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[Wario64]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08/05/news_6104220.html

"With all of the publicity surrounding the murder and the decision taken by a number of major retailers to withdraw the game from sale, the level of interest in Manhunt, according to a recent report in the Daily Mail newspaper, is now higher than it was when the game was released last year. A spokesman for HMV, which still stocks the game in its 200 stores, told the newspaper that demand for the game had "significantly increased" and added that "people who had never heard of the game now want to buy it, many think it's going to be banned and that lends a certain cachet.""

 

[MaddenNFL64]

R* should kill people with every release .

Or not...

 

[MrPing1000]

Same thing happened with GTA or was it GTA2. Well it was one of them.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Why couldn’t the dude have died after jumping head first into a concrete block at least that might have lead to some seals for Nintendo.

DAMN UK CASUALS

 

[Brannon]

Show of hands; who didn't see this coming?


*barren salt flats for miles and miles....*

Rockstar's enemies print their money for them. Nice setup you got going there R*

 

[nubbe]

It’s always like this when the media goes after certain games with forks and torches…
Even shit games like Postal reaches sky high levels… which it wouldn’t have done without the media attention…

Wouldn’t be surprised if some companies encourage tabloids to which hunt certain immoral games.
It’s almost as if people want to see if they can be influence and turn into a psycho killer :/

 

[Koshiro]

It's amazing how the media never learn. They don't care of course, they just want the headlines that older folks will "!" over, meanwhile the kids form queues 4 miles long outside a a videogame store...

 

[fart]

night trap all over again

 

[MetatronM]

Mmmm...irony.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I wonder if the stores that took it off the shelf are kicking themselves for being so hasty, especially with the revelation that the copy of Manhunt was the victims not the perpertrators.

 

[DarienA]

night trap all over again

...except that nightrap had no redeeming qualities whatsoever....

 

[Kobun Heat]

Always, always, always happens. I even wrote a paper about it for a Violence in Media class.

-Death Race was protested and ended up on 20/20. They moved like ten times more units than they were before the controversy.

-Custer's Revenge was singled out for protest. Sold four times the amount of other Mystique games.

-Night Trap sold something like four times more units, and saw an 32X and PC release.

-Mortal Kombat on Genesis outsold the SNES one; MKII on SNES with blood outsold the Genesis one.

If you protest against a game, you help it sell many, many more copies.

 

[MetatronM]

...except that nightrap had no redeeming qualities whatsoever....

Manhunt isn't the greatest of games either.

 

[Mike Works]

This is DIRECT PROOF that murders cause videogames.

 

[DarienA]

Manhunt isn't the greatest of games either.

Oh please Manhunt has more gameplay than Nighttrap by miles... hell going outside and picking up some dirt off the ground has more subtleties than nighttrap.

 

[fennec fox]

But Manhunt does not have a hip dance number. You cannot deny this.

 

[DarienA]

But Manhunt does not have a hip dance number. You cannot deny this.

...yeah you got me on that one.

 

[moist]

...except that nightrap had no redeeming qualities whatsoever....

Lies


it had the greatest theme song of any game ever made.

 

[B E N K E]

Similar thing happened with Postal 2 after a documentary on Swedish television. The game didn't sell anything then all of a sudden it was number one in the few places that carried the title.

 

[Fularu]

...except that nightrap had no redeeming qualities whatsoever....

And what are, exactly, manhunt's redeeming qualities?

 

[Brannon]

Same thing with the Harry Potter books, except they are an already amazing product made damn near invincible by all the 'negative' publicity.

If R* can stop fucking up their finances, they'd probably be happy for the fact that they would never have to pay a single red cent for advertising and still come out on top.

 

[Shinobi]

...except that nightrap had no redeeming qualities whatsoever....

It had no sales either, until some idiot politician decided to put it on blast at C-Span. Then suddenly it became a hit and was ported to two other platforms.

Quality of the game isn't the issue (and it's subjective to begin with). MK1 was a piece of shit, and in terms of arcade conversions the SNES version pissed all over the Genny incarnation. Didn't stop it from outselling the SNES version by a WIDE margin.

We've seen this song and dance before in regard to movies and music, as well as gaming. All you gotta do is change the names of the products and the victims and suspects in the adjacent crime, and you've got the template of reaction and responses for the last twenty years.

 

[Solid]

Haha, excellent. I'm glad I have an unsealed copy

 

[DarienA]

And what are, exactly, manhunt's redeeming qualities?

I'm not talking redeeming as in upstanding member of society, I'm talking about in terms of execution of actual gameplay elements and sound pieces. Manhunt is a solid title.

 

[SolidSnakex]

And what are, exactly, manhunt's redeeming qualities?

Well it is a fairly well designed stealth game. A too bit trial and era oriented, but that's the case with alot of stealth games for some reason. Its by no means a terrible game with no redeeming qualities. If you like the genre, it's a pretty good entry.