As reported by Polygon, a bomb squad was summoned to the Sydney offices of Ninemsn, a major Australian online publication, after the company received a promotional PR gift for Ubisoft’s recently released Watch Dogs. The promotional gift itself was received in the guise of a small beeping, black safe.
The local authorities were alerted to the situation in the afternoon of Tuesday, May 27 once the publication received the black safe. Accompanying the packaged was a “suspicious” letter that instructed the recipient to “check [their] voicemail.” The black safe then began to start beeping when staff members unsuccessfully tried to open it with a pin code that was also attached with the package.
When the bomb squad arrived on the scene, Ninemsn’s staff where instructed to leave for the day whilst the squad attempted to open up the package in the publication’s basement. Once they opened up the safe, all they found was a copy of Watch Dogs, a replica of the protagonist’s baseball cap, a beanie and an embargo reminder.
“This is definitely the other side of the line in terms of what it’s safe for a PR company to send anonymously to a newsroom,” Ninemsn editor Hal Crawford expressed. “The thing was black, heavy and slightly creepy. We did check with other newsrooms to see if they had received a similar package as we thought it was a PR stunt, but no-one else had. We weren’t panicked at any point, but given there was no note explaining what it was, we had to take sensible precautions.“
A Ubisoft Australia later explained to Polygon that the voicemails and the packages were part of a themed promotion for the release of Watch Dogs.
“Our team in Australia sent voicemail messages to some local media alerting them that they’d receive a special package related to the game,” Ubisoft said in a statement to Polygon. “Unfortunately, the delivery to Ninemsn didn’t go as planned, and we unreservedly apologise to Ninemsn’s staff for the mistake and for any problems caused as a result. We will take additional precautions in the future to ensure this kind of situation doesn’t happen again.“
Watch Dogs released worldwide on Tuesday, May 27 for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. A Wii U release is slated to launch later on this Fall.
[ Polygon ]