UPDATE: Square Enix has since removed the Facebook app promoting Hitman with an apology for its contents.
"Earlier today we launched an app based around Hitman: Absolution that allowed you to place virtual hits on your Facebook friends. Those hits would only be viewable by the recipient, and could only be sent to people who were confirmed friends," the statement passed to Eurogamer reads.
"We were wide of the mark with the app, and following feedback from the community we decided the best thing to do was remove it completely and quickly. This we've now done.
"We're sorry for any offence caused by this."
ORIGINAL STORY: Square Enix nails it again with another ill-considered marketing campaign for Hitman Absolution. After the "Doritosgate" debacle on Eurogamer, and the more recent kerfuffle over certain publications' coverage of the game, one would think that the publisher would opt to lay low for awhile instead of penning a new chapter in their on-going book on Bad Marketing For Dummies.
The aforementioned debacle had inspired our own Rowan Kaiser to write that games journalism needs more honesty and fewer standards.
While it would be disingenuous to call the game's release disastrous, it can't be denied that the game's launch has been met with mixed reviews from the press and no small amount of disdain from players loyal to the franchise, who consider the new quicktime events a 'betrayal' of what they consider to be core gameplay elements to Hitman.
In any case, the publisher is now encouraging people to threaten people with murder (that's called a "death threat") by "putting a hit on your friends" through Facebook, at which point you can select someone on your list and describe, presumably to the killer, how to identify them. These include:
Her awful make-up
Her ginger hair
Her annoying laugh
Her strange odour
Her big ears
Her muffin top
Her hairy legs
Her small tits
It's frankly disappointing how an otherwise decent publisher (insert Wikipedia joke about "citation needed" here) like Square Enix makes targets of individuals with terms intended to disparage people for their looks or the size of their breasts. It's bad enough that Kick a Ginger Day is a real thing, or that women are often disparaged for wearing too much makeup/not wearing enough makeup, and for the size of their breasts, as if they're worth no more as human beings than the sum of their appearances.
And when I wrote about nailing it, I meant the coffin.
Thanks to everyone on Twitter who sent this my way, and RPS.
