Well, not really.
You can do some controversy in the game and that=free advertisement, but if something is bad in the game and the word spreads, a lot of potential players might not even try the game in the first place.
That makes no sense. If someone doesn't try the game cause of bad publicity, how is that any different from the same person not buying it cause they never hear of it?
In both cases, they don't try it right? So bad publicity makes no difference in this scenario.
Meanwhile, the other people who ignore the bad publicity and try it are folks who are added to the game population that otherwise wouldn't be there because they would never have heard of it.