Australia Square in Sydney was evacuated recently when a suspicious package was delivered to the Ninemsn newsroom on George Street, mUmBRELLA reports. As it turns out, the package contained a copy of Watch Dogs and the whole affair was the result of a publicity stunt by a PR firm hired by Ubisoft to promote the game.
The package, which looks like a safe, arrived with a "suspicious" letter telling the reporter who received it to "check your voicemail" but the journalist didn't have a voicemail and so staff keyed in a passcode taped to the safe at which point it started beeping and staff suspected it might be a bomb.
The safe was delivered by courier but was not signed for and so the police were called, leading to an evacuation of the area. Once police opened the safe, they found a baseball cap and beanie, a copy of Watch Dogs, and a note saying it was embargoed until 17:00.
Ninemsn editor Hal Crawford commented:
“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. 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.”
Ubisoft has not yet issued a statement on the matter.
You can check out our review of Watch Dogs, which we awarded an 8/10 rating, here.
