Singapore under ‘attack’: Imaginary war a ‘Call of Duty’ marketing ploy

SINGAPORE — Popular first-person shooter video game “Call of Duty” posted a series of tweets about a fictional attack on Singapore as part of their online campaign to promote its new game, today (Sep 30).

The new game was Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

At 1.03am today, the Twitter page belonging to @CallofDuty posted a tweet that said: “BREAKING NEWS: Unconfirmed reports are coming in of an explosion on the North bank of the Singapore Marina.”

When that tweet was sent out, its user name was “Current Events Agg.” and had a illustration of a globe as its profile picture.

The user name reverted back to “Call of Duty” later. It is not known when this change happened.

More tweets were sent out subsequently describing “large plumes of dark smoke”, “shots fired at newly established blockades” and riot police dispersing rioting mobs.

It also named “James Chung” as the fictional “commander of the Singapore Armed Forces”.

A tweet sent out at 3.35am said: “A state of Martial Law has been declared and will remain in place until the incident is firmly understood.”

The next tweet sent out at 5.37am revealed that the earlier ones were part of an online campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

Some on Twitter were not amused by the publicity stunt.

A few applauded the campaign.

Channel NewsAsia has contacted Activision, the US-based company who owns the game, and is awaiting their statement.