Mass Effect 3 copies launched into space will crash down for your discovery

[Heisenberg]

As far as PR stunts go, this is a winner. EA will launch copies of Mass Effect 3 into space, which fans will be able to track down and keep when they descent back to Earth. The copies will be sent into the upper reaches of the atmosphere using weather balloons. Launching over New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, London and Paris next week, the balloons with carry the games into space before popping, leaving gravity to take over and pull the discs back down to Earth. Eager fans will be able to track the games via the official site and, eventually, go on a wild chase for them when they touch down, in the best game of finders-keepers we've ever heard. Of course, that means those who find the games will get to play it weeks before the March 6 (US)/March 9 (UK) launch. A Mass Effect 3 demo is available for download on Xbox Live Marketplace.

A unique and interesting PR stunt but I'm sure the chance of a gamer gaining one is quite low and a fair few will be unreachable or land in the ocean, etc. Won't they get damaged on the descent back to earth anyway...

 

[We Are Legion]

And there's my reason to go visit NYC again.

Not really, but if I had money to burn, I would totally do some crazy shit like that. It would be a little stupid though considering the price of a plane ticket to NYC is 6 times the price of the game.

 

[Nation of Domination]

interesting...but i can wait till March 6th. I got skyrim to keep me busy

 

[John McHenry]

So they go up in a weather balloon but no mention of parachutes I seriously hope their are parachutes cause a game case falling from that height is going to gain a lot of speed and an object that small at that speed from that height...

 

[We Are Legion]

A game doesn't weigh much. Doubt it would pick up that much speed on the way down.

It still definitely wouldn't survive impact without a parachute though.

 

[Heisenberg]

First Mass Effect 3 space trips end up in the trees

It sounded like a good idea at the time. Developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts wanted to give a few fans a chance to get the long awaited sci-fi RPG Mass Effect 3 earlier than its scheduled March 6 release date.The plan? Launch copies of the game into "space" via a high altitude balloon in several locations around the world. Fans could track the balloons' progress on the Mass Effect web site and if they were the first to retrieve the balloon when it landed they could keep the game.Those plans got off to a shaky start on Thursday when EA released two balloons with copies of Mass Effect 3 from San Francisco. As reported by G4TV.com, the balloons made landfall later on Thursday in two rural and awkward locations south of the city. One landed in the high branches of a redwood tree while the other is reportedly on an inaccessible cliff.BioWare was clearly afraid someone might try to get the Mass Effect 3 copies at the expense of their own lives. In a Twitter message from BioWare's David Silverman, he stated, "Balloon 1 is on a cliff somewhere or on top of a Redwood. Please do not kill yourself for these."Today, another balloon took off from Las Vegas and has apparently landed somewhere in the desert south of the city. The official Mass Effect Twitter page has been keeping track and as of the writing of this post it looks like this package will in fact be retrieved by someone.Tomorrow, two balloons with a Mass Effect 3 game package will launch in New York City, followed by two more from London on Monday and another two balloons in Berlin on Wednesday.

 

[We Are Legion]

Fuck it, I'd go after the one on the cliff That is, if it was a lot closer to where I live.

I heard about the one that got stuck in the redwood through a FB update last week. Apparently is was 110ft up in the tree and some people were throwing rocks at it trying to get it to come down. Not sure if they ever got it.