Buzz
Leading the charge in this era of information overload are the newly popular live streaming platforms, which have become mainstream in recent years. Whether it’s a person in their living room or a global tech giant, anyone with access to a camera and a button can now stream live video to an audience anywhere in the world. As you’ll soon see, when it comes to live broadcasts, things can quickly go awry in the blink of an eye.
10. Kicking Off the Year on a Cringe-Worthy Note
Though the iconic New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York City has been a tradition for more than a century, it wasn’t until the 1940s that television stations began airing it live. Since then, it’s become a lavish annual event for big-budget companies to broadcast in real time, down to the exact second when the new year arrives. As technology has advanced and the cost of live broadcasting has decreased, even those with smaller budgets can now host their own New Year’s specials. Enter Jamie Kennedy’s ‘Carl’s Jr. End of the Year Bash’—an unpolished and chaotic event that fell apart almost immediately.
When the broadcast went live, all walkie-talkie communications were lost. What ensued was a comedy of errors as cameras awkwardly broadcasted the wrong feeds for agonizingly long stretches. Random crowd interviews turned into drunken, confused rants, with participants attempting to read from teleprompters not intended for them. Microphones occasionally came on unexpectedly, capturing private conversations and unintentionally airing uncensored expletives. To cap it all off, the countdown was botched—without a working clock, they ended up doing the countdown after the year had already passed.
Jamie Kennedy has stated in interviews that the rough, unscripted nature of the show was intentional, as he wanted to create something that stood in stark contrast to every other New Year's broadcast. If that was indeed his aim, he certainly achieved it.
9. Konami’s Conference Takes a Turn for the Worse, Leading to Their Swift Exit
In recent years, it’s become a trend for major companies to livestream their various conferences worldwide, with each new event outdoing the last in scale and extravagance. What once was a modest affair for shareholders and a select few journalists has now become a massive spectacle, with companies spending hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of dollars to captivate their audiences. The conferences have grown so large that some are even broadcast on television, featuring celebrity interviews and live performances that have nothing to do with the company’s actual products or services.
At the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Japanese game company Konami was prepared to make a splash with their big reveal. For a major event like E3, companies need to deliver their best-kept secrets and most exciting announcements to generate buzz and media coverage. While Konami certainly garnered attention, it was not the kind they had hoped for. What unfolded after their conference began remains an unforgettable spectacle.
At one point, a group of lucha libre wrestlers appeared on stage and proceeded to slap each other for what seemed like an eternity. Why? Because Konami had booked their own wrestling event to take place later in the week. Then, another performer came onstage and literally pulled his own head off. Still not bizarre enough? How about an Asian man telling the audience they were about to be ‘sucked’? These are just a few of the strange occurrences that unfolded during the conference. While many more bizarre moments could be shared, this is a list—not a full account of the conference that almost ruined a company.
Speaking of a company’s downfall, after the disaster, and with Konami becoming the laughingstock of the internet, the company completely backed out of ever hosting live conferences again. As of this article’s publication, the internal strife at Konami has been so intense that many news outlets are predicting the company’s collapse within the next few years.
8. Are You Born to Be Mobile?
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is an annual gathering where the world’s largest tech companies come together to unveil their groundbreaking innovations. From Ultra HDTVs that make your 1080p TV seem outdated, to gadgets that track your eating habits in real time, and shape-shifting tablets designed to better meet your needs—these are just some of the mind-blowing and odd technologies showcased at CES. But in 2013, what no one expected to see at Qualcomm’s CES conference were talking birds and a surprise comedy act from Maroon 5. When the surprise guest at your tech conference is Steve Ballmer, you know things have taken a turn for the worse.
