Acclaim Shows Just How Well Marketing Gimmicks Work By Going Out Of Business

from the poor-baby-Turoks dept

Video game maker Acclaim's most recent claims to fame have been much more about ridiculous promotions, rather than games that people actually want to buy. They wanted to advertise on tombstones (some game involving death), pay your speeding tickets (some game involving car racing) and to get people to name their first baby Turok (some game involving characters with weird names). However, like IUMA, the company that asked parents to name their kids IUMA and quickly went out of business, it appears that the baby naming promotion curse has struck again. Acclaim has apparently laid everyone off, shut down their offices, and is declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Hopefully, little baby Turoks and Iumas can now hang out and talk about their parents' bizarre behaviors in naming them after a company that couldn't last until they were at least out of diapers. If you absolutely must name your kid after a brand, you should at least pick one that can last.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, 1 Sep 2004 @ 12:55pm

    Promotional Curse

    Look at the number of dot-bombs that paid huge sums of money to 'buy' the naming rights to professional sports stadiums who later failed.

    Or the number of professional athletes who appear on the cover of video games or sports magazines who then get hurt and ruin their career.

    You gotta wonder...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    RJD, 1 Sep 2004 @ 1:49pm

    Other naming concepts from the past / present

    Not so much in the 'brand' venue but early on, Charles Schultz in the Peanuts comic strip had a kid named 5 whose other siblings were also named after numbers. And we have George Foreman who named all his kids George. Seems parents are always striving to some how brand their children with unique names ... which is some times better than XXX jr or the II or III etc. Maybe some physc major can explain the personality types who insist on naming kids after themselves (hoping the child will accomplish in life what they never could?) or name them so they stand out like a sore thumb (afraid the kid will be nameless/faceless like they were in life?).

    So what would be worse ... being named Turok, Judas, or Benedict ?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    aNonMoose("Edsel")Cowherd, 1 Sep 2004 @ 9:41pm

    distinctive names

    So what's wrong with having a name that is different, means absolutely nothing, and sounds like gibberish?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      thecaptain, 2 Sep 2004 @ 5:01am

      Re: distinctive names

      Nothing really...but why would you want to name someone after one of Dorpus' posts???

      ;)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Sep 2004 @ 12:44pm

    typo!

    If you absolutely must name you kid after a brand, you should at least pick one that can last.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.