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The News of the World published the Bungie Maddie teaser trailer story over the weekend, but a full-on spread to the British tabloids is now looking less likely.
“Halo team under fire for Maddie ad,” reads the headline, but the story itself is restrained, saying only that it’s unclear whether or not the name will be changed in the game and quoting Bungie passing the incident off as “an unfortunate coincidence”.
More through the link.
Viewing 35 responses
pleasant_cabbage said:
Without seeing the coincidental matter (i.e. what their Maddie is) and despite realising it was only up for a brief moment (rather than a tag line) it does feel a little naughty.
Tonka said:
Cynical cnuts!
David said:
Maddie is not a copyright name to a child that shouldn’t of been left alone by there parents in the first place.
LeD said:
Are game developers going to have to check against a database of missing children names whenever they have a missing person as part of the plot of their game?
I hate to break this to you, but ‘Maddie’ is a UK story. Nobody gives a flying fuck outside the UK.
morriss said:
Apart from the McCann’s being on Oprah?
/steals Pat’s arguments
Psychotext said:
If what you just said means that Bungie employees don’t watch Oprah then I think I’m going to go out and buy another copy of Halo or something.
Seriously though people, get over it. Maddie is a char in the expansion, like it or not.
morriss said:
I love it.
LeD said:
So it’s a publicity stunt designed to get press in the UK? Because I can tell it will largely be lost on the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, Canadians and people in Glorious Republic Kazakhstan. And Bangladesh.
Tonka said:
Any news on what this “expansion” is about? I fucking hate teasers because I get teased every fucking time and then I can’t fucking stop thinking about what the fuck its all about and it usually isn’t revealed until I have gotten caught up in the next fucking teaser campaign and the five fucking months later I start thinking about some old fucking campaign and everyone else has forgotten just what the fuck it was all about.
SO FUCK THIS SHIT AND GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT BUNGIE!
I WANT THE TRUTH!
pleasant_cabbage said:
LeD I can’t see Bungie needing to cause this kind of publicity to sell an expansion, but claiming it’s a UK only thing seems incredibly off.
LeD said:
Tonka
Well they made no big mistery about the plot: the search and recovery of a missing child in southern Europe.
pleasant_cabbage said:
Psychotext said:
onoudidnt
Tonka said:
LOL
LeD said:
pleasant_cabbage
I don’t mean to offend, but why do you think people from other countries would care to hear about some missing kid from the UK? It never made the papers in Europe, apart from Portugal.
pleasant_cabbage said:
I’m not at all offended. In fact I find it hard to believe how someone could catch that quick snippet of text in the trailer and made an article out of it in the first place. Seems odd.
I just thought the maddy thing was huge in a lot of places.
Well ok the Pope does.
I don’t think Oprah/Pope meets just anyone
I’m thinking more of the sightings by French people, Belgians etc. It definately wasn’t a UK/Portugal only story.
Psychotext said:
There was some coverage in other countries, but it was only a passing interest.
The sightings were mostly paranoid brits on holiday. I thought I saw her once too… god help any poor parent with a kid looking anything like her.
morriss said:
LeD: It did and still does make the papers in Europe.
Psychotext said:
You know, it would have been far more interesting had they locked the parents up for neglect like should have happened.
LeD said:
Yeah this kind of kid is just paedo fodder. Literally asking for it.
Psychotext said:
LeD said:
morriss
Nope. I live in Europe on a daily basis. Never heard anything on the news, never read anything in the paper. It might have been reported in the ‘rest of the world’ section two years ago, but that’s about it.
No_PUDding said:
Hahah, that’s a really distasetful and not funny joke right?
morriss said:
I live in Europe too, LeD and I have. You live in France though who typically couldn’t give a rats arse about England.
pleasant_cabbage said:
@psycho
Nope. The majority of sightings have been by indigenous residents by and large. That’s why I used that as an example of the maddie story not being of exclusively uk interest.
So what is the new stuff anyway?
/fleas
LeD said:
No_PUDding:
Of course it was. It’s dark humour as a defense mechanism. As a father of two daughters, there are a number of things I need to block out.
Tonka said:
It had lots of coverage in Sweden to.
PsychoKnight 1 said:
As a person liveing in the uk it f**king pisses me off hearing about poor old macans boo hoo well guess what u shouldnt have left ur children alone what king of f**king retards would leave their kid alone to go out and stuff their fat f**king necks they should have been arrested or charged for neglect as it was their own fault and they proberly killed her themselves the f**king pricks rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr it makes me mad i dont want to hear about their stupid sob storys anymore as i have no simperfy for people who neglect their children.
David said:
“as i have no simperfy for people who neglect their children.”
To repeat exactly what the McCans story is really about.
Neglect to the highest order the reason that child went missing is because they left her alone. End of story this game has nothing to do with that and the name Maddie isn’t owned by the dam McCans. The only reason they get sympathy is cause there middle class well off dick’s.
Psychotext said:
True enough. If they same thing happened to someone in a council estate it would have been all you could do to stop the Sun / Mail organising a lynch mob to teach the bad parents a lesson.
pjmaybe said:
When this originally broke, I did think it had bugger all to do with the McCann case. For starters, it goes against the grain – americans giving a flying toss about something that doesn’t happen in their backyard for starters…
LeD said:
And it’s Bungie we’re talking about here, not Rockstar. I don’t think they have a track record of courting controversy.
deftangel said:
Destructoid as usual hit the nail on the head in their usual style…
http://www.destructoid.com/newsflash-the-name-maddie-is-not-like-the-name-hitler–105503.phtml
The existing reference to a “Maddie” in Halo fiction was in the first book written in 2001.
Psychotext said:
Funny thing… I have copies of those books in PDF format and there wasn’t a Maddie (or Madeline, or Maddy) reference in any of them. I have the actual books too, but I’m far too lazy to re-read them on the off chance.
Tonka said:
Destructiod couldn’t hit a nail if it was stapled to their own fucking forehead. One of the most miserable blogs out there and a strong reason to ban amateur reporting.