As is customary this time of the year, all sorts of lists appear ranking the best and worst of the year gone by. Heck, even MegaGames will be hosting the 2nd Annual Top MegaGame of 2005 Awards early next year but games seem to have been everywhere in 2K5.
As evidence that gaming has spread well beyond its former narrow borders, Rockstar has appeared in a Top 10 list that usually does not include games. Rockstar Games is in rather dubious company as Tom Cruise, painkiller Vioxx and Pat Robertson also appear on the same list. Rockstar Games appears at No. 7 of the Top 10 PR blunders of 2005 and appears to have won the judges over even though 2005 has been a particularly clumsy year for PR machines.
What made Rockstar's blunder particularly special was not just the fact that the, already pretty daring, game included sex scenes but the fact that the company repeatedly lied about their origin and tried to worm its way out of the entire fuss by blaming some gamer that actually revealed the content.
This particular PR blunder sparked a chain reaction which resulted in the involvement of various politicians whose opinions about gaming are about as valid as those of gamers on whether Debussy's music was impressionist.
The official description of the Rockstar entry by Fineman PR, creators of the Top 10 list claims: As if best selling video game "Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas" didn't have enough violence and debauchery already, its maker Rockstar Games added hidden animated sex scenes. The soft-core porn ignited a political firestorm forcing a new "adults-only" rating reported the Wall Street Journal. Other coverage said Best Buy and Circuit City pulled the game from their stores.
For your records the most stupid PR trick and rightfully claiming top spot, was Mr. Cruise's appearance on the Today show, as part of his War of the Worlds press tour. During the show Cruise chastised host Matt Lauer and attacked the entire science of Psychiatry including, apparently, patients based on his Scientology-defined ideals. Strangely enough even the Church of Scientology claims that it is an applied religious philosophy and not a science.
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