Acclaim are notorious for their stunts. Some are questionable, many distasteful, but all are highly entertaining to read about.

TUROK: EVOLUTION

One 25-year-old "gamer" claimed on July 18th that he was planning on breaking the world record for the longest time standing in line. What was he waiting for? The September 6th release of Turok: Evolution. The gamer and his tent disappeared from his Oxford Street camp after two weeks queuing and a lot of publicity. Sources claim a bald man bundled him into an Acclaim vehicle at 4am on his last morning there and took him away to a dark room for de-briefing and a wad of cash.
Those lucky lucky winners who changed their names to "Turok" by deed poll		Acclaim also devised a PR experiment which they named "Identity Marketing." First they offered $10,000 for any parent willing to horribly scar their precious child by naming them "Turok". Acclaim then offered to pay gamers for the privilege of changing their names by deed poll to "Turok" for an entire year. It claimed the promotion was the idea of a Dr. Simeon Cantrell of Australia's Marketing Science Centre, author of a book called Market Their Pants Off. Unfortunately, Dr. Cantrell doesn't exist and insterestingly the book's ISBN number was actually a book of knock-knock jokes.

SHADOWMAN 2 On the release of it's Shadowman 2 game, Acclaim made a statement to say it would pay relatives of the recently bereaved in return for placing Shadowman 2 advertisements on headstones.

Acclaim insisted that it was a genuine offer and claimed that the marketing ideas for the game were valid. The firm went on to claim that "advertising on gravestones falls outside of codes of conduct and regulations of any formal advertising bodies". Naturally, the story made every gaming website and mainstream paper and the Church of England was forced to issue a statement saying they would never allow any of its graveyards to be used in such a fashion. A spokesman for Acclaim's London office rejected the notion that this might be nothing more than a cynical media stunt.

BURNOUT 2 To celebrate the release of the game Burnout 2 on October 11th in the UK, Acclaim offered to pay off any fines of any driver caught by speed cameras. A very irresponsible move, but very clever PR. Lovely.

(sources: www.gamespy.com, www.guardian.co.uk, www.ministryoffun.net)