Stranglehold ad pulled, Midway in minor staff layoff
- Posted January 16th, 2008 at 10:39 EDT by
- 2,613 views
- 12 Comments
Midway, the publishers behind the PlayStation 3 smash hit Unreal Tournament III, has found itself at the height of media attention this week, though by no means in the most favourable of ways.
To get the ball bouncing, an advertisement campaign for the 2007 release John Woo’s Stranglehold has been ripped from television airways due to the content contained within. Apparently the commercial, which is said to have featured excessive violence and inappropriate language, was aired early in the evening instead of late at night. The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has commented by saying that the game promotes violence and gun use.
“We considered the ad was likely to be seen as encouraging and condoning violence. The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form."
Despite this, Midway insist that they have done everything to insure that the ad was appropriate for TV. However, PSU feels it is a little odd as to why the company would even be running advertisements for the game that is already around 4 months old in the first place? Surely the focus should be on marketing Unreal Tournament III?
Elsewhere, Midway is reporting that they are currently pursuing minor layoffs within the firm, with a company representative stating:
"There was a minor layoff in our Austin studio following the completion of a project there. We are still growing our other teams and studios to fulfill our project needs. The reductions were routine and a function of our current project requirements."
This is said to have nothing to do with yesterday's announcement of the resigning of CFO Thomas Powell and Senior VP Steve Allison.
Comments
-
-
-
-
TheRichMan |
TheR1chMan- 11:28am GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 4
I agree MrAce, with all the movies that depict violence and gun use and all that good stuff, i'm (kind of, not really) surprised that they would single out a video game. The movies with all of that blood and language and gun use get rated R, but are still released and still able to be viewed by everyone who is eligible. Same thing should go with video games, if your 17 and you want to buy this game, or if your parents don't mind buying you this game, whats the big deal? I mean come on, they played Scarface on SpikeTV a little while back and I think that is just a little bit worse than a TV ad for Stranglehold...
-
Dragon-slayer87 |
Dragon-Slayer87- 11:33am GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 5
psn id: Dragon-slayer87
where in the world is this from??? OMG... if its the same ad they sended in Denmark( in nov. last year ), than how in the world can the ad be encouraging and condoning violence.. they are just being hysterical....
-
se7enthsign |
Se7enthSign- 11:38am GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 6
(midway really sounds in trouble just now i see this as the next company to be bought over or disappear altogether) I doubt that. Midway is a huge company and has been around for a very long time. Once the next-gen Mortal Kombat hits, all of the past wounds will heal.
-
GunTeng
- 12:20pm GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 7
I think the showing of the advert at the time stated was nothing more than a stunt to draw more attention to the game than the advert would normally get. Personally, I believe they looked at the uproar over games such as Kain & Lynch and others and noticed that that bad publicity made some games more popular with certain gamers simply due to its notoriety. I think this is the case here, where they are trying to get notoriety for the game by using the advert at a very inappropriate time. Lets face it. The games publicity and peoples anticipation for the game just died even before release, and in my case it was right after I played the Demo. I wasn't impressed with it, even though prior to the demo, I was looking forward to seeing more of it because of the trailers I saw. I don't believe it is too late to advertise a game if it hasn't really taken off. So advertising 6 months after release can get more sales...but its a matter of opinion whether the cost of the advert would be overcome with a profit from sales resulting from the advert. Considering this, it actually does make more sense that it was an advertising stunt & nothing more.
-
The Cleaner
- 1:51pm GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 8
Midway is disintegrating
The Financial Officer (Thomas Powel) packed his briefcase and jumped ship along with the North American Marketing Manager (Steve Allison) and VP International Sales (Craig Paton) and VP Human Resources (Rebeca Jarvie) . Midway are finding hard to attract replacement talent because no one in their right mind would come join a stressful software company loosing buckets of cash. Anyone want a job?
Meanwhile they continue to shuffle existing employees around to cover the top jobs. Monica Hamilton will get Steve Allison's old Marketing job and Peter Crean will move across to cover International sales on top of his current duties.... but so far no one has put their hand up to manage the financial side of the business as the “strawberry blond ogre” Shari Redstone (Sumner Redstone's daughter) is coming in as Chairwoman to kick R-sses all day after the previous Chairman (Kenneth Cron) ran away from the company.....
BTW Shari Redstone lost her last job after her boss (her father) decided she was not capable enough and could not work with her anymore.....Ummmm good luck Midway!
-
InfernoReaper |
GrimDarkling- 2:08pm GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 9
Midway pulled off a nice one with UT3 but they really need some nice titles if they don't want to be bought out.
-
-
IIIKAGEIII |
IIIKAGEIII- 6:31pm GMT - January 16th, 2008
- 11
this game sort of slipped under the radar. this hype should sell a few more copy's. i have the collectors edition with the movie on it. the game is really good
-
Advertisement