April Fool's Alert #5: WiiHelm and the WoW tinfoil cap
The WiiHelm by ThinkGeek is a great April Fool's Day joke in so many ways. The item even fooled Dave Rudden, an editor at Games.net, who was ready to put down $25 for the accessory when he was greeted by a "Fooled you!" Although the production values on this item are great, with the video just knocking it out of the park, the best detail is the "4 frontal LEDs illuminate your surroundings while gaming in the basement at 3 am." There is a lot to love here.
Rudden writes, "Well, they knew their audience and their product and picked something that was slightly insane, but within reason. Just about every site and mag that's tried that this year hasn't. Sadly, I would've paid good money for that wonderful, wonderful helmet. Wouldn't you?"
Blizzard brought it again this year with double duty. First, for World of Warcraft players, there's the tinfoil hat with the tag line: "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." The hat protects the wearer from various forms of inspection in the land of Azeroth. The other goof is Blizzard selling Warcraft III with a completely different title. Warcraft: Heroes of Azeroth ... or "WHoA," is the prequel to the World of Warcraft. The whole page is written in a style of lame marketing class 101. The joke being that those who jumped on the WoW bandwagon never played Warcraft III, so it's new to them, why not cash in? Even the pictures of the boxes just have a sticker over the Warcraft III logo with the new name. One of the best lines being, "WHoA comes in *four* different box covers (that's TWICE as many as WoW!)" ZOMG! Rush out and get yours today!
Update: ThinkGeek snuck in a subtle one with the 8-bit tie, we were actually hoping to wear this at our next power lunch. Blizzard also has the Black Temple Attunement, which looking at the flow chart looks perfectly reasonable for the average hardcore WoW player.
[Thanks Dave]
