Time's 2019 Person of the Year choice was a masterclass in engineered controversy — polarized audiences, dominated two news cycles, and forced a legacy brand back into cultural relevance. Here's how it worked.
In 2011, Duke Nukem Forever shipped after 15 years of development. It was panned. Its PR firm threatened critics on Twitter. The firm was fired the same day. The incident remains the clearest case study in gaming PR failure — and what it teaches about review embargoes and reputation management still applies.
In April 2011, Sony took the PlayStation Network offline after a breach affecting 77 million accounts — then waited six days to tell users their data had been stolen. The delay became the defining communications failure of the incident and remains a standard reference case in crisis PR.