Blitz: The League: the online marketing campaign

Midways' marketing department has adopted a multifaceted approach to promoting its upcoming unlicensed football game Blitz: The League with a series of freshly launched Web sites. In an unexpected move for promoting a sports title, Midway's new sites are intended to flesh out the game's backstory and draw users into an online scavenger hunt somewhat reminiscent of the ilovebees Halo 2 promotion.

First off, there's BlitzLeague.com, the "official" news site of the game's fictitious league. The site is written as a parody of what one might expect from a crooked professional sports league, complete with articles on staying fit with a League-approved food pyramid built almost entirely of meat, and why takedowns like leg whips and face-mask tackles are being reinstated because their potential for injury was greatly exaggerated. There's not a whole lot of information relevant to the game itself just yet, but the Hit of the Week video clip promises more to come in that department.

On the other end of the spectrum there's BlitzNews, an "unofficial" site ostensibly run by a former employee of The League. Where BlitzLeague gives a humorously sanitized version of events, BlitzNews at the moment is a scant collection of editorials and articles mostly about how shady the League is, from the players and coaches up to the League management.

BlitzNews also contains word of a tell-all book that can be found online if you follow a string of clues. The first clue points to a site called reddogdown.com, and the hunt goes on from there.

Blitz: The League is due on shelves in October and will retail for $39.99. For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

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