@sim @LukeAlmighty @LouisConde hate marketing is only effective when it pisses off journalists and the moral guardians but has some appeal with others, or it's "ironically" watching a bad film.
The joker movie was a good example of the former along with GTA and rap music back in the day, and many films that became cult films were the latter. The amount of hysteria about the joker movie in hindsight felt astroturfed. The latter also has to be 100% organic and not ironically joking about watching it like with Morbius.
There's also the story of how GTA 1 was hate marketed; Max Clifford was hired to promote the game and he encouraged them to turn up the edge to 11 (for 1997) as all the right people were offended. The game sold millions and became a blockbuster hit even as the game has become rather inoffensive just like it's peers were. Hatred also was a successful example of it even though the game was basically a clone of postal 1 with a monochrome filter and a protagonist edgier than Shadow the Hedgehog.
It's a lot harder to make something that's the former these days unless it's underground like NegativeXP or Sam Hydes post MDE projects since it's a lot easier to be shut down. The rise of troon shit and groups that mocking gets you censored for also makes it harder unless you're going to make a game like Heimat Defender or Angry Goy 2 and make it 100% free.