In 2006, the Australian arm of Pizza Hut released a meal deal - the customer would get two large pizzas, a garlic bread, a 1.5L
Pepsi and a game of their choice (the available games were NFS: Most Wanted, The Sims 2, and Battlefield 2). This was all offered for $34.95AUD.
Unfortunately, instead of choosing a harmless game like Need for Speed, the majority of these budding gamers chose Battlefield 2, which at the time was one of the most
popular first person shooters. Australian multiplayer servers were flooded with
pizza-lovers with no idea of how to actually play
the game, while those who purchased it in-store were left to pick up the pieces.
And so the Pizza Hut
noob was born.
Of course, noobs are a part of every game, and they eventually either improve their skills or leave. The reason the Pizza Hut
special gained such notoriety amongst the Australian gaming community is because there was such an overwhelming flood of general stupidity in such a
short space of time.
One way of telling the true age of a BF2 gamer is to
go onto a BF2 server and ask "who here remembers the Pizza Hut noobs?". There's sure to be at least one person who remembers those dark months.