Guerilla marketing? Or just slimey?

I managed to drum up some music-related content, although I'm really just passing on info from The Onion's A.V. Club. Thing is, looks like this stuff is going down right in my own backyard. Here's the text of the e-mail that the A.V. Club got on Friday:

A party was going on a few doors down from my friend's apartment complex in Minneapolis a few weeks ago. My friend said that she'd been invited to the party earlier in the day by the tenant of the apartment (with whom she was only a casual acquaintance) with promises of "Guitar Hero on the XBox360, great tunes coming from the Zune, and free beer." When we stopped by we found two dozen college students relaxing, drinking, playing Guitar Hero, in a room covered with posters for Microsoft's mp3 player, the Zune. After some free social lubricant (MGD), the host told us the whole story: Microsoft paid him to host parties like this. As long as he documented the party with pictures, he was reimbursed for all the expenses and paid a little extra for his "trouble." What sort of marketing is this? Does it happen with a lot of other mega-corporations? If so, how do I get such a sweet gig?

This just seems kinda icky and scummy. And you know, what's actually the worst part is the Guitar Hero on an Xbox 360 part, because what it screams is that they can't drum up enough interest in their crappy product, so they're reduced to pimping their successful product. Is there anyone out there who would've heard an invite to a party with Guitar Hero on an Xbox360 and sweet tunes on a Zune and gone, "Wait, you have a Zune?!"

Plus, how do you play Guitar Hero if there are tunes coming from an off-brand mp3 player? And? MGD? Gack.