14 years ago Rockstar ran weird TV commercials with just a clock counting down

In 2007, Rockstar Games teased Grand Theft Auto IV with a series of late night announcements running on channels like FX. All of the commercials represented 30 minutes of viewing a clock, with each second punctuated by a gunshot. Young Zack, still the sucker, fell in love with the hype.

Yes, take your mind back to the good old days of 2007. Specifically, in March 2007. As in March 2021, many people around the world were waiting for the next big game in the GTA series. However, unlike now where we have no news or information on the next game, in 2007 we knew GTA IV was coming. And Rockstar was happy to have fans counting down every second until the very first trailer was released.

To be clear, this ad that turns was not countdown to game release. No, this clock was just noisily counting every second until the first trailer came out.

And yet dumb young Zack watched much of that countdown announcement, switching between Adult Swim and the countdown. Why? Because I thought, maybe, just may be, if I watched it, Rockstar would show a teaser for the game early and I would get a preview! It never happened. These announcements ran for a few nights, although exact details about them are difficult to find online. I’m honestly shocked that someone even saved and uploaded it to YouTube in 2007.

When the count stopped and the trailer was finally dropped, Rockstar’s website crashed and people couldn’t even see it right away. It was a frustrating ending to a bizarre teaser campaign, once we probably won’t see each other again.

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