Electronic Arts’ Government Sanctioned Marketing Operation Against Venezuela

Well, marketing doesn’t get much more creative than this. In what can only be described as a very well thought out, but poorly targeting promotional scheme, EA last week gave out free gasoline at stations in London, England and Los Angeles, California to push their new video game Mercenaries 2. According to reports, the L.A. operation went smooth, with free gas being given out until the station shut down for the night.

London, however, was a different story. The area’s representative (MP for you politically savvy folks) stated that “hundreds of residents [had] faced misery” due to the major gridlock and noise. My only idea is that England’s gas prices aren’t as high as they are in Los Angeles, as the Californians understood quite clearly that free gas was something to be happy about.

Why gas, you ask? Well, Mercs 2 takes place in oil-rich Venezuela, where your character has to use any gasoline you find wisely, as its a rare commodity in the fiction (wait a second, reality too). The publicity stunt is not the first international attention EA’s new title has gotten, though. Venezuela’s government, headed by President Hugo Chavez (shown, with a parrot, for reasons unbeknownst to me) has criticized the new game as getting the American public comfy with the idea of an invasion of a sovereign nation simply for oil. I mean come on, why would we ever do tha---

...Oh yeah.

Though, I highly doubt that President Bush ordered EA to start black ops in the form of video game distribution, even after Chavez implied at the United Nations that our President was the Devil. Either the United States has gotten quite clever with how we conduct our pre-invasion operations, or Venezuela has become a little paranoid. In the meantime, keep up the marketing schemes! Activision, free WWII-era guns for a day in the name of Call of Duty: World at War? Think about it.

Thanks to Joystiq

Posted by on 09/07 at 07:28 PM