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Has Call of Duty taken its latest Twitter stunt too far?

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Publicity stunts are far from an explicitly modern phenomenon, but have become more commonplace recently thanks to the immediacy of social media. With brands falling over one another to outdo each other at every step though, is it possible for them to take it too far? “Taste” is subjective of course, but it seems to have become oddly fashionable of late to voice offence, making social media something of a double-edged sword for advertisers. It's a fine line to tread, and if public opinion is to be believed, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 developers Treyarch have fallen on the wrong side of that line.

Call of Duty's development team apologised yesterday for a recent Twitter campaign that suggested a terrorist attack was taking place in Singapore

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The developer apologised yesterday for a recent Twitter campaign that suggested a terrorist attack was taking place in Singapore. The rub is that the campaign was tailored to appear genuine, with the developer changing the name of their Twitter account to “Current Events Aggregate,” and giving it a current affairs makeover completely unrelated to Call of Duty or video games in general. To lend legitimacy to this account, they started by sending out a series of benevolent tweets about fashion, movies and other such piffle, before dropping the literal bomb with a major (fake) terrorist attack tweeted in real time. It's a world away from the more cinematic, conventional campaign from 72andSunny that debuted back in April, and is arguably more interesting, but it's an approach that appears to have cost the game some brownie points in certain circles.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 teaser trailer from 72andSunny

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Treyarch and the game's publisher Activision, have come under heavy fire (pun alert) for their decision to take such a violent approach to marketing and whilst they haven't released a full public statement (at least at the time of writing), Treyarch director and senior executive producer Jason Blundell commented on the stunt yesterday. He said: “I’m a simple director and not involved in the marketing at all. However, it was absolutely not done for any kind of attention in any way. It was not done maliciously, or as any kind of scare tactic. I personally am very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way. It was done on our channel, and it was to talk about the fiction of the world. I think we were as shocked as everybody else when it started blowing up (poor choice of words perhaps), because essentially we were teeing up ready for a story beat. So again, very sorry for anyone who took it that way. It wasn’t meant that way at all, it was supposed to just be getting ready for a campaign element.”

Treyarch director and senior executive producer Jason Blundell commented on the stunt yesterday

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You'd have to be rather naive to expect this stunt would fly completely under the radar of the self-appointed internet watchdogs of course. But then, it's impossible to create a piece of genuinely inventive advertising these days (I'm approaching 30 now so feel I'm just about licensed to use that turn of phrase) without offending somebody somewhere, such is the current climate of suffocating political correctness. Did Treyarch take it too far this time? I personally think not, but then I'm informed enough to spot the difference between a genuine piece of news and an advertising campaign as I work in the industry (and in this case fall within the brand's target market). Either way, it's unlikely to affect the game's sales when it hits shelves on November 6. What are your thoughts? Please sound off in the comments below.

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Some of the tweets sent last month as part of the campaign

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer, struggling musician and lifelong gamer from Kidderminster in the UK.

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