Filling a swimming pool with fake blood and body parts to promote a video game never seemed to me like a particularly tasteful idea in the first place. It’s even less so after a grisly machete killing, described as an act of terrorism, roiled anger throughout London this week.
Capcom planned the stunt to promote the May 24 U.K. release of Resident Evil: Revelations on consoles and PC. It filled 55,000 gallon pool with fake blood and dumped in a bunch of fake eyeballs, body parts, intestines and brains, challenging people to dive in and swim to the bottom for free stuff.
That was before the murder on Wednesday of Lee Rigby, in the London neighbourhood of Woolwich, an attack described in news reports as a beheading. Rigby’s killers are said to have made jihadist statements on a video taken at the scene of the murder, which has incited anger against Muslims in that country. Right-wing groups have gone on the march in London and elsewhere since the slaying.
Capcom announced shortly thereafter that the Resident Evil promotion, which was to have been held Saturday and Sunday, was off. Probably a good idea. Last year Capcom ran a /”human meat market” in East London to promote Resident Evil 6.
Resident Evil’s U.K. Event Cancelled After Soldier’s Killing [Anime News Network, h/t Grace]
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Comments
8 responses to “Capcom Cancels Blood-and-Guts Stunt After Grisly London Murder”
That’s nuts. They could’ve at least gone with something tasteful like the mutilated torso of a buxom bikini girl.
Yeah that thing that happened was really messed up. A bunch of lunatics and idiots.
That’s a shame, sounds like it would have been a lot of fun and something I’d attend it held locally.
I’ll never understand the thinking behind these grotesque PR stunts, didnt Sony kill a goat once to promote God of War?
They cancelled the event, so there is no problem in my eyes. If they went through with it, well that would be a different story…
Marketing is always about pushing the envelope so you can’t criticize them for trying.
Awh man… I wonder what they’re gonna do with all that guts and gore, now? A swimming pool’s worth is not an insignificant amount. Maybe they could feed the homeless or something.
Aw man, terrorists ruin everything.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Oh look, the Kotaku moralists are at it again! Surprise surprise, even readers have been brainwashed by Kotaku and its obsessive, white knight moral compass. Just once could we have the facts without the author’s irrelevant opinion on morality? This is supposed to be news, not an opinion piece *sigh*