Yesterday Square Enix launched a "hire a hitman" campaign meant to spread through social media like wildfire - and in a way it did. Well, if you mean the complaints about the campaign where you could send out hits on your friends for having anything from "a bad haircut" to "a tiny penis" - the hit when then be posted on the person's facebook page and they would be invited to retaliate. The campaign was live for about an hour yesterday, before the backlash forced Square Enix to pull it down.
As if there is need to create a purpose built tool for quick and easy cyber-bullying. And while the entire campaign was a tongue in cheek kind of thing, Square Enix should have thought better of it. Is that really how you want people to potentially be introduced to your game?
"Earlier today we launched an app based around Hitman: Absolution that allowed you to place virtual hits on your Facebook friends. Those hits would only be viewable by the recipient, and could only be sent to people who were confirmed friends.
We were wide of the mark with the app, and following feedback from the community we decided the best thing to do was remove it completely and quickly. This we've now done.
We're sorry for any offense caused by this."