Steve Ballmer was far from the worst part of the show. It was a mess right from the start. Actors straight out of 1990s commercials took to the stage, with characters like “Tornado,” “Can You Dig It,” and “Stereotype Girl.” Tornado, a ridiculous caricature of Carrot Top, danced wildly while shouting nonsensical lines about women and how he single-handedly destroyed the world. Stereotype Girl walked around claiming how popular and important it was to be a girl, while Can You Dig It only shouted movie catchphrases. As these baffling characters paraded across the stage, they screamed “born mobile” at the top of their lungs. The whole thing culminated when the CEO appeared on stage to announce that, yes, he too was born mobile. And this was only the beginning—there was still an hour left of bizarre performances, with random actors, musicians, and even Big Bird making an appearance, while Qualcomm had essentially announced nothing.
7. WCW Learns the Hard Way Why Live Broadcasts Can Be a Gamble
In the 1990s, a fierce rivalry known as the Monday Night Wars unfolded, where WWE faced off against WCW, airing their respective wrestling shows simultaneously. WCW had the upper hand by broadcasting their shows live, while WWE opted for pre-recorded episodes. This gave WCW the ability to spoil the WWE’s show by revealing what had happened on their broadcast before it even aired. While this gave WCW a significant advantage over the struggling WWE, the risks of live broadcasting were ever-present, waiting for a mistake to occur. When that moment finally came, it couldn’t have been worse.
Leading up to a Pay Per View special, some of WCW’s top stars were embroiled in a dramatic feud. The beloved team of Sting, Davey Boy Smith, and Dustin Rhodes teased a mystery partner who would ‘shock’ the world in their upcoming match against Sid Vicious and his gang. Enter The Shockmaster—well, sort of. Wearing a glittery-painted stormtrooper helmet and a black vest, The Shockmaster made his grand entrance by bursting through a wall. Unfortunately, he tripped on the way in, collapsing face-first with his helmet flying off, revealing his true identity as Fred Ottman, a former WWE wrestler. Ric Flair and Booker T could be heard laughing over the mic, and Ric Flair’s reaction was priceless: “See, I told you, oh god!” The Shockmaster was quickly removed from the roster.
6. Running Away from Awkward Moments? Not Quite
Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) is a charity event where gamers come together to finish video games as quickly as possible while raising money for a good cause. It may sound a bit niche, but it’s quite fascinating to watch skilled players breeze through games that would take most people weeks to finish, and they can often complete them in under 30 minutes...blindfolded. SGDQ 2015 raised over $1 million for charity. However, some of the speedrunners who participate can come off as a bit awkward, and while being socially awkward isn’t a crime, the pressure of performing in front of thousands of viewers can make things uncomfortable.
This awkwardness came to a head during the 2014 SGDQ event, when the presenter for a Tomba 2 speedrun experienced what can only be described as a ‘cringe-worthy’ moment. From the start, his attempts at humor and storytelling fell flat, while the speedrunner tried to be polite, though he visibly looked into the camera as if pleading for the awkwardness to end. Eventually, he stopped engaging with the presenter altogether, focusing solely on the game. The presenter’s jokes kept coming, but there was no relief, until the speedrunner finally leaned over and said, “I would really prefer if you’d be quiet.” From that point on, the game was played in complete silence, with the only voices being comments from offscreen viewers sending in donations. Nearly one million people watched the uncomfortable moment unfold on YouTube, making it a memorable, though painful, part of SGDQ history.
5. Press Asked to Stop Recording at a Press Event
In 2005, Nintendo revolutionized the gaming world with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, one of the first gaming consoles built entirely around motion controls. It quickly became a hit with casual gamers, and its success marked a turning point in gaming history. However, when the Wii was first announced, many of its motion-controlled games were advertised as offering a perfect one-to-one representation of your real-life movements. While this was the intention at the time, it wasn’t actually achievable until 2010, when Nintendo introduced the Wii Motion Plus.
One of the first games to incorporate the Wii Motion Plus was *The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword*. With *Zelda* being one of Nintendo’s most iconic and long-running franchises, fans had high expectations for the first live gameplay demonstration at E3. What they got instead was a glitch-ridden disaster. Every person on stage, including Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the *Zelda* series, struggled to control the character. The presenters, insisting that the game worked perfectly in private tests, blamed the malfunction on wireless interference from the crowd. They repeatedly asked the press to turn off their devices, but the press refused. The game continued to fail, and eventually, they had to abandon the demonstration.
