Tag Archives: pr

Nintendo’s just announced that UK head of communications Rob Saunders is leaving the company.

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Activision’s UK PR team has now fully restructured following its merger with Blizzard, and has taken on an external PR company to lend a hand.

“Following the introduction of the new internal UK and Ireland PR team (Lucy Fairbrass, Johanna Hakala and Jonnie Bryant), it became apparent that the extensive nature of Activision’s 2009 product portfolio would require comprehensive PR support which would reach far beyond the 2008 PR objectives,” Kate Ward, head of UK PR, told GamesIndustry.biz.

“With this in mind I have been working to broaden the internal team and move to a one agency external PR solution, with Frank PR, for the Activision and LucasArts portfolio, while maintaining our relationship with Barrington Harvey on the Red Octane side of the business.”

More through there.

A Mercenaries 2 PR stunt in London, at which EA tried to give away £20,000 worth of free petrol, has been branded “irresponsible” by an MP after hordes of motorists tried to cash in.

The fuel was limited to £40 per person, and 500 motorists were fast enough to get the gift.

By midday over 40 cars we queued along the residential street alongside the London petrol station, and one local resident had to be calmed down by EA security because he couldn’t get his car out from his drive.

“Whilst a lucky few might have got some free petrol, hundreds of local residents have faced misery on their daily journeys this morning. They deserve an apology for being the victims of such an ill-thought out media stunt,” said the MP for Hornsey Lynne Featherstone.

More on CVG.

Speaking in an earnings call following the release of Q3 financials last night, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder said that old GTA titles have sold in seven figure units for the quarter.

“More than one million units of previous GTA titles were sold in the third quarter of fiscal 2008 alone,” said the exec.

“Based on GTA IV sales to date… we believe the lifetime Grand Theft Auto sales will ultimately track well ahead of any previous Grand Theft Auto titles.”

GTA IV, the publisher confirmed last night, has now sold more than 10 million units, and it to be pushed through the Christmas season by a new Rockstar PR and marketing campaign.

Read all the rest of our news from the financial release here.

In Take-Two’s third-quarter earnings call last night, CEO Ben Feder said that Rockstar is planning a new Christmas push for GTA IV.

“Rockstar is launching a new marketing and PR campaign which will start in the fall and extend into the Holiday season,” said the exec.

“Also as a must-have game for all fans of interactive entertainment, GTA IV we believe should receive a boost from the ramp up in hardware sales during the upcoming Holiday season.”

Feder said that Take-Two’s partner support for the game will extend through to 2009.

“In addition our hardware partners continue to be excited about the title and are planning to support GTA IV in a major way through early next year,” he added.

“The Japanese version of Grand Theft Auto IV is set for release on October 30th and the PC version is due out in November, both of which will open new chapters in the phenomenal performance of the game.”

Chairman Strauss Zelnick said he believed Christmas would be kind to the game.

“We’re comfortable where our inventory levels are and we’re comfortable that going into the fall and Holiday season that sales of GTA IV will pick up,” he said.

Take-Two confirmed last night that total sales of the action smash have moved through the 10 million unit mark.

Read all our news from the financial release here.

Just in. Eidos UK has just confirmed that the firm will have no internal PR at all from this point on. The company’s PR aspects are now to be handled by UK agency Barrington Harvey.

“For the time being, there will be no internal PR function; the agencies will be managed by the UK marketing team,” Gareth Ramsay, international PR manager, told VG247 this morning.

In a previous, broadly distributed note, Ramsay said, speaking of himself and PR exec Rachael Grant, “While both of us will remain at the company, the internal restructure will mean that we will move from the PR department to exciting new opportunities.”

The news comes after parent company SCi announced a 25 percent staff lay-off, relocation to Canada and major restructuring in February.

Good luck to you both, chaps.