Square Enix Pulls Controversial Marketing Campaign After Less Than an Hour

Square Enix have pulled a Facebook marketing campaign, launched today, which allowed users to place a ‘hit’ on their friends to mark the recently released Hitman: Absolution.

The promotion encouraged participants to provide a reason for the hit, the options users had to choose from included:

• Her awful make-up
• Her ginger hair
• Her annoying laugh
• Her strange odour
• Her big ears
• Her muffin top
• Her hairy legs
• Her small tits

A storm erupted over the sexualised nature of the promotion and Square Enix quickly shelved the promotion and issued the following apology:

This follows controversy earlier this year when a trailer featured lingerie wearing nuns in the process of being assassinated by Absolution’s protagonist Agent 47.

It also comes after Crystal Dynamics, another Square Enix studio, garnered negative attention in response to suggestions that Lara Croft will be sexually assaulted in next year’s Tomb Raider.

Last week industry insiders attempted to tackle gaming’s systemic sexism with the Twitter hashtag #1ReasonWhy.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun 

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