4. Laser Tag Free Runners
When you think of ‘high-end electronics,’ parkour probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, in 2010, Ubisoft changed that narrative at E3 when they held a press conference to announce their upcoming hardware and software releases. For reasons that remain unclear, they chose comedian and actor Joel McHale to present their multimillion-dollar projects to the world.
Although Joel McHale did his best to manage what was already a bizarre situation, things took an even stranger turn when a group of street ninjas suddenly appeared. They performed random flips around the crowd, leaped off the stage, and struck repeated poses for invisible paparazzi. Judging by Joel’s stunned reaction, it seemed like he had no idea this was coming, and it caught the press by surprise as well.
What could these free runners possibly be doing there? Was an over-the-top villain from a cheesy 1980s movie about to burst onto the scene and demand a ransom for the world? Nope. It turned out that these acrobatic stunts were meant to promote a new laser tag game—something you’d typically find being sold at a gas station. Sadly, this game quickly faded into obscurity, with only 15 stores in the U.S. ever stocking it.
EVO is an annual tournament that brings together some of the world’s best fighting game players to compete across a range of titles. In 2015, Razer sponsored the event with their specially designed fight stick—a controller meant to replicate the feel of an arcade game’s controls. While these sticks cost more than typical controllers, most competitive fighting game players swear by them. But just as Razer made a big announcement encouraging people to tune in for the final fight, where one of the top players in the world would be using their fight stick, something unimaginable happened.
The fight stick broke. The most crucial moment of the tournament came to a halt as everyone scrambled to figure out what to do next. In fighting tournaments, the flow of the match is vital—disrupting a player’s rhythm can change the entire course of the fight. Unfortunately, Razer’s malfunctioning fight stick ruined the momentum of an entire match. While this might seem like a minor issue, it had big implications: The winner of that fight walked away with a $33,000 prize. Though the player whose stick broke did manage to win the final match, there’s no way to know how things might have played out had the stick not interrupted the flow of the game.
2. Ouya Couldn’t Afford to Attend a Conference, So They Tried Hosting Their Own
At large tech and electronics events, the competition among major companies to secure the prime time slots and best venues for their conferences is intense. Get your timing wrong, and your efforts might go unnoticed by the audience. If you don’t have the $1 million or so needed to secure a prime spot, forget about it. So, when Ouya, a crowdfunded company, arrived at E3 in 2013, it was clear they wouldn’t get their own show. Rather than accepting this, they decided to host their own conference in the parking lot outside the venue.
While Ouya’s determination to make a mark in a league far beyond their size could be seen as admirable, it didn’t change the fact that the situation was awkward and, frankly, hilarious. They had their setup positioned just outside the venue, so cameras could technically capture their event, making it a live broadcast just as they had hoped. However, their big moment was abruptly cut short when the company running E3 paid for a semi-truck to park directly in front of them, blocking the cameras. That’s what happens when you choose a parking lot as your conference venue.
1. Microsoft’s Multimillion-Dollar Ace In The Hole Embarrasses
When Nintendo’s motion-controlled gaming console took the world by surprise and became a massive success, many other tech companies were left scrambling. Not to be left behind, Microsoft worked on their own motion control system, called the Kinect. The tech giant went all in, rebranding their flagship console with a new look and bundling the pricey Kinect controller as a standard feature. Microsoft spent $500 million on advertising, making it clear they wanted this motion controller to be a hit. Unfortunately, during its first live demonstration, things took a turn for the hilariously awkward.
Kudo Tsunoda was the man who introduced the Kinect to the world, posing an intriguing question: Have you ever thought about what the bottom of an Xbox avatar looks like? For the single individual who might have wondered, that mystery was about to be solved. Kudo raised his foot, but instead of his avatar lifting its foot as expected, it began spinning uncontrollably, with its limbs snapping through its body and soaring into the air. Amid the chaos, Koda joyfully shouted, “Well, BAM! There it is!” Though the Kinect still exists, it has been largely phased out of any significant role in Microsoft consoles.
