In 2007, Rockstar Games teased Grand Theft Auto IV with a series of late commercials appearing on channels such as FX. All advertisements amounted to 30 minutes of watching a marked clock, each second being scored by a gunfire. Young Zack, once the sucker, fell hard for hype.
Yes, think back to the old days of 2007. Specifically, March 2007. Just like March 2021, many people around the world were waiting for the next big game in the GTA series. However, unlike now, where we have no news or information about the next game, in 2007 we knew that GTA IV would come. And Rockstar was happy to get fans to count down every second until the first trailer went down.
To be clear, this ball announcement it was not countdown to game launch. No, this watch counts down, simple and loud, every second until the first trailer is released.
And yet, Zack, younger and younger, watched a lot of countdown ads, flipping between Adult Swim and counting. Why? Because I thought, maybe, just may be, if I watched it, Rockstar would show a teaser for the game earlier and I would have a brief look! It never happened. These ads aired for several nights, although exact details about them are hard to find online. I’m honestly shocked that someone even recorded it and uploaded it YouTube in 2007.
When the countdown stopped and the trailer finally gave up, the Rockstar site collapsed and people couldn’t even see it right away. It was a frustrating end to a bizarre teaser campaign, a date we’ll probably never see again.
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