunts are deliberately designed to trigger some sort of "WTF?" response from reporters, who take the bait every single time.

      My question is, do they ever follow through with any of their stunts?
    • except the difference between this and the stupid burnout, bmx xxx and shadowman 2 stunts is that virtua tennis 2 is actually a very good game ...
  • Not that Acclaim "will use spray-painted homing pigeons to advertise Virtua Tennis 2," but that no one got the joke.

    They're obviously not going to spray paint birds "trained to go straight for the fans and flap their logos in front of them." The idea is so ridiculous, so hilarious, and can't possibly be true. Yet we still have some people saying the idea is stupid and this and that...JOKES PEOPLE.

    Acclaims marketing department rules. End of story.
    • Yeah, it rules so much that most anyone who is exposed to this "ad campaign", either in description or whatever, wouldn't go near Virtua Tennis 2. That's great advertising.
      • Why wouldn't someone want to go near Virtua Tennis 2 because Acclaim has a marketing department with a sense of humor? I don't get it. If the previous games are any indication, Virtua Tennis 2 is going to be a great game.
        • If the previous games are any indication, Virtua Tennis 2 is going to be a great game

          Which, of course, is why they're doing this marketing campaign 7 months after it's release...

          Oh, wait, I guess that's just because it happens to be the first Wimbledon after it's release, yeah, that's the ticket.
          • You're right, I stand corrected. The "Virtua Tennis 2" threw me off - I assumed it was a new sequel coming out on the PS2, because the tennis game for the PS2, which was actual Virtua Tennis 2, wasn't called Virtua Tennis 2 but...oh nevermind. Fine. You win. Acclaim's marketing directors suck. They're so not funny.

            /taking Acclaim seriously.

            • The "Virtua Tennis 2" threw me off - I assumed it was a new sequel coming out on the PS2, because the tennis game for the PS2, which was actual Virtua Tennis 2, wasn't called Virtua Tennis 2 but...oh nevermind.

              See? Their marketing doesn't even have the sense to tell them to call the damned game the same thing in each market.

              Actually, I personally get a bit of a chuckle at their expense, but it's not that I find what they claim to want to do funny, but rather fairly stupid. Of course, most of it also hap
              • Yeah, I'm not sure why they had decided to go on a wild name changing spree, either. Way to confuse the hell out of me. What I find funny is that they have the balls to publicly say they're going to do all of this stupid stuff. I never said it was a smart move, just humorous.
  • Did they even go through with their last two so-called "campaigns." As far as I can tell Acclaim's marketing strategy is to come up with outlandish stunts just to get in the news. I haven't see any evidence of them following through.

    Here's my idea for a marketing strategy: go to resturants and replace the straws with ones the Acclaim logo. The trick is the straws don't work. The message is "Acclaim doesn't suck!" Unfortuately, Acclaim probably can't afford the money and effort that would need to be used t
    • Here's my idea for a marketing strategy: go to resturants and replace the straws with ones the Acclaim logo. The trick is the straws don't work. The message is "Acclaim doesn't suck!"
      In other news Acclaim has been round 3000 resteraunts ......
      Carefull , they will have your idea..

  • Virtua tennis rocks! (Score:3, Informative)

    by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <andrewvcNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday June 19, 2003 @01:00PM (#6245118) Homepage
    I had the original virtua tennis (for sega saturn i believe? i forgot, i lost it years ago), and it was the only worthwhile tennis game i've played on a console ever.It offered pretty much perfect control, with very simple controls. In addition, the feel of it matched real tennis quite well (well as well as any game can be expected). From the reviews I've seen virtua tennis 2 is simply an updated version of this perfect game. Which is exactly what was needed, as I don't think you see the original around much, and graphics can always be improved.

  • Missing the point (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19, 2003 @01:02PM (#6245147)

    No, their advertising schemes aren't to name people Turok, deface tombstones, or divebomb Wimbledon.

    They are still using the same old marketing scheme - get people talking about them by pretending to have a really weird marketing scheme.

    It's meta marketing.

  • AP - Wimbledon

    A flock of angry homing pigeons descended upon
    unsuspecting tennis fans today at centre court.
    Why were the pigeons angry you ask? Apparently
    some asshat company spray painted them. The
    company then trained them to home in on the tennis
    fans. Many fans had to have the beaks of these
    angry pigeons surgically removed from their eye.
  • ...Or just a marathon session of "Truth or Dare"?
  • Their target market was really Slashdot...and this was just a well placed advertisement/story? HMMM???? O who am I kidding...the day a slashdotter picks up a tennis game will also be the day they get a girlfriend.

  • Should have known it was Acclaim. These are the same guys that brought you such marketing gems as having people officially change their name to Turok as a contest...

    Oh let's not forget BMXXX, where girl bikers get topless. Ugh.

    So yeah, painting poor birds is definitely not out of character for these guys.
  • This sounds like something that would have been in Jennifer Government [maxbarry.com], a book by Max Berry [maxbarry.com]. The book is set in a world where capitalism has run totally amuck. And is centered on an outlandish marketing scheme where Nike has orchestrates some killings to heighten "street cred" for their new line of shoes. It is a good read, so is Syrup [maxbarry.com] by the same author.

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