EA’s £20,000 petrol giveaway ends in mayhem.

by Reece Heywood at Sep 5, 2008 8:20am

Today EA attempted to give away a total value of £20,000 in petrol to customers to promote the title Mercenaries which was released today for consoles.

The garage was completely transformed into that of a military style bunker, with jeeps, oil barrels, sandbag walls, and fully costumed actors on hand to pump the petrol for the customers.

The entire forecourt of Last Stop Garage near Finsbury Park was completely overcrowded with cars traffic jams and causing squabbles with people jumping in the queue.

In the end only half of the petrol was given away before the police interrupted and left residents along with customers angry, while many got happily away with £40 worth of fuel.

Louise Marchant, from Electronic Arts, said the scenes of queuing mimicked aspects of the game. She explained: “It’s set in Venezuela, you play a mercenary and fuel is used as a currency.” Luckily no one was hurt but this could of easily ended up like the game with someone getting injured.