What sounded like a story of inspiration revolving around a young player ended up being nothing more than a promotional stunt by the GameStop store chain to promote an upcoming game.
A ten-year old gamer, nicknamed “Karissa the Destroyer” as she played, took part in a gaming event at a GameStop location in California over the weekend, as part of a promotion for Nintendo’s forthcoming Super Smash Bros. release for the Wii U. Reportedly, Karissa was “owning” the competition left and right, destroying opponents and working her way up the tournament chain. Only . . . she wasn’t.
It turns out that the whole thing was, in fact, a publicity stunt. Earlier, before the event, the store chain was actually seeking actors to play a “faked-out” role in the tournament, as you can see in the listing below.
So how did it look like she was playing The fact is, she was mimicking the actions on a controller that wasn’t hooked up to the system, while someone else, obviously out of sight range, was playing the game for her. The video posted below show slight proof of this around the 1:50 mark, when Karissa is scratching her face as her on-screen Smash character is executing a devastating attack on foes.
It’s uncertain as to why Gamestop would rely on such a stunt to promote the Smash Bros. game, since it has earned critical acclaim from each of its appearances over the past few months. The 3DS version has also been a huge seller, clearing 3.2 million copies sold since its release last month.
Pixel Dynamo recently posted additional facts on the matter, such as how the actress confirmed her involvement through her Twitter account. Those can be found here.
“If you check the /r/smashbros subreddit you can see that feelings are mixed,” said one veteran Smash player. “It seems that most people aren’t upset at the actress, but are just disappointed that there is no such thing as a child prodigy. The story of a 10 year old girl coming out and beating all these top Smash players at their own game would make the game really hype and add flavor to the tourney scene.”
Gamestop had no comment on the legitimacy of the matter, but it’ll be interesting to see where the company moves forward on promotions from here. Maybe next time, just hold a regular tournament and watch the sparks fly. (And watch a real ten-year old player dominate, for that matter.)
