The official Need for Speed Twitter account has issued a half-hearted apology after arguing with a fan over pre-orders of Need for Speed Unbound offering three days Early Access.
The spat began after the official Need for Speed Twitter account announced pre-ordering Need for Speed Unbound: Palace Edition would get them three days Early Access. While claiming “You asked and we listened,” not everyone was happy with the announcement.
“Hold on – what did we ask for and what did you listen to, exactly?” @KyloZen0 retorted. “To pay more to get 3 days early access?” The Need for Speed account replied “Gameplay Video…?,” referring to the accompanying trailer being what was asked for, adding, “3 Day Early Access was always there, reading is fundamental.”
That last comment started the argument proper. “Ah right – charging extra to your loyal fan base to play 3 days early isn’t really cool and a bit exploitative, customer relations is fundamental,” @KyoZen0 snarked back. The official Need for Speed Twitter account replied with the insult “Milkshake brain.”
The playground insults continued. “Milkshake company,” @KyloZen0 replied. “Cry about it bro,” Need for Speed struck back, along with a shrugging emoji, “or buy regular price idc [I don’t care].”
“I’m not reading all that, sorry that happened to you or congratulations,” mocked the official Need for Speed account. The reply is almost a direct quote of a meme with the same sentiment.
The tweets from the official Need for Speed account have since been deleted — to the surprise of absolutely no one — and just a few days later they offered a half-hearted apology.
“We admit we got a bit caught up in the hype for launch and some of our recent social media replies crossed the line,” @NeedforSpeed admitted. “To those fans we upset, we apologize. We will do better. See you here next week.”
Other Twitter users discussed whether the apology was sufficient, if @KyloZen0’s comments were justified, or if the Need for Speed account’s manager needed to be further reprimanded. The scenario reminded YouTuber Vara Dark in her video of when the Saints Row official Twitter account mocked former fans who were far more critical of the then upcoming reboot.
Nonetheless, Vara notes one major difference between this and the Saints Row situation. “The Saints Row reboot account never apologized to critics, they never apologized for going at people and attacking us, they simply played it off like ‘hey, we don’t need you as our customers,’ and in this case they are apologizing, so I do give them credit for that.”