Beta-7: Was it real?

[Querjek]

www.beta-7.com

Or the entire story in 9 minutes (Watch this anyways):

http://rd.ifilm.com/redirect?s=newgrounds&er=www.ifilm.com/filmdetail%3fifilmid%3d2483630%26refsite%3d6166

Wow. If that's real... damn. I'm reposting this from Sonic Cult. Someone said that this is just Sega's marketing campaign for ESPN Fottball 2004, but after seeing this I have sworn to never trust Sega Sports again (Not like I'd buy sports games anyways). Anyone know any more about this all?

[crashdummycow01]

thats pretty freaky... not sure who i believe though..

theres 3 things that i think are possible..
1)he really is blacking out and stuff
2)That sites made by sega to get more ppl to buy the game
3)he is mad at sega for something that happened and he's trying to get back at them..

The blackouts dont look real.. like the one where he's on his couch and just blacks out, he falls, but kinda catches himself before he hits his face..

Also i've only told about 3 ppl about this.. and gave them a link to the site and everything and they've said that they're gonna go buy the game (the site .. apparently helps the selling of the games?!?)

Also i havent really seen any REALLY GOOD evidence that any of it is true.. the video's could've all been staged. the picture of the ransacked room could've been staged,he could have multiple screen names and staged alot of the posts too.

but if it is real, thats really weird.. and i might just have to pick up a copy incase they take it off the shelves.. [its triggered me to buy the game?!?]

[evilmess]

It's clever marketing.

I enjoyed the little video but when it was all over... I fealt compelled to buy the game and I don't even like football video games. LOL

Add to the fact that beta-7.com and the other site gamerchuck.com are registered though the same proxy registrant, coincidence? perhaps not.

[AB Positive]

I dont' know what to think about it... I really dont...

-AG

[stargate]

It's a little too much like the old "Polybius" video game scam.

Come on. I might have believed it if it was just about having blackouts from playing video games. He is actually alleging that he blacks out and "acts like a football player". He has video of people tackling others, doing a victory dance, and passing out!!! He also is alleging that Sega kidnapped his friend.

umm............. pretty sure it's fake.

1st person shooters do make me naseous though...

[Raccoon Lad]

That could only be true if this Beta 7 person had some serious mental disorder to begin with.
It's as fake as fake could be, I must say.

[Ed Oscuro]

Beta 7 runs from the following IP:
64.106.224.210

Gamerchuck runs from the following IP:
64.14.68.69

Sega runs from the following IP: (http://www.sega.com/index_2.jhtml)
64.95.120.131

Don't know what to make of all this exactly, but it looks suspicious, not to mention foolish.

[Ed Oscuro]

They have different server characteristsics, though.

Beta-7:

DAV/1.0.3 mod_perl/1.26
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

Gamerchuck:

Server: Apache
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

Sega.com:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) PHP/4.3.2 mod_jk/1.2.1 mod_ssl/2.8.14 OpenSSL/0.9.7c
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

It looks like Gamerchuck uses a type of server quite similar to that Sega.com does, yet Apache is pretty widespread and the Sega return was quite a bit more extensive than the gamerchuck.com one.

[crashdummycow01]

i'm still not sure that it is true or false... theres not really any evidence that shows its true, but not really any that shows its false.

also he didnt say that they kidnapped his friend...

his friend stated that he hadn't been able to contact beta-7.. then showed the pictures of the ransacked apartment.. but in the video on ifilm .. the guy "beta-7" showed video of the ransacked room and said that he never actually made it to San Fran, and that somebody tried to get him and now he's in hiding..

i dunno if its true or false but after showing ppl the video/site, they[and i] wanted the game...

also theres another website called.. truth.fjear.com

not sure if this is a sega marketing strategy, but if it is, its working.. this website will create many ppl who dissagree with the "beta-7" guy and to prove that he's wrong, many will go out and buy the game and play the first person football mode themselves... it will get that mode alot of publicity and alot of play time.. ppl will then see that its really realistic and fun and tell their friends to play it.. [that is, if he's marketing for sega]

...also i would like to add that this would be a very good marketing idea, even though it is so wrong/maybe illegal?

[GaijinPunch]

Bah -- conspiracy theories.

[Hamsnibit]

Hahahah, I can't believe you people are actually debating this. A game tester played a first person football game and now blacks out and starts tackling people. It's such an obvious marketing ploy there should be no debate. Plus the fact that news sites would have eaten this alive right now because of the whole violence in video games thing.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hahahah, I can't believe you people are actually debating this. A game tester played a first person football game and now blacks out and starts tackling people. It's such an obvious marketing ploy there should be no debate. Plus the fact that news sites would have eaten this alive right now because of the whole violence in video games thing.

It's true that many companies have used marketing ploys like this, and the webpage IS *darn* "glossy" for somebody's homebrew conspiracy page. That said, the media doesn't always pick up on websites.

Certainly an interesting oddity.

[Anotherfluke]

Yep, it's viral marketing at its best (or worst, depending on your POV). When Nintendo marketed Perfect Dark, they did something similar. There was a website set up for the genetics company that Joanna Dark was going up against, which you could 'hack' to get to areas of the site that talked about elements of the game's plotline as if this company was actually working on genetics experiments and dealing with aliens and whatnot. It worked so well that the 'company' actually started getting applications and resumes from people.