EA Promotion at Comic Con: The Second Circle of Hell

"Sin to Win" flyer posted by "danteteam" at TwitPic

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To promote the new game “Dante’s Inferno” at Comic Con this year, EA launched the contest “Sin to Win.” The contest consists of “committing an act of lust” with a “booth babe,” and showing proof of that encounter on Twitter. The winner will receive “a sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi, and a chest full of booty.” I’m guessing the paparazzi are so you can post pictures of this lovely evening to every one of your online profiles—I’ll refrain from guessing what is in the “chest full of booty.”

In one fell swoop, EA has managed to alienate any women who might have played the game, and any men who do not act like 14-year-olds on hormone overdrive. The majority of tweets tagged with the EA sanctioned #lust are also tagged #EAfail.

The promotional site for the game only goes as far as the second circle of hell. But, it looks like this little excercise might put EA a bit farther down. Lets see just how deep they might go:

Circle 1—Limbo: Poets and philosphers, not coders and gamers.

Circle 2—Lust: EA is very aware they (and their potential consumers) qualify for this.

Circle 3—Gluttony: I would say the “chest full of booty” counts.

Circle 4—Greed: A profit-based company automatically qualifies.

Circle 5—Anger: Game play might induce bouts of swearing, and they have certainly annoyed many Comic Con attendees, but for this excercise they are free and clear.

Circle 6—Heresy: Making a video game about hell and then asking people to commit mortal sins probably means you don’t buy Dante’s poem, so welcome to the lower levels.

Circle 7—Violence: The game includes a lot, but were only talking about the promotion here.

Circle 8—Fraud: There are lots of folks in this one, including flatterers and seducers. EA qualifies for both since they will be procuring the “hot girls” for the evening and making the poor guy (or gal) think this is really a date.

Circle 9—Treachery: Looks like they are safe from hanging out with Satan.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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