The glory days of gross-out video game PR stunts are long behind us, sadly. If and when we do get a Resident Evil 6 remake, it’s unlikely Capcom will serve it with a side of human-flavored sausages. PlayStation doesn’t even hold ocean-hopping destination press events anymore, never mind ones where they can sacrifice a live animal for tech bloggers. Though our greatest retches are in the rearview, the PR machine can still churn out some nasties here and there. The biggest surprise is when they prove to be all practical.
Over at Aftermath, journalist Nathan Grayson has been bothered by a blood-fueled gaming PC since Blizzard gave it away to promote Diablo IV in 2023. Apparently using real-deal human plasma for liquid coolant, Grayson tried to shake down PR reps and hardware experts hoping to uncover how much blood was in there, whose blood is in there and if such an unholy contraption is at all practical. No dice.
However, Grayson did succeed in tracking down the original winner of this infernal machine, a streamer by the name of Storms888. While it didn’t solve the gross mysteries that got under his skin, Grayson did learn something just as shocking: the damn thing still works. Two years later the rig continues pumping its blood.
“I haven’t seen any drops in performance since the day I got it,” Storms888 tells Grayson. “Did leak a ton though.”
The streamer says that he believes the liquid coolant to be a cocktail of human blood and more conventional ingredients. But there is some amount of blood. Blizzard sent him replacement vials and documentational slips confirming the red stuff came from human donors. Storms888 said it’s an incredible rig for his purposes, which include livestreaming “Battlefield 6 at ultra settings.” And with RAM prices through the roof, who can blame him for not upgrading.
This is hardly the first time the deep red stuff has been used in a promotional stunt, nor the first time it was batched to accomplish it. In 1977, Marvel comics mixed their ink with blood donated from each member of KISS for their funny book debut. Lil Nas X did the same, drawing blood for a custom pair of Nike’s to promote 2021’s Montero. Blood, it turns out, is in you to give.
If Blizzard, Activision or Microsoft were to pull this stunt again, or cram any other body parts into giveaway hardware, it wouldn’t even make the list of the most nauseating things to come out of them in recent history.
Storms888 remains chuffed by his useful, practical, even, gross-out gift. You can read Nathan Grayson’s full interview with the ichor-powered gamer on Aftermath.
