Bungie claims “Maddie” teaser reference is “pure coincidence” to McCann disappearance

Well, that’s that then. Except it won’t be once the British press get hold of it. Duck and cover!

Disappointing response from Bungie :/

I find this a bit hard to swallow and I suspect this is a cheap bit of attention grabbing by someone at Bungie.

ridiculous really. But there you go.

“That said, this is both an unfortunate and untended [sic] coincidence,”

Whilst I can’t for the life of me, fathom why they would intentionally want to kick up the shit storm of negative publicity that this move could provoke, I find it even harder to believe that nobody saw that and put two and two together.

Surely this sort of stuff has to pass through numerous internal approval processes, just so that this sort of thing can be avoided?

It’s either gross incompetence, or one of the most tasteless PR stunts the industry has ever seen.

I agree, Robo_1. Surely it would have been flagged up at one point during the approval process?

I know it wasn’t such a big story in the States, but surely someone at Bungie must’ve been aware of the case?

Listen, children go missing every day, all over the world. Some never turn up, their families in tatters. do we ever hear about them? No.

Just because we’re from Europe and this seems important to us, on the other side of the world they don’t even know it exists: A few column inches in a newspaper under the “international” section.

To suggest “gross incompetence” etc. is ridiculous. The Halo Bible was written years and years ago, and this is most likely one story from it.

Bungie I could understand – quite why someone at Microsoft didn’t pick this up is slightly more puzzling. Surely their PR people go over stuff with a fine-tooth comb as well?

What morriss said.

There is a very fleeting reference to a character “Maddie” in one of the Halo books. From about the same timeline as this trailer as well.

It *is* pretty daft, though. The McCanns appeared on Oprah. They met the Pope about the disappearance. There was a picture of Maddie in literally every single airport I went to last year, US and Europe. It was front page news in the UK for months on end. I really think they’re going to regret this.

I think MS UK are going to regret it, yeah. Shame though. I mean, can’t we just all move on? It was tragic, yeah. About 18 months ago.

I think you may be underestimating quite how big it was, to be honest. You couldn’t move for it at the time. I’m very surprised they’re even prepared to chance an association.

Fair enough. If you were there, you were there.

I’m wrong. Again.

I’m not disputing that the media circus which surrounded the disappearance of Madeline wasn’t a disgusting show of hypocrisy, when contrasted with the horrors which occur across the world on a daily basis, but come on.

As Pat has just said, this was a huge media story, the name “Maddie” has been used in connection with the tragic disappearance of a little girl for so long, it’s pretty much a given that the press are going to latch onto this and misconstrue it into a tasteless PR gimmick.

It’s gross incompetence because either MS screened this stuff and didn’t see an obvious PR problem, or because MS were never made aware of the exact contents of the trailer.

I’ll be absolutely amazed if this doesn’t blow up. Games are already held in little regard by the mainstream press, so this sort of story will be a complete gift for them.

morriss – There is not wrong or right, glasshopper.

I suppose I just think the very fact that we’re having the conversation is a bit pathetic.

Bored of the Madeline thing. Fact is if any child isn’t found within a certain space of time there just never going to come back. I hate how they still to this day get press for what ?

For being horrible parents and leaving their children alone in a foreign country ? They were and still are just as much a reason for her disappearance than the person that took her.

As Blerk says, it’s likely to go ballistic once the mainstream press get hold of it. Then again, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Whaddya know! The media often oversensationalises stuff and shift the context of what they’re reporting to make more juicy reading.

Mmm. That’s some good irony.

“Games are already held in little regard by the mainstream press, so this sort of story will be a complete gift for them.”

This will be the most disappointing aspect this ‘coincidence’.

It’s all about PR, think of the PR they got cos of it…

dude this is ridiculous, not about halo bible, dont be such a queer, they could easily change that name before that, something fishy is going on, viral publicity in my opinion.

And dont talk as a child lost (and who knows what they did to her) doesnt matter, could be anybody of your family and its a heartbreaking situation.

Bungie was just stupid there.

Oh give me a break. If you were to worry about using the name of any lost, murdered, kidnapped, abused etc kid in the world you’d have no names left.

As I said yesterday: pure coincidence! It was not intentional.
Outside of the UK, nobody would even have made a link to this crime.
The Maddie-case was just a short blip on the (news-)radar some (2?) years ago in most other countries.

can we all be friends !!!