One would think a series with its roots firmly planted in the seminal trans-humanist science fiction of the 20th century would be a bit more respectful of the whole book-reading thing. Alas.
Celebrated in the United Kingdom on the first Thursday of March, World Book Day is a yearly event organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to promote reading and publishing books. I’m sure we can all agree that books, in all of their forms, deserve to be celebrated. Hooray for books, I say!
The person in charge of updating the Deus Ex Facebook page yesterday should have just said the same, instead of trying to be clever and tie the holiday in with a $US.99 sale on Deus Ex: The Fall, the mobile installment of the thrilling sci-fi role-playing game series — which itself is a direct sequel to a novel.
Needless to say, the comments of the Facebook post, pointed out to us by reader Kyle, are priceless.
- “You’re promoting illiteracy?”
- “You should probably promote that Deus Ex book James Swallow did instead of a bad mobile game”
- “I thought I should pick up the Icarus Effect, but if You say so I’ll play some sh*ty birds instead.”
- “Considering I read every single book lying around in the original Deus Ex, I need to disagree here.”
- “Sorry, but as a massive fan of the original Deus Ex and a massive fan of Human Revolution, I have to now deliver you a massive “FUCK YOU,” to the inbred human devolutions who made this post. I mean, seriously, whoever is responsible for this PR disaster should be fired immediately. Then, once they have been fired, they should be enrolled in a literacy education course, so that they can understand the narrative benefit of a book and how it isn’t replaced by modern…..oh, fuck, forget it. Whoever is responsible for this is an unmitigated moron who has made it into adulthood and found a job with such a meagre mental capacity.”
Sorry about that last one being so long. Who has time to read any more?
Comments
18 responses to “Deus Ex Facebook Page’s World Book Day Message: Don’t Read Books”
“You chose books. I chose looks.” – Mrs Wormwood, Matilda
To be honest, who really cares that much? It was obviously a joke, and all you idiots instantly claim horrible PR disaster.
That isn’t very nice there bud.
Are you aware how PR works? Are you aware that it’s a golden rule of PR that your message MUST be clear and not open to broad interpretation? Are you aware that if you use jokes in any form of PR that the joke must be clear also? And that thinly veiled sarcasm is avoided because it isn’t a form of joke that translates well to text form without explanation or some supporting tropes?
I saw that it was being sarcastic, I could even see the ironic connection to the digital world portrayed in game. It may not be a disaster, but it’s still a pretty big failure since they left themselves wide open for people to pick fun at an innocent post.
Seems like an obvious joke to me.
you guys seem to be getting your undies in a twist over what is obviously just a joke.
I think the world has over reacted to what is very clearly sarcasm/humor. Although this is the internet, I shouldn’t expect better.
Yet the icarus effect is a deus ex book in there series 0_O
I would have thought they would have been more respectful to the concept of acting, because seriously, what the fuck?? The acting in this redefines terrible. It makes Sharknado sound like Hamlet!
That’s just them holding true to the traditions of the series. DE1 had abysmal acting, too.
It’s a joke, one line on the internet and you made a story of it.
What trash.
I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be a joke. At least, that’s how I read it.
This hardly seems worth writing-up, let alone getting upset by it.
I read it as a joke, but having said that, it’s a joke in pretty poor taste/not particularly amusing for my personal tastes.
In other news, both gamers and people on Facebook have no measurable sense of humour.
Ironically written at the end of an article that, in the end, wasn’t really worth reading.
I knew it! UNESCO ARE a front for UNATCO!
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down before someone said that.