Someone, somewhere is getting fired right now. In a promotion for the newly released game, Splinter Cell: Convictions, a marketing company in New Zealand thought that it might be fun to send an actor down to the busy Viaduct Basin section of Auckland and engage with shop goers and bar patrons. With an imitation gun. Police were not amused.
The NZ Herald is reporting that a man with a bandaged hand and carrying a plastic gun (the gun and bandaged hand are visually distinctive marks of the game’s title character Sam Fisher) was seen wandering by a pub, when the actor pointed a gun at several people. Hilarity ensued.
Terrified screams filled the street, as people began to scramble for cover, diving behind tables and running in every direction. Police quickly responded, fully prepared for a shootout. Luckily for the Sam Fisher wanna-be, the New Zealand police have never been to LA, so a brief conversation turned the possibly tragic shootout into an incredibly stupid incident.
The group responsible for the game promotions in New Zealand, Monaco Corporation, immediately did what any responsible company would do- they blamed subcontractors.
“This was by no means an attempt to get cops down there and get this sort of exposure,” Duane Mutu, marketing manager for Monaco told the Herald, “We do apologize, we shouldn’t have had guns down there. It was just marketing gone wrong.”
The police did not press charges, possibly for fear that they wouldn’t be able to hold Sam Fisher for long anyway.
